Form & Function

Today in my Qigong class I told my students that the external appearance of a movement is not as important and the internal feeling that the movement guides. A month or so earlier, I told the same class that function follows form - the postures should look balanced and beautiful.
No doubt they had been following my earlier advice and trying to make their bodies match the postures' outward appearance - only too much so.
So I should have clarified that form and function are interrelated, and that while you might focus more on one or the other, neither should supercede. At the beginning, form is important to help you learn the movement and guide the body. But once the movement becomes more and more familiar, you can begin to focus on sensing the internal feeling of the movement's function. This will relax any rigidity and make the movements more alive and as a result change the outward form.
Form guides function and function shapes form. This interplay between moving and sensing is essential to a deeper learning of Qigong.
Incidentally, it is the same for internal martial arts. Knowing the applications is important to understanding a movement - but it is not enough. There are only so many ways to strike, block, push or immobilize. Every martial art has their variations of the same applications. What is different is how the force is generated, especially with internal arts. Does the Qi spiral or move as a wave? Does is travel through the segments like a whip or does it emit out of the whole body as a single pulse? It is these qualities that define an art and give it it's character. So the external understanding is only complete when the internal nature is grasped.