by Audi » Mon Jan 12, 2009 1:17 am
Good job!
There are many variations in the form, which can make it hard to give useful criticism. For me, the most useful critique would go to specific movement standards, but these can be difficult to recognize from one teacher to another. It might help if you could say which relative or student of Yang Chengfu you or your teacher might be trying most to emulate. Many people are familiar with those variations and may be able to offer more specific feedback.
In addition to what others have posted, I would also wonder about the following:
1. Your gaze is quite lively; however, is your spirit ever supposed to lead your gaze and the tilt of your head downward. In some postures, it seems that you are following the "dominant" hand so closely that your spirit is not completely raised.
2. At the end of some postures, it seems as if your body and legs may be arriving before your arms.
3. In some postures, when you reach back, it seems that your shoulder structure is compromised a little bit and you are no longer "containing the chest and plucking up the back."
4. The camera angle makes this difficult to judge, but at the end of all the postures, is your torso centered right and left between your feet? In some places, it seems that you have shifted so much weight forward that you might be drifting to the right a little bit. Again, it might be the camera.
5. I also wonder whether sometimes your arms could be more horizontally rounded, but this may come from your form. I particular wonder at the end of Lifting Hands and in the Single Whip transition.
6. You have a nice deep stance, but I am not sure that I can see your footwork showing an interplay of Jin between your legs. We have more of a flavor of "pusher and stopper" (deng cheng) that differentiates the power in the legs and defines the end point of a posture more obviously.
Keep up the good work!
Take care,
Audi