Yup, in my Yang Form practice — which is still totally in its earliest stages — I definitely feel the desire to seek a compact form, just as I eventually did with Chen Style. FWIW, while working with that great book Mastering Yang Style Taijiquan, even though Yang Chengfu is shown in larger-frame postures, I see in them the alternative of compaction. Possibly because sphere (or ball) is the motif, and it’s very easy to imagine a sphere expanding OR contracting.
Some years ago when I felt like maybe taiji wasn’t for me after all, one thing I considered for awhile was Choy Lee Fut. CLF is of course a great-looking style, and anyone can see the power and movement skills it generates. But what really got me thinking was when I heard about its internal methods. So I thought, OK, if TJQ is too baffling to tackle, here’s a great kung fu alternative, practical, vigorous, and with some depth.
Nowadays I guess I’ve come to understand that any CMA style has tons of depth, they are like icebergs. And I’ve also become acquainted with the notion of “seek a teacher, not a style” which seems to be wise advice. But in the beginning, I was stuck halfway between the “armchair enthusiast” and the “weekend warrior” modes.
What brought all this to mind was looking at a blog called Sacred Circuits and finding this video of Luohan qigong by Chen Yong Fa. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_Oy7ulpJTmw&eurl=http://sacredcircuits.net/blog/index.php?paged=2
Luohan gong was one of the earliest influences that steered me towards taijiquan. I really admire Master Chen’s quality of movement in this clip. Personally I am moving away from deep stances and fully extended postures. But one reason I don’t mind doing that is that I did spend years working on those kinds of techniques. And in my class where Teacher calls the shots, we definitely do big-frame Yang taiji as well as typical Brocades type of drills.
And to be honest I should mention that I doubt I could have gone very far with Choy Lee Fut. I’m not a physical coward but rock ‘em, sock ‘em boxing has never been my thing and it never will be. I want a finesse style and if I ever get into trouble on the street, I will hopefully be able to avoid fighting; if not, my handful of ninja and military-style dirty tricks will be put to the test and somebody will get hurt, maybe me.
But checking up on CLF just now I found an article on drunken techniques! http://www.martialarm.com/martial-articles/The_Rare_Drunken_Form_of_Choy_Lay_Fut_Kung_Fu.html
I see this post has gone all over the place. Previously I wrote on Keeping It Together and this time it was about Letting Loose. I’ve never been the most disciplined person, one reason no doubt why it takes me a long time to learn anything. But having somehow persevered and seeing my own abilities develop, I feel like it’s time to embrace Focus fully. The tie-in to compact form taiji is hard to explain, but what I do know is that it seems to work for me, and I seem to have reached a point where I can let go of the more dramatic and thrilling MA modes — I’m glad I tried and learned some of that but mysterious, invisible taiji has apparently decided to pull me futher into the void. 
