Welcome to Pommelhouse

Fan Form

I'm learning two versions, one in school and one with my neighborhood group. Below, I've used familiar names where I found them, names given to me by Long Feng for moves that are new, and names that I've made up where I have none to go by. It's so much easier to learn a form when you have names!

fan form

Mi Jin Pei performs 46-fan, a fan form that combines Chen Tai Chi, Wushu and Kung Fu. This is the form taught at Master Gohring's school. My neighborhood Chinese Tai Chi friends perform a traditional 52-fan Kung Fu Fan Form.

This form is usually performed to music, almost always to a particular song, the title of which translates as something like "Beauty of Setting Sun" (good luck finding an MP3 without malware attached! I finally got one from Long Feng). The music divides neatly into six sections. The first is slow, the second fast, the third fast and staccato. The fourth section is an exact repeat of the second, the fifth starts fast and gets slow, building up to a slow, dramatic final section.

The first fan form below (52-fan) follows the music very closly in tempo and phrasing. The second form, 56-fan, does fit the music, but not as clearly (to me, anyway), cramming a lot of moves into even the slowest parts. You can learn 52-fan from the video with the music; I found it almost impossible to learn 56-fan from a full-speed video.

However! Luckily, Instructor Cochran at Master Gohring's school has made videos of this fan form at walk-through speed. Actually, it wasn't luck; I asked her to let me record these three videos. She covers all but the very last part of the form in three videos:

Finally, Here's Master Gohring doing the first half of the 56-fan form at walk-through pace.

All we need now is a walk-thorugh of the last section.