About the Form

The Yang Long Form is the most fundamental and classical of the Tai Chi forms practiced today. It has been passed down through the Yang Family lineage for approximately 200 years, and was given its present form by Yang Cheng Fu in the 1930s. All the other Yang Style Tai Chi forms are abbreviations and rearrangements of it.

The form contains 108 movements, takes about 25 minutes to do, and is usually divided for learning purposes into six sections.

About the DVD Course

Most Tai Chi videos and DVDs are almost impossible to learn from unless you already have a good Tai Chi background - they can serve as a reference, or a good example, but not as a practical way to learn a form.

This DVD course is designed as the exception to the rule. It contains not only physical demonstrations of the form but also move-by-move tutorials, analogies and visualizations, and demonstrations of self-defense applications of the form. It starts with an introduction to Tai Chi and a very thorough explanation of its principles, then goes through the entire form section by section and move by move. Tutorials are interspersed with demonstrations and self-defense applications.

The DVD course has 29 different tracks spanning two DVDs, totalling a little over four hours of instruction. You should be able to learn the 108 form to a good standard using the DVD course within 3-6 months if you practice diligently.