If we all disagree its cool...No biggy I got to stop... anymore and I'm trolling... and that's not cool.
I can tell from the context that you aren't trolling at all so much as just stating what I believe to be your honest opinion regardless of the fact that you know ahead of time it's something likely to ruffle some feathers. No biggie. I waited a few days before responding just to make sure I could do so without getting overly cantankerous or anything.
In Zhang Feng Jie's book.....*snip*... he states that the style is more Bagua than Taijiquan.... and judging by the Quan shown... it is.... That is your linage right?
I am not familiar with the guy. Don't know his lineage but I was able to dig up his form online:
http://www.tudou.com/programs/view/MWkhzXZQBg0/I am hard pressed to find any connection between what is being shown here and what I learned. I found info on his lineage in 2 places, ironically, one of them is an announcement here on RSF:
http://rumsoakedfist.org/viewtopic.php?f=4&t=15893http://www.pandahi.com/1000753470.htmlI am not clear why his VCD is shown in the baike article as his name does not appear anywhere in the content.
Because Zhang Feng Jie's Bagua Taijiquan can trace "Some of the arts influences" in its linage to Yang Lu Chan... that's OLD Yang Style??? ? If so... then by that logic.... Chen Fu's art holds more weight as being a "truer form" of and "Old Yang Style" after all he was family...
What I train is not officially called "baguataijiquan". That is just a popular nickname. The official name of the form is "Yang Style Old Frame 103". When you try to google it, you tend to get a lot of so called "bagua taijiquan" hits because the lineage comes down from Wu Junshan who was more famous for Bagua. I made a point of trying to find links that did not from our own internal family records. The most widely accepted lineage is roughly as follows:
Guo Yunshan is missing from the chart. He should be there along side Dong Haichuan and Yang Luchan as the form incorporates plenty of Xingyi as well. YLC created the form based on input and experiences with DHC and GYS.
In any case, it is not a matter of "Yang influence". It is a straight up Yang style form and the basic performance flavour is pretty classic Yang. Where it differs is in that there is a much greater diversity of technique. Bagua footwork has been layered on top of various Yang style methods and Xingyi bits such as beng quan, "tiger pounces" and even various Bagua hand methods like piercing or single palm changes can be found throughout.
... To believe Chen fu made up his art? I can't belive this .... again because it looks to much like the Wu and the Hao which where created when he was a child. YES YCF Watered down the art, softened it up for the masses...Yes!!! especially in his later years... but made it up from scratch? Not the Quan,(i.e. the form)
Of course he didn't make it up. He obviously based it on his grandfather's art. And I wouldn't say "watered down" or "softened up". He
simplified it. It's a process that it patently obvious to me after having watched my own teacher create a simplified version of the 103 that is his core art. We now have a 36 step form that can be learned in a couple weeks if you already have a decent foundation. On account of having trained the 103 for some years before ever learning the 36, I was able to pick it up basically in an afternoon. Same moves I already knew, just memorize the sequence and how to streamline the moves (ie. how much stuff you can leave out)
It only takes about 6 or 7 minuted to perform and, while clearly based on the 103 and full of good stuff, vast amounts of material has been removed. IMHO, there's still a hell of a lot more useful stuff in there than the Beijing 24 but there is no denying that it is a vastly simplified version of the original. Shifu created it, AFAIK, for similar reasons to why YCF created his. The reasons for the 36 are:
- easily learned.
- sometimes you don't have a full hour to practice. A 5-7 minute form is great for lunch breaks or stuff like that.
- more suitable to public performances. Again, nobody is going to sit and watch an hour of Taiji as some temple festival.
- it can be shared publicly which is good for promoting the style. The 103 is absolutely inner door stuff. No public video allowed.
In any case, while clearly not "the" old frame Yang, it's obviously "a" old frame Yang. It's not what Doc teaches but the differences from the YCF version are dramatic enough.