CMC Style, who stayed true to the form?

[windwalker]

http://chengmanching.net/?page_id=15

the family web site lists a link to William Chens site.

Links
Patience Tai Chi Association
Cheng Tze Tai-Chi Chuan Study Association
Tai Chi Studio Hannover
Taiji Quan School of Central Equilibrium
William C. C. Chen Tai Chi Chuan
Wuwei Tai Chi Club
School of Tai Chi Chuan Cheng Man Ching Italia
The Cheng Man-ch’ing Biography Project Official Blog
A Life Biography of Cheng Man Ching by Tam Gibbs
Cheng Man-ch’ing From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

bad blood happens, which is why family styles, try to maintain
tight control over their branding. When something becomes bigger then the family
as in the case of taiji, each family tries to maintain the integrity of their ancestors art.

[allen2saint]

I stand corrected Windwalker. Sorry and thanks.

[taiwandeutscher]

In Taiwan, still several of ZMQ's students are alive and teaching.

[allen2saint]

Zheng Manqing changed his form throughout his lifetime. Ben Lo performs the closest to how Zheng did the form in the 1950s, before the flaccid-penis mode that hit NYC in the mid-1960s. There is training rigor and functional beauty in the large-frame extension of the earlier renditions. What combative virtue or neigong may exist in the pseudo-relaxation of ZMQ's American years escaped me and, I suspect, the vast majority of the thousands who train in this 30-minutes-past-al-dente way today.

I just wanted to recognize the sheer poetry of this post. Such technical accuracy and use of potent colloquialisms. Robert Smith would be proud.

[SCMT]

Allen, taiwandeutscher, Tom and windwalker

Thanks, this is what I am interested in actually.

I have seen videos of CMC doing the form and it does seem to change a little in the few videos I have seen. And what I saw from TT Liang was again different from those videos and Wiliam CC Cheng is yet another variation on the theme, but then William Chen will tell you what he changed too.

I have not seen much, if anything from CMC's American trained students but I do have a friend who trained CMC in NYC with someone I never heard of nor do I know where his form came from but it is, for lack of a better word, flaccid.

William Chen's also looks a bit flaccid (as compared to my Yang style) but I have crossed hands with one of his students and the form may be a bit flaccid (not as much as my friends form is though) but his push hands was pretty damn good. My friend's push hands though can only be described as incredibly rooted but more like a mountain than bamboo

Again Thanks

[Doc Stier]

During the 1970's and beyond, students of CMC from the NYC school travelled every month to teach satellite practice groups in various cities throughout the USA and Canada. It was a common practice at that time to show an older black and white film of Professor Cheng performing his form set to attract prospective new students.

Cheng's stylistic interpretation of the form in this film was considerably different than the way the NYC teachers performed the same sequence. It was not the limp wet noodle style of performance, and employed longer, lower stances with more pronounced definition of arm and hand shapes in the form postures. In short, Professor Cheng's stylistic performance in the film looked much more like Yang Cheng-Fu's form interpretation than what has passed for Cheng's form in recent decades.

[SCMT]

Cheng's stylistic interpretation of the form in this film was considerably different than the way the NYC teachers performed the same sequence. It was not the limp wet noodle style of performance, and employed longer, lower stances with more pronounced definition of arm and hand shapes in the form postures. In short, Professor Cheng's stylistic performance in the film looked much more like Yang Cheng-Fu's form interpretation than what has passed for Cheng's form in recent decades.

I just finished reading "T'ai Chi Ch'uan: A Simplified Method of Calisthenics for Health & Self Defense by Cheng Man-Ch'ing" and based on the stills alone in the book I would agree. Cheng Man-Ch'ing's form in the stills looks much closer to the Yang I do than what I have seen people doing as "CMC" style lately.

[shawnsegler]

Why do you even want to stay true to CMC's form? He created that form himself not too long ago. Why do you want to stay true to anybody's form? If you repeat Shakespeare's play "Romeo and Juliet" from the 1st word to the last word 10,000 times, that "Romeo and Juliet" play still belongs to Shakespeare. It still does not belong to you.

