author: @sleepyfox
title: Tai Chi Forms
date: 19-AUG-2026
What's up with the Yang style of Tai Chi (Taiji)? Their forms seem to be getting shorter and shorter as time progresses.
First there was the original 108 movement 'long form' created by Yang Lu Chan in about 1850. Then because this was too complicated and took several years to learn properly the People's Republic of China created the Beijing standardised 24 movement form in 1956 which could be learned in only a few months.
More recently the 10 movement form was created by the Chinese State Sports Commission in 1999, that could be taught over a weekend. Many people call this the 8 movement form, because they don't count the opening and closing form, because well, they can't count to ten? I have no idea.
You can see that there's an inexorable shortening of the form over time because it is too complicated, takes too long to learn etc. etc. and it's just too, too, you know.
Anyway, anyone with any basic sense of linear regression can see where this is going. Now I'm creating the 1 movement form. It's simple, here we go:
- Wuji.
That's it. Step One: achieve enlightenment. I can teach this in 5 minutes, maybe less if I talk quickly. Of course, like any Taiji form although the basic choreography can be learned relatively quickly, it can take years to master.
For those people who have trouble counting as high as one, well counting at all really, I've created a shortened version of the Yang Style 1-step form, called the 0-step form, because you guessed it: there are no steps in it!