Make the Tai Chi hand form yours

There are several stages in every Tai Chi practitioners journey, understanding the structure of the various stances, learning to separate weight, smooth transitions, good alignment; every one must learn these things and more, and the standard square and round forms will provide many opportunities to learn them all. At some point you may wish to make your practice more personal, we need not become clones of our teachers, rather we should aim to surpass them, add to the knowledge and ability they passed on. Owning your tai chi form can be part of that process, obviously you should not exceed the boundaries of sound structure and efficient bio-mechanical movement, (use the language of the tai chi classics if you prefer)
 but that leaves a great deal of room for experimentation. Are your movements minimal and pragmatic, embellished and artistic, dynamic and enthralling? the choice is yours.
Below you see a clip of Cheng Tin Hung, perhaps in one of his more pragmatic moods, you can contrast this with the clip further down of a more dynamic performance by the same teacher. image quality is poor because its old material, best viewed small.