Directions in the Zheng Manqing Taijiquan 37 Posture Form

7/6/17

In taijiquan we often start our form facing North. That got me thinking what directions do we visit in the form, and how frequently.

Consider the following table. I list all postures and "sub postures" I could think of as well as the direction one is facing doing the posture.

Posture Number	Posture Name	Direction
1	preparation	N
2	beginning	N
3	ward off left	N
4	ward off right	E
5	rollback	E
6	press	E
7	push	E
8	single whip	W
9	lift hands	N
10	shoulder strike	N
11	white crane spreads wings	W
12	brush knee left	W
13	play the pipa	W
14	brush knee left	W
15	step forward	W
16	deflect	W
17	parry	W
18	punch	W
19	withdraw	W
20	push	W
21	apparent closure, cross hands	N
22	embrace tiger, return to mountain	SE
23	rollback	SE
24	press	SE
25	push	SE
26	diagonal single whip	NW
27	rely on fist, fist under elbow	W
28	retreating monkey, right	W
29	retreating monkey, left	W
30	retreating monkey, right	W
31	retreating monkey, left	W
32	retreating monkey, right	W
33	diagonal flying	NE
34	cloud hands, left	N
35	cloud hands, right	N
36	cloud hands, left	N
37	cloud hands, right	N
38	cloud hands, left	N
39	cloud hands, right	N
40	cloud hands, left	N
41	single whip	W
42	squatting single whip, snake creeps down	W
43	golden rooster stands on one leg, left	W
44	golden rooster stands on one leg, right	W
45	separate right foot	NW
46	separate left foot	SW
47	turn and strike with heel	E
48	brush knee left	E
49	brush knee right	E
50	low punch	E
51	ward off right	E
52	rollback	E
53	press	E
54	push	E
55	single whip	W
56	fair lady left	NE
57	fair lady right	NW
58	fair lady left	SW
59	fair lady right	SE
60	ward off left	N
61	ward off right	E
62	rollback	E
63	press	E
64	push	E
65	single whip	W
66	squatting single whip, snake creeps down	W
67	seven stars step forward	W
68	step back and ride tiger	W
69	turn body and sweep lotus with leg	W
70	bend bow, shoot tiger	NW
71	step forward	W
72	deflect	W
73	parry	W
74	punch	W
75	withdraw	W
76	push	W
77	cross hands	N
78	conclusion	N
79	bow/saying thanks	N

Here is a graph of the % of directions.

Here is a summary of the statistics for each direction:

• N, 22%
• NE, 3%
• E, 20%
• SE, 6%
• S, 0%
• SW, 3%
• W, 42%
• NW, 5%

It is interesting that we talk about the importance of facing North so much, and "doing the form to the right". Most of the time we are facing West. Also, it is clear the South direction is highly neglected.

Thanks for reading. Happy practice!