The Little Nine Heavens Form: Introduction

    The Little Nine Heavens Form teaches the important alternate strategy of the art: That is, the secondary style that you fall back on when your main strategy fails you. In the case of Tàijíquán, your main strategy involves heavy rooting to the ground and clever, soft redirecting of your opponent’s attacks. however, there will come a time when these skills become a liability.

    One situation would be when your opponent is beating you. Your heavy rooting will make it difficult to respond to your opponent’s techniques, so you will have to pick up your feet. your clever yielding will not be at your disposal so you will be forced to do some good old-fashioned hard blocking and shielding.

    Another situation would be when your opponent is out of range. Perhaps your throwing technique didn’t work well and your opponent is stumbling away from you. You will once again have to abandon your heavy rooting and make chase.

    This is the third of the four “corner” forms -- forms that support and expand upon the four main forms of the system. The Four Corner Forms can be taught in any sequence the teacher chooses, but they each have a logical position between The Four Main Forms. This form, for example, is performed in the style of the Small Frame Form, and therefore should be taught after this form.

    The name “Little Nine Heavens” refers to traditional Daoist philosophy that states that a human being is a microcosm of the universe itself. In this case, it is referring to the circular walking that is the signature of the Seven Star Eight Steps systems.

    An understanding of basic Baguazhang  movement would be 
useful in studying this form. Baguazhang is built from the same Daoist martial arts system as this form.

    Since this is not a beginner form, I have chosen not to include all the tiny details of where to point the head, how to breathe, etc. To those with the required background, this will all be obvious.

    At the end of the book I have included a list of the movement names. I have not included the graphic sequence in this volume, because it is not a practical size to photocopy. Instead, I will be providing it as a free download from my website in 8.5” x 11” for easy photocopying. You have my permission to do so.

    To those of you who love the martial arts as much as I do, I wish you growth and fulfillment.

Sincerely,

Shifu Jonty Kershaw