24 Form Taijiquan

(24 Posture Tai Chi)

The traditional tai chi routines typically take between 20 minutes and 40 minutes to perform. Some can take an hour or even more.
Learning a traditional routine used to require a minimum of one to three years.

This posed a problem for the promotion of tai chi as a healthy exercise for the masses. So, in 1956, a committee was created to design a short routine which could be taught to beginners in less than three months, yet would contain all of the basic and essential elements of a traditional routine.
The most popular style at the time was Yang Style Tai Chi. So a simplified version of the traditional Yang Style long form was created and called the èrshísì tàijíquán ( 二十四 式 太極拳 ) or "24 form taiji fist."

This routine became part of the national fitness program of the People's Republic of China, and did a great deal to make many of the benefits of tai chi available to the general public.

Today, this routine is often the first tai chi routine that new students will learn. It is taught in community centres, schools, hospitals, and in traditional tai chi schools all around the world.

It is also one of the most standardized of all tai chi routines. So, if you learn this routine, you will almost always be able to find someone who does it the same way that you learned it.

Sometimes called "Simplified tai chi", "The Yang Short Form", "The Beijing Short Form", (or "Peiking Form"), it is a very useful introduction to the main patterns and principles of Yang Style tai chi.