any body know yang ban hou style?

[mixjourneyman]

Ah, the old challenge stories. Surprised Mix had never heard the famous Li Shijun challenge - seems to be widely known. Interesting, also, that each match finished with a single throw, rather than with a G&P finisher or submission, a la MMA.

Yeah, well, you know in ancient China if you fell on the ground you would just get stabbed with a spear and die, so they didn't need a ground game doncha know....

[Wuyizidi]

Ah, the old challenge stories. Surprised Mix had never heard the famous Li Shijun challenge - seems to be widely known. Interesting, also, that each match finished with a single throw, rather than with a G&P finisher or submission, a la MMA.

Yeah, well, you know in ancient China if you fell on the ground you would just get stabbed with a spear and die, so they didn't need a ground game doncha know....

This is one area you can clearly see how martial art, like anything else humans do, is influenced by environment and culture.

Ever wonder why Japanese people take off their shoes when entering a house? Because in Japan space has always been severely limited. Without shoes, you can have a clean floor, and that opens it up for all kinds of uses. You can now sit on the ground. Once you eliminated the tall, bulky chairs, all the other pieces of furniture can be smaller and shorter. You can now put more things on the ground. And you can now have clever easy-to-reach compartments build into nearby floor, staircases, and walls ...

If we page through a typical iaido manual, we can see a significant portion of the techniques are based on social situations where samurais are sitting on the floor indoors. How we fight is a reflection of how we live. The same is true for empty hand ground techniques. Today we talk about BJJ, but let's not forget Japan is where it all got started. If the Japanese people do not spend so much of their lives on the ground, would we have this much indoor ground fighting techniques?

In China (and most of the world), we don't have this "ground culture", so we have a more typical attitude toward the ground (high vs low, what is considered normal, clean, what can be done there, etc). Even today, if you beat someone to the ground, and they are lying there, looking up "hey, I haven't lost yet. I can still fight. Come down to my level." We call that person Wu Lai. Lai is like when you're playing a game with kids, and they are losing, so they change the rules, or they change the board/pieces, just because they don't want to admit they lost. So Wu Lai means totally shameless. If someone did that, people would just sneer and walk away, never bother to fight that person again.

Wuyizidi

[mixjourneyman]

Right, but if we look at it from a pragmatic standpoint, you get in a fight, the guy goes to throw you, you pull guard, you get an arm bar or a choke on him, you win. Chinese philosophy has nothing to do with that no matter what part of the world you are in.
If its me or the other guy, I would much rather win by fighting "dirty" than lose and get hurt.

[edededed]

Liu Shijun
Famous master of Liu He, Yue Shi Lian Quan, Eagle Claw, and Fan Zi styles. Teacher of Liu Dekuan and Ji Zixiu. He too was an instructor of one of the elite capital garrisons.

One day Yang Luchan was resting at home when Yang Banhou came back, all happy: "I challenged Liu Shijun today. I threw him. I won."
Yang Luchan: "Are you sure about that? You might have thrown him, but he could have killed you if he wanted to."
Yang Banhou: "what do you mean?"
Yang Luchan: "look under your armpits."

It is only then Yang Banhou noticed the cloth under both armpits were torn. Liu Shijun was an eagle claw expert. With his hand conditioning he could have easily gone through the armpits and killed Banhou.

By tradition if you lose a challenge, you have to leave town. So Yang Luchan took Bahou with him, and rushed to Liu Shijun's place. Liu was already packing, ready to resign his post. The elder Yang talked with him, telling him how this was just a casual fight, it meant nothing, and besides, Liu took mercy on Banhou, it was in no way a loss, and how appreciative of Yang's are of his wu de, etc. In the end Liu Shijun stayed and became a good friend.

These very well known episodes tell us a lot about the differences in character and personality between and Yang the elder and the younger. In both fights, we can say Banhou's carelessness played a big role in the outcomes.

Wuyizidi.

Hmm - I wonder if this was the beginning of how some of Liu's students (i.e. Liu Dekuan and Ji Zixiu) began to learn taijiquan as well?

[BJJallday]

Ah, the old challenge stories. Surprised Mix had never heard the famous Li Shijun challenge - seems to be widely known. Interesting, also, that each match finished with a single throw, rather than with a G&P finisher or submission, a la MMA.

i don't really have any horses in the taiji race here, but do you really think someone could rip out the armpits of your shirt w/o you knowing right away? and i believe ma gui w/ his bagua skill could possibly beat yang banhou, but unbalancing him from touch? dunno about that. oh well, like someone here said, those stories are mostly masturbation

[Doc Stier]

Ah, the old challenge stories.

oh well, like someone here said, those stories are mostly masturbation

Or what is traditionally referred to as 'Wild History'.

Doc

[Formosa Neijia]

Yang Jwingming claims to teach a Yang Banhou form: He learned it from a teacher in Taiwan who never named it, and who he later lost contact with, but many years later, was watching wushu on TV late at night and saw an old boy doing a Yang BH form and it was nearly identical to his. Then, some years later again, he was practicting it in (I think) China, and an old boy came up and said, "Wow! Yang BH's form! I haven't seen that for years!" Make of this what thou wilt.

Andy,
He recently found his old teacher again:
http://www.ymaa.com/articles/taijiquan-master-gao-tao

They had lost contact for many years. I wonder if the nature of Dr. Yang's taiji will now be cleared up?

Dave C.

[AllanF]

Never heard the Ma Gui story before but i have heard a different version of the Li Shijun story, simply YBH came home all proud and said "i was in a fight and won!" YLC looked at his cloths and said "Not yielding enough!"

But one thing that is inconsistent in these stories is that if, as stated, when you loose a fight you have to leave town, why is YBH still in Beijing and still teaching the imperial guards? Secondly given that YBH was a bit of a brash/arrogant man surely he would have lost a severe amount of face not once but twice.

I can not imagine he would have:
a) stayed around with people knowing he had been beaten.
b) Not tried to get a rematch
c) continued to become know through out Beijing as an arrogant man supremely confident in his fighting skills.