Which Way is South? Telling Directions in Wu Hao Taichi

 In the Wu Hao world, one of the things that can prove confusing in the early learning process is figuring out directions, i.e., which way you are supposed to be pointing for a given move. Even when watching the form performed in a video, it can get confusing trying to figure out which way the practitioner is pointing, especially when the background has no linear visual references or when the cameraman suddenly changes camera angles.

In all Wu lineages one faces at various times all four cardinal directions (NSEW) and the 1/2 steps in between. Thus the full retinue of directions in Wu (Hao) Taichi would be North (0°), Northeast (45°), East (90°), Southeast (135°), South (180°), Southwest (225°), West (270°), and Northwest (315°). Seems easy enough, though it might require more thought for some than others depending on their compass experience and general way of handling directions. 

The first question that arises then is what are those compass directions in relation to? Is North a true physical compass orientation? Or does it mean the direction that the practitioner is facing when s/he starts the form, which is a natural fallback way of thinking, isn't it? Or maybe it's not. In Hao Shaoru's book, and thus the English translations we have available to us today (one by Faxing Chen and another by Chaosun Pang), the system seems. . . well, sort of counter-intuitive, at least to me. The relationship between the directions given in the description and the illustrations of the movements is explained as thus: "Facing the reader is South, back is North, facing right is East, and facing left is West." The figure in the following figure then is per the instructions facing South

OK, so that is easy enough if that is the only thing I am focusing on, but in a way it still seems confusing since my natural inclination is to think of the direction I am facing as North, even if it is not actually north. But the fact that his back is facing north along with me means we have that much in common. The directional disorientation become more apparent once actual movements tart taking place. Take, for example, the next move, Lazily Tie Coat Left. Here are the illustrations for the move:

OK, it seems easy enough to follow, though the image would be mirrored from what you or I would be doing ourselves. But to some degree, that makes little different since the instructions explain the steps of the movement in terms of lefts and right and degrees (in 45° increments), but it ends with "face the Southeast diagonal." OK, I get it in terms of looking at the illustration, but when I think of it in terms of where I am supposed to be facing at the end of that, it is not Southeast but Northwest, and that conversion, so to speak, can slow one down. 

Jimmy Wong's Clock System

Jimmy Wong, of the Li Shengdan Lineage, uses a different approach for giving such directions. Rather than use the compass metaphor, he instead uses the clock to explain directions. North then is 12 o'clock, Northeast is 1:30, East is 3:00 and so on, as shown below.

The rather cool, and decidedly handy, perk of this system is that each movement can be assigned a time which thus allows the student to know which direction s/he should be facing for a given movement. For example, the first six steps of the Hao form would be listed as:

    

1. 预备式	yu bei shi	(12:00)
2. 左懒扎衣	zuo lan zha yi	(10:30)
3. 右懒扎衣	you lan zha yi	(1:30)
4. 单鞭	dan bian	(9:00)
5. 提手上势	ti shou shang shi	(12:00)
6. 白鹅亮翅	bai e liang shi	(1:30)
7. 搂膝拗步	lou xi ao bu	(7:30)

The other good thing about that system is that it is based on the direction of the person performing the form, not a line drawing of a man (based on photos of Shao Haoru) performing it in mirror direction to you from the pages of a book. 

My Own Way of Indicating Direction

Being a visual learner, I had, and still have, a hard time with either the compass or the clock method (though the clock method is better for me), so when I got into Hao Taichi, I just created my own simple graphical system that did away with coordinates and just used arrows, which I just scribbled onto my paper list of movements. Granted, such a system is not useful for text-based descriptions, but it works just fine for a list of movement as I could just scrawl them on the page as I was learning. I have cleaned things up a bit so you can see a couple of examples for the first twelve movements of the 96 form, starting with the first six. All directions are relative to the first direction in the Preparatory stance, which will be the direction you are first facing when you start the form.

The next movements, 7-12, I listed as follows:

Now, you might notice something a bit odd about the listing of movements above, namely the moves designated 9+, 10+, and 10++. I first saw these submoves separately listed (but unnumbered) on the website of the Wu Hao Taichi Community of Thailand, a group whose teacher was none other than another Hao Shaoru student and Hao Yinru 6th generation contemporary, Lei Weiming/李伟明. 

The first, 9+, is not really ignored in other listings, but is rather indicated by a times two designation by the move name, such as "9. 搂膝拗步 (x2)." That is not particularly confusing, but on its own it is not necessarily correct since the whole move is not repeated but rather just the last bit, thus making this way of listing it more correct. As for the 10+ and 10++, these two submoves are quite noticeable and distinct and thus more than mere transitions. They thus seem worthy of specific mention, especially given that they don't appear anywhere else as part of the prior or following moves. At any rate, I found this way of listing the movements very useful not only in terms of understanding and learning the form, but also useful in terms of designating directions in my graphical directional system. 

Once one gets the hang of directions, the directions of later movements become second nature, thus no longer necessitating special notation. Still, since I've put up 1-12, I might as well put up the rest of the charts I created, which I do below: