I love Bruce-style casual insults. Childish and yet coated in a veneer of academic pretention. It reminds me of my days as a University researcher. The Bear.
The bit I have bolded is wrong in my opinion. Plain and simple. We have so much more than that in fact. I agree that there were attempts to organize and structure martial tradition - and teach them in a systemised way. Wu Chien Chuan, Yang Cheng Fu and Yang Shao Hou were all a part of this effort re. tai chi chuan (Yang and Wu style). However there is so much more to the story. And none of the above, or the rest of the story for that matter supports your contentions thus far. As I mentioned before to you - YES, it is recognised that in Yang Cheng Fus' generation ( he was the head of the family, even though he was Shao Hous' younger brother) Yang TCC was taught to the public. Yes - Many students may well have learnt just some form in this fashion.
Well yes. A lot of martial training went underground - with those that remained on the mainland. A lot of martial arts instructors got away however to places like Taiwan and Hong Kong. To give you an example - Fu Zhong Wen was a disciple of Yang Cheng Fu - he stayed in the mainland. And they did have to be pretty careful in their practice. However the Lineage survived as did the material. Another Disciple - Tung didn't hang around and this lineage found its way to Hawaii, taking in Thailand along the way. Material from these men have nothing to do with what you are discussing. And that's an example from Just a couple of YCF disciples. You are completely ignoring family and disciple transmission as well as close students such as Cheng Man Ching. Whilst Yang TCC may well have been taught widely in this era as 'physical culture' that's not to say it ceased to exist any other way.
So....just to be clear.... You agree that an art can undergo a diaspora. You agree that an art can be transmitted under clandestine or even official channels. But you don't agree that an art can be embellished, misrepresented, corrupted or recombinant. My guess is that you are being highly selective in your judgements and not a little subjective in weighing evidence. Could it be that you affiliations are clouding your thinking?
Well it could be.. I never denied that is a possibility - I even said as much on Friday if you paid any attention - and i can quote it for you if you insist Bruce. I don't buy everything wholesale, and I wouldn't instruct anyone else to either. If you read these pages for any number of years, I've often been a little sceptical of the lineage Erle Montague claims for example. Do I know either way for a fact ? - no I don't. But given all the many many lineages from what is now 5 generation of Yang style and its off shoot styles eg. Wu style, we can and do have a very good idea of what constitutes Yang style tai chi chuan. Their are surviving lineages from Yang Jian Hou - Another of Yang Lu Chans sons, the affore mentioned Yang Ban Hou. The affore mentioned disciple Quan You. The teachings of Jian Hous' sons. The Current Yang family descending from Yang Cheng Fu, one of those sons. What you think really needs any embellishing I don't know. So.... Is that clear ?
Id forgotten about how much some folks fuss and whine about next to nothing. Thinking about University research brings it all back. This reminds me that Academic researchers often twist and mangle 'evidence' to suit their purpose, arriving at not always convincing arguments. In a few cases that I know (from long ago) in downright distortion and even lies. Popular examples of this are the 1) current furore over gloobal warming data and b) the fiasco of cold nuclear fusion in the chemistry lab sometime back in the 80s. Fabrication is not the unique domain of MA. However there are informative posts on this forum, and some academic research is well worked and crafted.
So, if we are talking about Tai Chi history; what do we think about the tai chi classics pre-dating tai chi at the Chen village and that the Chens don't claim authorship of the classics yet claim to have originated tai chi?
Good question, which gets to the somewhat thorny roots of TCC 's origins. One add-on qestion, is why are applications like tiger embrace head (I think some folk name this differently), swing the fist, Path the Horse high and others, quoted as being 'in the classics' - but no-one ever tells me which texts and where you would find them. Secondly, why do some applications (I cant refer to any names at the mo, im afraid) not appear in Forms. Thirdly, why are some Form elements mechanicaly elaborate e.g. Grasping the birds tail, but bear little resemblance to the application? With Grasping the birds tail application I can see/feel/whatever how it relates to San Shou and to Pushing Hands, but not to the Wu form (round or otherwise.) My overall impression is that Forms are over-emphasised, at the expense of Applications, and somewhat cloaked in some mystery regarding their origins in Classics texts i.e. it is not easy to find a realistic training manual for TCC beyond either forms or very Academic texts.
Possibly that the Chen family didn't originate Tai Chi? As far as I know, there are no 'named' techniques in the classics. They discuss the principles that provide the foundation of the art. I'm not sure I understand this question, could you clarify a little more? I tend to agree.
This is probably the central factor that is sometimes missing in training i.e. insufficient transmission of the principles of the art. As far as I know, Grasping the birds tail, is common to all Wu and Yang lineages. In round hand form, g-t-b-t, is something like the following:- involved rotation to the right, leftwards rotational switch, backwards pull, downwards plucking motion (of tail?), and finally leftwords projection (releasing the grasp of the tail?) In application, its a fairly simple inside defense upwards sidewards deflection and simultaneous (palm oppposites) downwards attack at the opponent's other upper arm, before they can use the fist. Personally I can relate this fairly easily to resistive PH and to san shou (though this term has a multitude of meanings - I am using it in the context of fairly simple boxing drills/patterns, sparring) boxing, where the inside space must be controlled and dominated. I cannot do this with the Form element at all. I can see G-t-b-t in the opening to Saber Form, but thats it i.e. forms seem to lead to more forms, not much else. I may have not picked up something very well these past 2 years, but thats how it seems to me at the mo. Lio or Cloudz may have some better ideas and explanations than me i.e. I am not very long in the TCC game. As far as Classics texts go, sometimes they are referred to as some kind of Chinese Shakespearean texts that I should instinctively know about - ' oh thats in the classics' - as if it pops out of the corn-flakes box each morning i.e. the term 'classics' is quoted to flipantly and without sufficient specificity. This means that its difficult to know if people know what they are talking about - in this way the classics can become something of a smokescreen - or at least that is sometimes my perception. This is not tpo deny the difficulty in interpreting these texts.
I'm not really understanding your point. A lot of the movements from the form are obscure and have massively differing, often contradictory, interpretations, but to my mind Grasp Birds Tail is not one of them, it’s done in the form in almost the same way its applied i.e. the grasping hand is pulling a limb and the pushing hand is attacking or checking. As for the classics, I see them like the hand form. Everyone has a version of them, often contradictory and used to validate their "Tai Chi" as original. Every translation is massively different and as far as I am concerned unless you can translate yourself from the original old Chinese don’t try to understand them. It’s a lot like modern China trying to put principles to Morris dancing using original Shakespeare manuscripts.
I fully agree. The hand form is too often seen as "tai Chi", its not, it is in fact a quite late addition to the whole from all accounts that I have read. I would go further still and say that application is not the end or the real deal, for me, tai chi is about unrestricted movement and manipulation of force, which is hard to do is a set application.
This is now describing part of the involved principles i.e. disrupt the opponent's balance away, before he disrupts yours. In a PH session, this may or may not be be sufficient to unbalance/uproot the opponent straight away. In hand form, G-t-b-t is more mechanically involved, and yes in PH, one may get into the downward pull down (of the bird's tail?) to disrupt the opponent, but not nescessarily. In PH there are many strategies, but I have never seen a full execution of G-t-b-t as in Form. Similar story with application. Maybe Im missing something. So much emphasis is placed on that part of the hand form (which is repeated many times), but the principles are not often explained. I ask to teachers/seniors quite a few questions about footwork, evasion, angling, pivoting, self and opponent alignment, upper-body co-ordination to lower body movement (e.g. simulataneous attack and defense in the same instance of coming of line - applications now). Sometimes I get good answers and sometimes I can absorb the response, othertimes I get answers like 'thats in the classics' - which does not help me much - and I interpret for myself. This is not denying the difficulties of interpreting the principles from the clasics texts. It maybe that many more years need to pass before I see these things more clearly.
