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These are pieces I have written and posted on a Linked-in group on Tai Chi Chuan. I reproduce these here to reach out to others in the practice. The pieces have been re-edited a bit … just for clarification.

CHANGES IN PRACTICE
Sometimes changes in a practice comes about because of necessity ... for example, I began doing cloud hands from the Guang Ping Yang Taiji in squares because my backyard was narrow. That evolved into forming a small frame set of taiji for my older students that didn't require them to over-emphasize the leg work that is so important in large frame taiji but did emphasize use of the waist and shoulders instead of the hips. This is turn led to creating an approach to small frame that brought back some of the movements taught originally by my teacher but changed to more simple movements at a later date. 'Green Dragon shoots out of the water' for example was change to step out and push and I keep that approach in the large frame but revert to the chicken step in small frame which was the original movement I learned.
I now have 2 approaches to Guang Ping ... the large frame leg work and a small frame leg work ... both approach the practice differently and are taught to people according to age and condition.
The small frame approach has also been taught as an application set for senior practitioners which is in keeping with the traditional understanding that movements get smaller when they are used in combat.
Practices evolve but they need to keep their distinctive roots alive or the art degenerates into empty gestures.

MARTIAL ARTS AND HEALING ARTS
… the traditional healing arts and the martial arts in Chinese history have always gone hand in hand. Let me explain ... battle field doctors expanded their understanding and treatment procedures of acupuncture as a result of soldier's arrow wounds. Another example, Hua Tou (3 kingdoms period) was one of the leading medical doctors of his time. As a battle field doctor, he engaged in surgery as well as battling diseases resulting from wounds or natural calamities ... as well as developing 5 animals QiGong. Much of his work has been lost to us as a result of CaoCao's destruction of his library after having him murdered. The reason ... Hua Tou was his personal doctor and CaoCao did not want his enemies to know his specific weaknesses.
As a continuation of this theme of the interrelated aspects of military action from whence the martial arts were born and medical / philosophical aspects of health and our interconnectedness to reality, we can see that health, wealth and martial skill have never been separated in the histories of China.
Taiji Chuan is a rather new take on these connected themes. It rose during the Ching dynasty as a specific approach to personal combat but was never separated from basic health concerns ... and in my opinion, this has always been case with those who practice martial arts.
After all, the historical goal for the Chinese has been the search for immortality and that has always involved the martial, the medical and the philosophical. The principles of Taiji Chuan rest on the concept that the soft can overturn the hard ... that the soft approach can create internal hardness over time of a type that is different from simple muscular strength. These ideas have revolved around the principles of the art ... without following these principles we become much poorer and the art degenerates into a shadow …
Just a bit more ... many new forms and sub-forms are being created as we speak. While much of this is coming out of China in the guise of Wu Shu, it is, none the less, old wine in new bottles. If they keep the basic principles intact in their art ... they may contribute to the present needs in our modern societies. The one thing that does happen more often than not is that teachers of internal arts assume that 20 years practice should allow them to take on the title Master of the Art ... that is a rising problem and one often generated by a need for recognition and distinction among the rising schools. Or even worse, I cringe when I see a young man or woman take on the title of Master ... that is an absurdity ... in our art ... progress takes development & time ... we are like a maturing wine more than simply than a set of movements.

CONSISTENCY IN PRACTICE
In some sense, taiji is a study that requires dedication and perseverance in the practices taught by our teacher/teachers and on another level, it is a personal journey with developments and advancements through stages formed by experiences. These 2 basics are true for everyone.
If the foundation of study and practice is strong and the principles of the art followed everyone can develop. We do develop a personal style over time. There is no way around this but we have our teachers, older brothers and older sisters capabilities to compare what is good and what is not. Whether it is good or bad taiji depends on that persons evolution through time. The art is not a skip, jump and splash to mastery. It's difficult enough to keep to the practice and not loose important little qualities active in the practice that did not make sense in early stages of the study and unfortunately, many of us drop certain aspects of our practice simply because they are difficult to perform and achieve. Chin-to-toe is an example in Guang Ping. These are things to re-consider.
Not all of us have the luxury of spending our whole lives with our teachers and that has always been the case for most students but it is important to realize that we practitioners change on all levels ... physical, mental and spiritual when we keep to the basics. What didn't make sense early on makes sense later as we come to realize what those little qualities taught us by our teachers help us accomplish.
Master Kuo wrote a book 'The Tai Chi Boxing Chronicle' to help students self-evaluate their progress and deficiencies knowing full well that each of us make our own way at some point and must constantly re-evaluate what we are doing as we go through life. This is a valuable text because it approaches the study carefully and helps a student in concrete ways. It certainly has been valuable to me.
Another book of recent vintage that is helpful is the 'Lost Tai-Chi Classics from the Late Ch'ing Dynasty' by Douglas Wile as more recent text of historic importance came forth in the 80s that do reveal the richness of the art prior to it's public dissemination.
To sum up what I'm saying, we cannot appreciate what we have learned until the flowers unfold. We each have our Spring at different times and in different ways.

