I’ve been practicing my double fan form and the other day I was at a picnic in a park and forgot to bring my fans along.

So I searched around for a couple of sticks about the same size of the fans in length, and practised the form.

I try and practice on a regular basis and if do not have my Tai Chi weapons I improvise and practice a weapon form without the weapon.

It certainly makes you concentrate on other parts of the body when you do this. Sometimes when you practice a weapons’ form you can focus too much on the weapon  itself and not enough on your body balance or movement.

Eventually you just ‘do’ and not focus on your weapon. But every now and then it’s good to focus on other aspects of your weapon form.

So when you ‘do’ it all comes together.

Besides using sticks you can also imagine you are holding a weapon and practice a weapon form either mentally or physically.

So the next time you forget or can’t use a weapon in a particular space –  why not practice your weapons training without weapons.