This is getting to the guts of it. Essentially what I am getting at, is that expressing and effectively executing 'unrestricted movement and manipulation of force' is what its abouti.e. use of constant, fluid and varied attacks/defences/strategies BUT as a relative beginner, you still need to gain a very strong grounding, and Forms (whilst they have their place) dont do much for me in this respect - because they dont involve much in the way of principles. Applications for me provide better base patterns to work from, PROVIDED, they are excecuted with fluid continious atacks, recovery and variations i.e. without silly pauses. In summary, more emphasis should go to teaching Principles whether from Classics texts or elsewhere - with blood, sweat and occassional tears.
I see, so you're looking for an application of the full series of movements from the form? That is not what GTBT is about - it is repeated so many times through the form because it trains the 4 primary Jin of Taiji, ie; Peng, Lu, Jie & An. The components could (and should) be seperated and used as needed. I'm sure you know that the postures and Jin of Peng, Lu, Jie & An are seperate from each other?
I wouldnt say I was looking for an application corresponding to a full series of movements from the form - just that the applications and forms dont really tie-up. to my mind, the applications represent a better set of base level patterns to work from. I cant quite remember what Jin, Shen (and some other term) all mean and what their relevance is, but the attack postures/focus-points of Peng, Cai, Ji, Kao, Lu, Lie, An and Zhou; all make sense to me (but you could use compass points just as well), the 5 elements of Metal, Water, Earth, Fire and Wood less so i.e. the latter element group represent to me a vestige of Taoist philosophy (when there was no science.) Together the 8 postures and 5 elements, form what I beileve Cloudz referred to at the begining of this thread as Zhang Shang Feng's 13 posture boxing (probably relating to some classics text.) In general, I look for finding my advantage, the opponent's disadvantage, their openings, closing any potential openings of my own, preventing the opponent from adapting to me, mitigating any mistakes on my part and so-on. Hand forms dont help me with this much (if at all.) Developing Martial Spirit, effective alignment, good timing, constant footwork drills (7 stars, 9 Palace), upper body co-ordination (San Shou boxing) does help with this. I have nothing against the hand forms as per say, its just that they are over-emphasised by some people. They help to understand the shape and postures of TCC, and serve in a consistent way to achieve a measure of spinal alignment - which is usefull (but I know of more effective ways to exercise this that have nothing to do with TCC or MA e.g. Feldenkrais.) Personally, I get more from the weapon forms than from the hand forms i.e. principles are more obviously apparrent (to me.) You can perfrom Spear Form without knowing hand form at all. I dont think Saber Form can be executed without understanding Grasping the Birds Tail. Where something like 'Needle at Sea Bottom' is concerned I cant see much point to it. I can see the point of 'Snake Creeps Down' for siezing diversions.
You folks are leaving out the Human element again. Seems that the guy who originated the Chen material was alienated by crap that happened around court and retired to the Chen village where he amused himself putting the material together. At the time it was not known as "Tai Chi" or "Tai Chi Chuan". Later on, when YANG Tai Chi was taken-up by the government as a significant part of the Chinese MA reorganization, the Chen people became concerned that they weren't going to get proper credit and assumed the label TAI CHI CHUAN for their material. Look....theres a very basic idea that you fellas have to start warming-up to or you are going to drive yourselves crazy. These old guys that everyone thinks were to other-worldly and highly evolved? Guess what? They got ****ed, were mean-spirited, competitive, secretive, ego-centric, selfish and disingenuous........and that was to the people they LIKED! By this time in the 21st Century you have about a half-dozen variants of the same surviving materials. And remember, a significant portion of the original material was lost, and the remaining stuff has been reshuffled more times than a casino deck. Now, quit putting this stuff up on a pedestal like its some unfathomable mystery and start examining it for what it is. Some basic ways to use the body when fighting someone. Theres about 32 methods for using the body and about 5 or so techniques that can be organized ouyt of each method. The rest of it is just mumbo-jumbo to make it all seem far more arcane than it is. Is any of this getting through....or do you just like masturbating subjects like this to death 'cause theres nothing better to do? Best Wishes, Bruce
