Yang Shou-Chung, Chu King-Hung and Erle plus Snake Style

Discussion on the three big Chinese internals, Yiquan, Bajiquan, Piguazhang and other similar styles.

Re: Yang Shou-Chung, Chu King-Hung and Erle plus Snake Style

Postby GrahamB on Tue Feb 19, 2013 1:03 am

Regardless of what names are given to the postures most, if not all 'old Yang' styles will probably follow the same basic pattern as the Yang Cheng Fu form (i.e. some sort of ward off then grasp birds tail, then single whip, etc..), since it follows the same basic pattern of the Chen form (yi lu, I believe) since that was what Yang Lu Chan used as the basis of his form - you can see the same patterns of movements in Chen, Yang, Sun, Big Wu, LIttle Wu and most things in between.

What changes a lot between the lineages is the way the postures and transitions are done - some are complicated, some are simpler to make them easier to learn or emphasis the 'qi gong' elements to make it better for health. Length of stance varies greatly between Yang and Sun, for example. Mostly I think it's all done to the preference of the lineage holder or creator of that style - maybe they liked throwing applications over striking, maybe they were faced with teaching hundreds of people at once, maybe they also studied Bagua or another martial art and wanted to put the good bits of that into it, maybe they didn't want to show some particularly nasty neck breaking application to children, maybe they couldn't get one app to work to their satisfaction, so they changed it to something they could do better, maybe they just wanted their personal stamp on it so they could call it theirs and own it..... Whatever.

It's all lost in the choking smog of Beijing by now.

I do an 'old' Yang style myself - it had no influence from Cheng Fu in it, came from his father, then went to Li Jing Lin, his friend and contemporary Sun Lu Tang had some input onto it (I believe), then Ku Yu Chang, then from his student Yim Sheung Mo to my teacher's teacher. All of these individuals probably added something to it, changed its flavour in some way and made it the unique thing that it is. It basically follows the exact same sequence as all the other styles of Tai Chi, the moves are just done in a different way.

Vid of me doing a short form derived from this Long Form -

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=satexNS15EQ

It definitely exists :)
Last edited by GrahamB on Tue Feb 19, 2013 1:05 am, edited 1 time in total.
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Re: Yang Shou-Chung, Chu King-Hung and Erle plus Snake Style

Postby daniel pfister on Tue Feb 19, 2013 5:25 pm

Doc Stier wrote: Yang Cheng-Fu was so successful in popularizing his style in this way that second and third generation members of other Tai-Chi Chuan families followed his example in similarly editing and modifying the original form sets of their family styles also, thus sacrificing most of the martial elements received from their family predecessors as well. :-\


Are you saying here that Wu Style and Sun Style were modified to look more like YCF's style after he popularized his form?
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Re: Yang Shou-Chung, Chu King-Hung and Erle plus Snake Style

Postby Doc Stier on Wed Feb 20, 2013 12:46 pm

daniel pfister wrote:
Doc Stier wrote: Yang Cheng-Fu was so successful in popularizing his style in this way that second and third generation members of other Tai-Chi Chuan families followed his example in similarly editing and modifying the original form sets of their family styles also, thus sacrificing most of the martial elements received from their family predecessors as well. :-\


Are you saying here that Wu Style and Sun Style were modified to look more like YCF's style after he popularized his form?

No! All of the major tai-chi chuan styles have long demonstrated an easily identifiable stylistic performance preference which is signature to each of their respective styles. Thus, it's easy for those who have seen the major styles regularly demonstrated to recognize Chen style, Yang style, Wu style, and so forth, even if the viewer doesn't personally know or practice the form set being demonstrated.

My comment was simply that family leaders of other styles made similar modifications to what they had received from their predecessors, and for similar reasons, as Yang Cheng-Fu did to what he had received. None of the major family styles of tai-chi chuan teach the earliest form sets of their styles as the 'flagship' standard today. All have been significantly modified by successive generations one or more times to date. We know this to be true as there has always been at least a few teachers and practitioners who chose to continue training the older material, rather than the newer versions presented, usually because they considered the older methods to be superior to the supposedly "new and improved" version.
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Re: Yang Shou-Chung, Chu King-Hung and Erle plus Snake Style

Postby SCMT on Wed Feb 20, 2013 3:04 pm

Doc Stier wrote:In recent years, there have been many naysayers who insist that the Yang Style Tai-Chi Chuan taught and practiced by family members prior to the version developed by Yang Cheng-Fu is the same art. They usually offer this opinion apparently even without having ever seen the older form sets for comparison. If they haven't personally seen or learned these older form sets, they argue that such forms can't possibly exist and never did. Wow! That's some totally brilliant deductive reasoning there! Really? Seriously? ::)

Yang Cheng Fu left behind only one solo form with several variations, which his book calls the Modified Large Frame 85 Forms Solo Set. His solo form set was not one of the original Yang Family form sets. It is an abbreviated solo form set with a simplified performance style which he developed for public teaching by editing and modifying an earlier 'family hands' form set (jia-shou-xing). This simplified solo form was designed to make it easier for students to learn Tai-Chi Chuan, and introduced a shift in training priorities from a personal fighting art for individual use to a health exercise and self-cultivation art for the masses.

