I guess by now many individuals have taken a long look at the Li Style (Lishi) Taijiquan Square Yard Form as taught by the late Master Chee Soo. Sadly many will have noticed that in our present time there are quite a few variations going on with all the many different versions of the Li Style Taijiquan being offered by many of its so called teachers. The reason for this is that many of these teachers are not following any specific guidelines that teach good accurate, precise, well timed, coordinated and disciplined movements and there are many examples of this.
Firstly, many teachers have a tendency to perform double weighted stances within their taijiquan square Yard form, which means that they are not applying the Yin & Yang principle for which the whole concept of taijiquan was based upon. Simply meaning that the bodyweight should be distributed between both legs in a seventy/thirty percent ratio or a sixty/forty percent ration, this does not always happen in many of the Li Style Taijiquan versions. Another very important point is that many of these other versions of the Li Style Taijiquan do not even comply to using circular actions, many are very linear in their movements and do not combine and blend each circle into each other.
Following and applying guiding principles is very important in the practice of taijiquan, has it gives each practitioner a deeper understanding and knowledge of how to utilise the whole of their body to flow and move as one complete unit. Without performing any isolated actions, as again if you have watched many of the other versions of the Li Style Taijiquan Form you will see there are many isolated actions being performed by its practitioners and the reason for this is that they do not abide to any guiding principles, other than adding their own interpretations.
Personally I fear for the future of the Li Style Taijiquan as taught by Master Chee Soo. As without following any guiding principles then the over-al quality of each and every practitioner will be of a poor standard and gradually in time the Li Style Taijiquan will properly disappear altogether. So it is important that every teacher of the Li Style Taijiquan follows a set of guiding principles that every student abides by, that allows them to perform accurate and skilful actions to circulate the blood, lymph fluid and Qi through the whole body to maintain & improve the health and wellbeing through the practice of the Li Style Square Yard Taijiquan form.
LFIAA Under Technical Director Keith Ewers 