Dear Knowledgeables: Quick question. Not too many well known Tai Chi instructors in Melbourne. Wanted to learn Chen style, but Chen Xiao wang is based in Adelaide. The only other style with a decent instructor (by that I mean instructors with a traceable lineage) avilable is the Cheng Man Ching style. Just want to garner everyone's thoughts. Thanx for your input.
My 2 peneth... lineage is pretty meaningless. I have been and visited some Masters with impeccable lineage whose form is completely devoid of any internal principles. My advice is judge the man by the merit of his art; lineage is a red herring. Chen Man Ching may have had skill but I do not believe his art was complete... it certainly wasn't Yang Style; something else entirely and not very useful if you are considering Taiji for realistic self defense. Best, Syd
Yea i'd agree. If you're into the health side of things, go for it - it wont do you any harm. If you want it for anything else other than some trademarked yoga, then look elsewhere. I agree entirely with lineage - doesnt count for anything.
Chen Man Ching was one of the best Yang Style masters and say that his art was not complete is not reliable. :woo: Some "masters" of the Yang style try to unjustifiedly discredit Chen Man Ching (and Yang Cheng Fu) sytle to promote their own style! :woo: CMC and YCF were real martial artists and not speculators as many today. :Angel:
I'm not promoting any style whilst standing on the back of another, quite to the contrary actually. Personally I am at a point of being beyond styles and more interested in what is effective. I think in regard to CMC you need to do a bit more research. I would strongly advise that you look into how much training he really did under Yang Cheng Fu and what CMC actually has to say about his own art when compared to that of the Yangs. He spent a matter of months only with Yang Cheng Fu, was never one of Cheng Fu's top or better students and was regularly defeated by other challengers...(Invest in loss)... Cheng states himself that his style of Taijiquan is not like the Yang Style but something different. These are the facts, not promotion of one style over another. If you feel that you can defend yourself with CMC Taiji then go for it and good luck. Best, Syd
in "A COMPARATIVE STUDY BETWEEN TRADITIONAL YANG STYLE OF YANG CHENGFU AND CHENG MANCHING'S STYLE" (http://stltaiji.tripod.com/compare.htm) they explain why CMC's style isn't really "Yang" style. I personally have found what they said in the article to be true after first learning the Yang Cheng-Fu long form and then attempted to learn the Cheng Man-Ching form which not only was only about 1/3rd as long, but also the footwork and hand movements were different (and to me different in a totally inferior and uncomfortable way) Some would even say that Yang Cheng-Fu's style isn't true "Yang" style and only his grandfather "Yang Lu Chan" (the inventor of the yang style) is the true yang style. Personally I consider YLC's style to be the 'Old style" and YCF's style to be the "New style" and CMC's style to be something I don't have a label for besides 'inferior'. This is not to say I think that practicing CMC's style is useless, because i think you can get "health" benefits from practicing any tai chi as long as you do it with the main underlying tai chi principles in mind. Yang Cheng-Fu himself said something like "if anyone changes the form any more than i have already modified yang lu chan's form, then it will be futile" So I strongly advice you to look into all 3 of those versions of the yang style form before making a choice, and if you see anything different than those 3 claiming to be yang style, RUN LIKE HELL! Let me know if you decide to stick with CMC's style and why you chose to, some people may knock you for doing that but i don't think its a total mistake if you've weighed the facts and have a personal reason for choosing that way.
But couldnt that just be because he didnt want anyone trying anything new or perhaps be shown up a bit... you know the guard your secrets jealously type of thing...??
All you gotta do is get a tape of the original Yang Lu Chan long form, then watch the Yeng Cheng Fu long form, then watch the Chen Man Ching short form, to see how it devolved from "pure martial with health as a by product" to "mostly health with martial as a by product (if you want)" to "way shorter and thus less health (even if you repeat the same form 3 or 4 times in a row it doesn't make it equivlent in health benefits because you break yer flow and the postures of the long form were specifically designed to go in a certain structure/length) Its common sense that if you're going to alter a form it should only be to improve it. Yang cheng fu may have made it worse in a sense by making it less martially oriented BUT he made it more useful as far as health and easier to teach and also because its slow all the way through (unlike the YLC version) it makes it accessible to seniors! Very important stuff that i'm glad he did. However, what can you say about Chen Man Ching's modifications as far as making it better in any way? The only thing i can think of is that since he made it shorter more lazy/busy people are more likely to learn it? I'm not sure thats a good thing because they might has well learn yoga or a chi kung instead of practicing something so far off from what its supposed to be that its practically fake. (Another good read on this: http://www.tai-chi-chuan.demon.co.uk/chang.html) Of course there is one good thing about the whole tai chi for health only craze, and that is i can practice tai chi chuan with martial intent at the park and most people think im just exercising and leave me alone If i was out there practicing a karate form people would stare and probably come up to me and be like "so you think yer bad?" and all that nonsense
Cheng Man Ching studied under Yang Cheng Fu [6 years] and under Zhan Qin Lin. His style is a mix of the teaching of the two masters. His mastery was confirmed also by Chen Wei Ming. Cheng Man Ching didn't teached only the 37 postures, but a lot more! Syd - also Erle Montaigue's style is not a Yang style! GT3 - "a tape of the original Yang Lu Chan long form" don't exist!