CHANGES OVER THE YEARS
If we are to look at the public teaching of Taiji Chuan we have to look back at the historic condition of China at the end of the Qing dynasty and the beginnings of the Republic. China was a mess ... many of it's citizens poor and destitute ... sickness a common condition ... foreign powers carving up the country ... warlords in constant battle with each other over controlling territory ... many in the population using opium to cope with the dishevelled and precarious living conditions of the era. Out of this came a call for masters of the arts to help people get their lives in order and unite to throw off the foreign powers and to also strengthen the Chinese people ... to make then well.
At this time, Yang Chen Fu and others began to teach publicly and at this time, easier approaches were created to allow for a greater number of people to benefit from the practice. Many of the more clearly defined striking elements were de-emphasized and sets re-designed to encourage basic defense and health. The art spread quickly and has continued to gain practitioners to this day.
I had a very interesting talk with Yang Mei-Jun the Grand Master of Dayan (Wild Goose) qigong back in the mid-90s in Beijing. In that discussion, we talked about the types of approaches to taiji she saw today compared to the 1920s and 30s. She said, that the practices had changed ... rarely did she see the full extent of the art displayed after the 1930s ... at least those in public view. She was not a Taiji practitioner by the way but a practitioner of a very highly developed internal Qigong. None the less, she was very helpful in clarifying points of interest in my own art. I have followed her advice since then and found it to be most helpful to my development.
The point I'm making here is that there is a richness to the art that is slowly being dug out of obscurity by a few, on the one hand and at the same time, an increased simplification of both qigong and other internal practices that suggest to me a watering down of the art to the degree of making this another dance form.
Change is a constant but one has to ask ... is commercial greed, under-developed teachers, and outright fraud going to increase practice of the art for the better?
By the way, what prompted this tirade was an ad on Huffpo for the study of Qigong ... I went to the page and was aghast at the practices being passed off as Qigong. These things we do as warm-ups! That ad must have cost a pretty penny.

What is the meaning of 'small frame' in the Taiji Chuan?

Very often you hear about a small frame version of Taiji Chuan but rarely do you see one or have it clarified. Part of this is due to many practitioners in our modern day and age practicing sets of taiji which are meant to strengthen leg muscles and expand the joints through big movements. These large movements are meant to train a person in feeling the shifting weight from one leg to the other. Hence, we often see an emphasis on shiftings of 60/40 and 70/30 in sets of Taiji Chuan. This is an essential part of the practice in most Taiji Chuan sets within the main schools but as has been noted by many masters of the past, one must practice the art in a small framework to be able to use the art as a boxer.

There is more to this concept than meets the eye. One compresses and expands as a natural part of practice in all the major schools of Taiji Chuan but there are ways to incorporate small frame qualities in every form of taiji chuan and engage in those practices within a set. The major thing to understand when practicing small frame within a set is to realize that the upper part of the body's movements do not have to differ from a deep or mid level stance most often seen as the standard approaches to the practice. The upper body movements do allow for and encourage expansion of the joints and muscles and can be practiced exactly as they are practiced in a large frame set. While many sets emphasize high, low, and mid-level leg stances as standard to an approach to the practice, small frame is best understood as a developmental and practical process that engages an opponent within a limited space and distance. Various push hands practices help a person to gain a feel for the spacing between two people but that does not always lead to a useful understanding of how to use the various stances as practical applications in the art.

Many masters have been noted for saying when people asked them to teach applications … just practice and let the body take care of itself. Or they have handed out a few useful applications to give a student a sense of how to use the Taiji Chuan. Some masters have been accused of hiding the uses of applications from their students for fear their students will harm of hurt someone in a confrontation. There is a certain amount of truth in this concern teachers have in the art. I do know a master of Shaolin in Taiwan who had to close his school and stop teaching publicly as a result of one of his students engaging in a fight and seriously injuring his opponents.