He succeeded marvelously, but at the cost of sacrificing most of the martial training methods practiced by the previous generations of his family. Yang Cheng-Fu was so successful in popularizing his style in this way that second and third generation members of other Tai-Chi Chuan families followed his example in similarly editing and modifying the original form sets of their family styles also, thus sacrificing most of the martial elements received from their family predecessors as well. :-\


If I do'd it, I'd get a whipping.... I do'd it ;D

Yang Luchan Changed Chen (possibly Laojia yilu or its predecessor - current Chen family claim is it was Laojia Yilu)
Yang Jianhou changed what he learned from Yang Luchan
Yang Chengfu changed what he learned from Yang Jianhou
There has been some speculation that what Yang Banhou taught was much closer to what his father taught him and what Yang Shouhou taught was much closer to what he learned form his uncle (Banhou)

Now here is here is the bit that will not go over well and likely many will say is not true, if so I really don’t much care, Yang Chengfu knew he changed it and likely a bit too much and that is why he was in discussion with one of his senior students about the addition of another form that was more of a fajin set. However when they actually got to the physical bits of working on it, Yang Chengfu died. The set was finished based on the discussion but it is only in one line as far as I can tell. That line has two fast forms and only one is called Yang. The second one is full of a whole lot of qinna since the student who developed it was a real big fan of qinna.

OK, I’m done
Last edited by SCMT on Wed Feb 20, 2013 3:09 pm, edited 2 times in total.
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Re: Yang Shou-Chung, Chu King-Hung and Erle plus Snake Style

Postby wayne hansen on Wed Feb 20, 2013 6:26 pm

grahame u seem to give a linage then leave out your teachers nane and his teachers name is there any reason for that.
scmt are u refering to the dong /tung style
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Re: Yang Shou-Chung, Chu King-Hung and Erle plus Snake Style

Postby SCMT on Wed Feb 20, 2013 8:09 pm

wayne hansen wrote:scmt are u refering to the dong /tung style


Yes and no, I do not believe it was not called Tung/Dong style until Dong Zeng Chen, Tung Ying Chieh’s Grandson, Tung Hu Ling’s youngest son. My sifu was a student of Tung Ying Chieh and calls it Yang style like his sifu did.

Also some of what I see from Dong Zeng Chen is different than what my sifu does. However what you see from Tung Kai Ying (Tung Hu Ling's oldest son) is closer to what my sifu does.
Last edited by SCMT on Wed Feb 20, 2013 8:15 pm, edited 4 times in total.
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Re: Yang Shou-Chung, Chu King-Hung and Erle plus Snake Style

Postby Andy_S on Wed Feb 20, 2013 9:08 pm

SNIP
Yang Luchan Changed Chen (possibly Laojia yilu or its predecessor - current Chen family claim is it was Laojia Yilu)
Yang Jianhou changed what he learned from Yang Luchan
Yang Chengfu changed what he learned from Yang Jianhou
There has been some speculation that what Yang Banhou taught was much closer to what his father taught him and what Yang Shouhou taught was much closer to what he learned form his uncle (Banhou)_
SNIP

This is the odd thing about the Yang style: There seems to be massive stylistic variation - rather than simple modification - within just three generations.

OTOH, if you look at the other styles - Chen, Wu, Hao, Zhaobao, etc - they are all much more similar across these generations (or, in the Chen style, probably longer).

This, I think, is why there are so many questions hanging over the credibility of some Yangsters. (Naming no names.)

But it is interesting to debate what the original curricula were, and why these curricula managed to produce two (arguably, three) generations of super-fighters. Then - suddenly! - it is an exercise for old ladies just one generations subsequent.

I can't think of another example in history of a form of combative technology transitioning so very radically.
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Re: Yang Shou-Chung, Chu King-Hung and Erle plus Snake Style

Postby Doc Stier on Thu Feb 21, 2013 1:08 am

Andy_S wrote:This is the odd thing about the Yang style: There seems to be massive stylistic variation - rather than simple modification - within just three generations.

OTOH, if you look at the other styles - Chen, Wu, Hao, Zhaobao, etc - they are all much more similar across these generations (or, in the Chen style, probably longer).

But it is interesting to debate what the original curricula were, and why these curricula managed to produce two (arguably, three) generations of super-fighters. Then - suddenly! - it is an exercise for old ladies just one generations subsequent.

I can't think of another example in history of a form of combative technology transitioning so very radically.