My teacher was a Sigung under Cheng. He was close enough to him to sit in his place at the Koshu federation board. Now my teacher is a 400 lb man who won the Koshu tournment 2 years in a row. He says that Cheng would toss him like a ragdoll. I don't know about your personal experience in pushing with Cheng but unless you have some and you wish to judge his ability you ough to zip it!
Cheng didn't study under YCF for 6 years solidly, that would be misleading. Instead he actually came and went in brief spurts over very short periods of time and spent the bulk of his teaching before being in the U.S in Taiwan. If you go to the Chinese mainland nobody knows who he is! Let me say that Erle's style is something more akin to what I would deem Old Yang Style more than CMC's is. Erle's style is not too dissimilar from Chen Pan Lings form and his style is most certainly Yang Style. If you don't think Erle's style is Yang then you had better take that up with Erle...mail him he always replies. Chen Man clearly states himself that his style is a departure from Yang style. A member of the official Yang family was recently quoted as saying that "what is missing from Yang style today is alive and well outside the family". I think much of what Erle teaches falls within the purview of this statements meaning. I am not a champion of Erle's system but I have studied it some and I have my opinion... as do you. In response to "zip it" man... I indeed believe that Cheng had skill, I have said so. The question is whether what he taught was yang, it wasn't. I wouldn't look to what Cheng taught for self defence either... Cheng was not known for teaching the combat aspects pro-actively. You'll have to deal with the fact that this is a forum where it's everybodies right to leave it un-zipped.
I am not saying that you have to "Zipit" it is indeed you right to hang it out there. I just think that after seeing you "unzipped" you should reconcider your position.
I feel no need to reconsider, I'm comfortable with my statements... you however are not. Whose problem is that?
Syd, You are free to feel however you wish, however if your statement is something like "Chen Man Ching may have had skill but I do not believe his art was complete... it certainly wasn't Yang Style; something else entirely and not very useful if you are considering Taiji for realistic self defense" you ough to keep it to yourself or be prepared to be told that your speaking from ignorance.
If you go to the Chinese mainland also nobody knows who EM is. The EM's style of TJQ is not an authentic Yang TJQ, but a conglomeration of old elemts of the Yang, Wu and Chen style. :love: The EM's TJQ is a Yang style like CMC's TJQ is. Who said that CMC is not known for teaching the combat aspects? Look at his students in Taiwan and Malaysia, they are excellent fighters. For more informations read the books: - Flowing the Tai Chi Way, Peter Uhlmann (1998) - Searching For The Way, Nigel Sutton (1998)
BTW, CMC and his students are known for their fighting abilities. I don't know EM as a fighter? Did EM had any fighting, who was defeated by him? I know EM only by his writing on his web page, not for his achivements! I don't say that EM's style is not good (my opinion is that is very good), but don't say that CMC was not a good fighter! AMEN :Angel:
The EM's style of TJQ is not an authentic Yang TJQ, but a conglomeration of old elemts of the Yang, Wu and Chen style. Uh, I think you're thinking of Chen Pan-Ling, its widely known for his synthesis of Yang, Wu, and Chen. Chang Yiu Chun (EM's teacher) and Chen Pan-Ling were students of Yang Shaohou (the brother of Yang Cheng-Fu, both the grandsons of Yang Lu Chan) and Yang Shaohou is the one who kept the Yang Lu Chan style in-tact whilst Yang Cheng-Fu modified it. Nowhere have I seen Erle Montaigue say anything about Chen or Wu style. Maybe you're confused because he does bagua (which is Wu'ish) and appears to do chen (with the mixed fast/slow and fajing movements)?
GT3 - "a tape of the original Yang Lu Chan long form" don't exist! Sure they do: http://www.taijiworld.com/Videos/taiji.htm#2 or: Chen Pan-ling Longform Demonstrated by YW Chang, sr. student of Chen Pan-ling. http://rtccc.hypermart.net/merchandise.shtml
I'll say it one more time for the dummies... CMC had skill, I believe later in life he was able to use that skill to effect defeat of others in his art; namely his own students. I don't however believe that what CMC passed to his students was a fighting art...sorry. When CMC was a student of YCF he was continuously beaten and was known as that guy who always gets beaten. CMC was lazy in his Taiji and admits to shortening the original long forms because he was lazy and he wanted to complete his practice sooner rather than later. Not the kind of school I'd want to be learning from. Thats my personal view... it won't change.
O.K. Syd why don't you put your money where your mouth is, If you are so certain in you belief that you must bad mouth others, I say bring it on. Anyone in these arts who is unwilling to "change his or her personal view" is clearly unable to learn (at least the easy way). I think you are talking out of the wrong oraface and I would like to SHOW you. Your attitude is a perfect example of what happens when somone with a small amount of training starts dribiling on about things that they know very little. Is this what you do? you go on these forums to tear others down to make yourself feel better about your own failure? I find it really hard to belive that moderators on this forum allow this kind of crap. "One more time for the dummies..." Syd, now you are personaly insulting me. Save your crying for your mommy. What a first class turd you must be.