In order to make anything truly belong to you, you have to take it apart, understand it, put it back together any way that you want to.

QFT

This is one of the most important things anyone has ever said here.

S

[neijia_boxer]

friends don't let friend just do the CMC form. My first teacher who taught CMC short form (Ben Lo's details), made us go to Yang Zhen Dou's seminar and learn the long form to get "closer to the source". thank goodness he did that!

[SCMT]

friends don't let friend just do the CMC form. My first teacher who taught CMC short form (Ben Lo's details), made us go to Yang Zhen Dou's seminar and learn the long form to get "closer to the source". thank goodness he did that!

Thank You, and I am sure, based on what I have seen of CMC form, it would be a good idea.

I'm coming from Traditional Yang, Tung Ying Chieh lineage

[Bao]

n short, Professor Cheng's stylistic performance in the film looked much more like Yang Cheng-Fu's form interpretation than what has passed for Cheng's form in recent decades.

At some point he decided to only teach tai chi as qigong. Sad isn't it?

[windwalker]

I think until one has really mastered something, and had it confirmed by others
in the same discipline its best to follow the org. program. Not everyone can reach or has
the talent to do so. Which is kind of why staying true to the teachings is important.
Many things get lost or confused as things are dropped or changed when some cannot reach
the same level, or are changed to fit into the competitive venues of the day.

This also kind of made me crazy a little with my present teacher.
Everyone did the form a little different depending on the time they learned it from him,
and according to their abilities. I was looking for the "correct way" instead of " a way "

while anyone outside looking could tell where and who we learned from, all of our ways of practice
tended to look different within the same theme.

for those that are called door keepers, or style inheritors
its important that they keep as true to the org, as possible to pass it
on to future gen of practitioners.

note: I used to teach and practice the ZMC style,
before that I practiced the Tung/Dong style.
"they are quite different"

the style i practice now is a reflection of my teachers style
which could be a style in its own right, he prefers to just call it taiji.

[Bill]

Is CMC respected in the Taiwan CMA community ?

[lazyboxer]

Zheng Manqing changed his form throughout his lifetime. Ben Lo performs the closest to how Zheng did the form in the 1950s, before the flaccid-penis mode that hit NYC in the mid-1960s. There is training rigor and functional beauty in the large-frame extension of the earlier renditions. What combative virtue or neigong may exist in the pseudo-relaxation of ZMQ's American years escaped me and, I suspect, the vast majority of the thousands who train in this 30-minutes-past-al-dente way today.

+1. The first thing Ben told me when I first met him was that "Professor cut a lot of corners" - said with a slight frown. He subsequently repeated it several times to make sure I got it.

Before then I'd studied with John Yalenezian, a TT Liang student, and then with Robert Smith. TT Liang had studied lots of other martial arts before he took up taiji and it shows in the rare early clips from the 1950s, where his taiji is very open with clear large frame structure. Ben was very conservative and never strayed from the form CMC brought from the mainland in 1949, though apart from a short clip that was once on the web nothing from him has ever been on public show.

The one thing which need to be strenuously emphasized is the point Ben has made throughout his long teaching career that principle should override form. Everyone who has unpicked and reworked forms to make them their own, as John Wang rightly said everyone must eventually do, will have their own personal stylistic expression, but principles never change. That's why almost all traditional CMA share a common language, spoken with varying degrees of fluency.

So the whole notion that there's some kind of prototypical CMC form is plain nonsense. He kept on modifying it throughout his life, and anyone who thinks there's improvement to be found by copying him will end up in the soup.

Is CMC respected in the Taiwan CMA community ?

Not at all while he was alive. I don't know what people there think now, but the older generation haven't changed their views.

[johnwang]

Is CMC respected in the Taiwan CMA community ?

Back in the 70th, there was a newspaper article, "The 7 best TCMA masters in Taiwan". As far as I remember, CMC's name was not in that list.