The "massive stylistic variation" seen within the ranks of Yang Style Tai-Chi Chuan is simply due to the vast numbers of people who have pursued learning this style since it first became openly available to the general public during the early years of the 20th century. Up until the 1980's, the Yang style was the most popular style of tai-chi chuan worldwide, claiming as many practitioners as all other styles combined by most estimations, primarily due to the fame of the early family masters. Unfortunately, when large group classes taught in public venues for limited time periods replaced the older norm of individual students learning from a master in private one on one training sessions or small training groups for many years time, the average skill level quality among students declined dramatically overall.

Attrition rates were very high in these group classes, just as it often is today, but new students continued to appear, eager to learn. More people were practicing Yang style tai-chi chuan than ever before, but the number of students who were willing to study long enough and train seriously enough to successfully master the style was much lower than ever before. However, those with only a very basic, short term learning experience often dropped out far too soon to teach others. The result has been nearly as many different interpretations of Yang Style Tai-Chi Chuan as there were teachers thereof.

Additionally, the new focus on practicing only slowly and softly for health and self-cultivation, often being advertised solely as an exercise for health and longevity, or as a moving meditation, all but insured that most students wouldn't be introduced to the older martial aspects of the art. And the fact that these skills disappeared so quickly after Yang Cheng-Fu's modifications is a testimony to how different his revision is from the older family versions of the style.

If current family leaders of the Yang style and other major tai-chi chuan styles are practicing the same methods used by their predecessors, why aren't they demonstrating the same skill levels as previous generations did? The same training methods should produce the same results in serious practitioners of any style across the board. Instead, it is known that the earlier masters of every major tai-chi chuan style, and their best students, typically demonstrated tremendous internal energy development and combat application skills which have been only rarely seen in the past 75-100 years time, especially in the post-1940 era to date.

I contend that this is due to changes made in the training regimens of each style by subsequent family members. This has gradually included changes in the form sets, changes of stylistic performance, as well as changes in practice agenda priorities. These trends in every style have resulted in a dramatically changed overall perspective regarding what should be practiced, how it should be practiced, and why.
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Re: Yang Shou-Chung, Chu King-Hung and Erle plus Snake Style

Postby GrahamB on Thu Feb 21, 2013 1:11 am

wayne hansen wrote:grahame u seem to give a linage then leave out your teachers nane and his teachers name is there any reason for that.
scmt are u refering to the dong /tung style


Didn't think it was relevant. It's not secret - you can find the whole lineage and names/pictures in my article, if you're so interested.

http://www.bath-taichi.co.uk/Bath_Tai_Chi/Lineage.html
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Re: Yang Shou-Chung, Chu King-Hung and Erle plus Snake Style

Postby extrajoseph on Thu Feb 21, 2013 1:57 am

To me, TJQ as a form of combatative technology has not changed, it is the social, political and technological changes that makes us think TJQ has changed.
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Re: Yang Shou-Chung, Chu King-Hung and Erle plus Snake Style

Postby RobP2 on Thu Feb 21, 2013 2:11 am

Doc Stier wrote:

If current family leaders of the Yang style and other major tai-chi chuan styles are practicing the same methods used by their predecessors, why aren't they demonstrating the same skill levels as previous generations did? The same training methods should produce the same results in serious practitioners of any style across the board. Instead, it is known that the earlier masters of every major tai-chi chuan style, and their best students, typically demonstrated tremendous internal energy development and combat application skills which have been only rarely seen in the past 75-100 years time, especially in the post-1940 era to date.



Perhaps earlier reports are exaggerated?
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Re: Yang Shou-Chung, Chu King-Hung and Erle plus Snake Style

Postby extrajoseph on Thu Feb 21, 2013 2:36 am

Perhaps the needs have changed?
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Re: Yang Shou-Chung, Chu King-Hung and Erle plus Snake Style

Postby Steve Rowe on Thu Feb 21, 2013 4:32 am

As Harry Hill would say, there's only one way to settle this.....

For the questioner, they have to be clear what the end result is of what they want to learn and then find a coach that can 'do the business'. Validation always has to be physical surely?
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Re: Yang Shou-Chung, Chu King-Hung and Erle plus Snake Style

Postby Tesshu on Thu Feb 21, 2013 5:42 am

Maybe just the forms have changed because of the different preferences of the practitioners?!

Surely it seems that body and mind conditioning exercises also got lost for most people. But this is a different problem and not a question of stylistic change.
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Re: Yang Shou-Chung, Chu King-Hung and Erle plus Snake Style

Postby extrajoseph on Thu Feb 21, 2013 6:28 am

May be the different needs lead to different preferences, lead to different styles, lead to different forms, lead to different names, but the Taiji principles have not changed, just a different manifestations of Yin and Yang in so many different ways. IMO, an accomplished practitioner should be able to get the hub of the wheels and be able to ride on all these different terrains comfortably, but it does not mean he will win all the fights and heal all sicknesses, that is just not humanly possible, but somehow our aesthetic and a sense of touch can tell when someone is more accomplished than another and this ability increases as our knowledge and wisdom increase over time.
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