Tai Chi Advice and Resources Wanted
 

Hi, I'm going to learn the Yang Cheng-fu Tai Chi Form from youtube by Erle Montaigue.

Could someone answer a few questions for a beginner please? I'd like to know if this form has other names so I can see more videos and resources about it online.

Also, could you recommend me more resources (paid and free) that teach this form or give more information about this form or tai chi in general (that would be useful for learning this form). I'd like videos, sites, articles, books anything will do.

Thank you for you time.

Interesting to hear from Erle Montaigue. I have heard first from him in the early 80th. But never learned any Yang style.
I learned first a Wu style, and later found a master from the Wudang mountain who teaches here Tai Chi and other internal forms. But I always learned direct. I feel a video can help in between, but not teach you the essence. And even the essence is taught very seldom; unfortunately.

The Tai Chi Association may interest you.
It's called Yang Style....


https://yangfamilytaichi.com/

Erle is an advanced and very knowledgeable tai chi practitioner, and is a good teacher too, in person.

There are hundreds of different types of Yang style tai chi, but they all have similar movements.

You should know that it is almost impossible to learn tai chi from videos. This is because they are not good observers or imitators, so they develop bad habits. It is essential to have in person feedback from a good teacher in order to really get the principles of movement down well. This is because an in person teacher can spot mistakes and correct those.

I've seen people who learned from videos do tai chi and it is terrible. it actually is NOT tai chi that they are doing. The person know the sequence of moves but was completely missing all the internal aspects required in real tai chi.

it looks like your mind is made up already, but consider this. Do you want to learn tai chi for health? if so, then it IS possible to learn a good chi kung from videos. If you want to learn tai chi for self defense then that requires a live in person teacher even more than just learning the form, because it relies a lot on feeling, yielding, and sensitivity training.

I want to learn tachi for health and meditation purposes, I have absolutely no interest in the self defense aspect of it. I would love to learn it in person but for me that can't be done I'm afraid.

Tai Chi as it is usually taught is not really a self-defense training. A street fighter will knock you out before you could even take up the correct Tai Chi stance :)
Do not get discouraged about learning from videos. It is perfectly possible to learn well, especially if one videos oneself and then observes carefully. Anyone with a smartphone will have an adequate camera at hand.

If you want to do it for health then it is like most types of chi kung, and then it doesn't matter so much if you make a lot of mistakes, and you WILL make a lot of mistakes and develop incorrect methods. As mentioned you can video yourself and see if you can find the errors when comparing it to the teacher's performance. The problem with that is most beginners are not able to see the subtle differences which makes real tai chi so special.

I had someone come here who was self taught from videos and their tai chi was horrible! it was missing all the important principles. All of them.

Like I said though, learning tai chi from a good video can be very beneficial to health. You might be better off learning a good chi kung for health.