We have all been amazed by what the body does in moments of surprise or, heaven forbid, confrontations and what the body, at such moments, teaches us makes us aware that the body seems to have a life of its own. When you don't have time to think, the body acts. This is an interesting aspect of the art in and of itself but it is not something you can practice.

This gets us to the main aspect of what small frame practice in a set format consists of and how it is useful in a Taiji Chuan practitioners development. It has been said that one cannot develop to the highest levels in the art without making his or her movements smaller and there is a practical truth to this idea. You and your opponent are close together, about arm length or closer, and you have a small space separating the two of you that is useful. This is your upper body application space. When two people are involved in push hands or combat, it consist of a 45 degree angle from you abdomen to your opponents face and a 45 degree angle out from your center to either side of your opponent's center. This defines your defense and strike regions in the upper body. Things change as people move around but the space does not when applied to two people in an upright position engaging in all of the activities of action. You must study the circle and square … the spiral of in and out. Your ability to compress inward and/or yield ground and deflect an opponent's strike or push is closing. Actively advancing on an opponent will involve the same space and may engage closing or opening. If you test this with an opponent you will get the idea.

This leads to the use of the waist and shifts. You will notice that there is not a lot of separation between two people and small shifts and small circles are used when in contact to open and close, advance and retreat, and defend and/or strike. This requires that a person study small shifts. You can only understand small shifts if you practice this. 55% weight on the front and back leg in a shift is your core center of action and a true beginning point for transitions. It is here that the waist is employed in defense or offense. This means you need to first define what this shift means by feel and then, letting nature take it's course, engage in this space without having to think about it. Guang Ping concentrates on a shift to the middle or 50/50 … rather than 60/40 or 70/30 as a training method. This approach of seeking the middle between the legs is a concentrated study of small shifts. 55% weight on back or front leg is the working area within a small frame approach to use the movements. To understand this by feel … experiment with a push movement by positioning yourself at 50/50, sink down a bit, place the hip direction at 45 degrees from the front and back, place your back foot at a 45 degree angle from the front direction, place your front foot straight forward, place you 2 arms out so that they rest horizontally even in front (this will require that your shoulders are horizontally even … you may feel a slight pulling sensation on your right side due to an extension of the waist), round the back leg, relax and shift slightly between one leg and the other. Feel the shifts transference in palms of your hands. This is an indicator of the core transition point in your movement. This is one of the aspects of Guang Ping Yang Taiji Chuan that many have wondered about … assuming this approach to the art is a violation of the prohibition of the 'double weighted stance' concept in Taiji Chuan. Nothing could be further from the truth. By seeking 50/50 pressure between the legs as an end point or the beginning of a transition point in your movement, you are really finding the transition points, strike points and shift points where small shifts in small spaces are possible. This has been handed down by Yang Pan Hou as an aspect of Taiji Chuan that is an inherent part of the study.

We now come to the legs. This is the core of a small frame practice. The stance is higher than a middle stance and the legs are not as far apart. This allows for little or no drag on the front leg as you move to the back in a yielding movement. The knees are drawn toward each other in transitions so that the groin is protected in movements. Compression and expansion are required in every movement. The practice of this is best felt when done by drawing the lead leg backward or the back leg forward and compressing one toward the other during shifting or before stepping through from one leg to another. One releases this compression. It is not a stopping of movement or even observable by someone else but a sticking quality that last for a split second before release. It is a training method which leads to a fuller expansion of peng ching and will be felt as a buoyancy in the body. It cannot be seen. It is an action that will allow for the reversal of Yin and Yang in the body in a substantial way and does not necessarily require heavy muscle activity as is required by mid and deep stances. It will engage tendons just as actively as large separations in the legs and require that the waist be truly employed in movement. You are not pushing off a back leg for example when stepping through but pulling the back leg forward instead. You are not just stepping out with the front leg but drawing heal or bubbling well on the forward part of the foot inward first, just as a cat does before it leaps on its prey.

This practice is both for those who wish to obtain higher levels in the art and I have found is the best way to teach older people the true art of Taiji Chuan. Higher stances are better for older people. Older people do not need to develop in the same manner as young people do … young people need to start with the mid levels first … progress to deepening their stances and then, after a suitable number of years advance to small frame practice. Herein, we have only been looking at the mechanical aspects of body movements. We can best appreciate the degree of difficulty that involves this practice by becoming more aware and by listening through feel. This involves 'mind body' and that bit of writing should be saved for another day.
all the best