Exploring Zhan Zhuang in the Forms

One of the supplemental practices we use is incorporating Zhan Zhuang within our form practice. Typically, you will begin a form and at various times during the form, you will hold a position. The purpose is to explore relaxation, alignment, awareness. A standing practice is one of the quickest ways to explore the truth of relaxation. When standing still, your body will quickly tell you where you are not relaxed. In a moving practice, you sometimes miss those moments of tension.

One way to explore these principles is to do this combined practice in a group. Everyone does a group form, for example Longivity Tree. You decide before starting the form on a round-robin approach with each member of the group. The group begins the form and somewhere in the first few moves, the first person says "pause." Everyone stops their respective forms and begins Zhan Zhuang. The first person waits 2-3 breaths, then says "continue" and everyone continues the group form. The next person chooses a place to "pause", waits 2-3 breaths, and then "continues". You continue to cycle around until the form is complete.

Explore the entire form with this practice. Typically, when we practice Zhan Zhuan by ourselves, we usually stop only at the 'end' of a movement. Don't be afraid to stop anywhere in the form, but be conscious of your friends if you pause during balance-challenge parts of the form.

The benefit of the group practice is that everyone does the form slightly differently, slightly faster or slower than everyone else. I find that this practice provides more benefit to those hearing "pause" than saying it. When someone says "pause" everyone is in a slightly different part of the form, everyone has something different to explore, something they may not have thought to explore themselves. It helps increase awareness, because you are in the form, yet aware of your surroundings, waiting to say or hear "pause". You may also find that you lose track of where you were in the form when told to "continue". That too is a lesson.

Tom Wolf