CMC Style, who stayed true to the form?

[SCMT]

I’m mostly curious, and for possible future reference, as to who is out there that has stayed true to the form that Cheng Manching developed. And as much as I like William CC Chen (and I hope to train with him sometime in the not too distant future), he is not the guy. He took 2 or 3 forms out and added 2 or 3 different forms back in and he narrowed the stance a bit.

Who is out there teaching today that stayed true to CMC’s form?

[johnwang]

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.

[allen2saint]

Out of all of CMC's students who are in the public eye in the US, William Chen is the most technically proficient by a long shot. If your standard is merely who imitates who's form move by move then I think your Tai Chi education is in for some difficult times, because that is meaningless.

[Bao]

Tai chi is about personalization and understanding of principles, not about staying true to an external shape.

[nicklinjm]

Agree with the other posters, who cares which of CMC's students/grand-students copied the form the best? Surely the important thing is who gained CMC's skill. FWIW, think closest person form-wise would be Wu Kuo Chung of Taiwan, but for skills surely the masters in Malaysia/Singapore (Tan Ching Ngee, Lau Kim Hong, Koh Ah Tee) would be a better bet?

[bailewen]

This:

Why do you even want to stay true to CMC's form? He created that form himself not too long ago. . .

All the other comments are good too but I sort of understand the desire to learn a form exactly as it was created. There's something really neat about that sort of historical preservation. Also, even if you learn the 'new' version or make all sort of modifcations, I think it's kind of important to know what it was changed from and why.

That being said, wanting to do that with a CMC form is kind of funny because of what John said there. He himself taught huge liberties with the form that he learned from Yang Chengfu.

[Bao]

All the other comments are good too but I sort of understand the desire to learn a form exactly as it was created. There's something really neat about that sort of historical preservation. Also, even if you learn the 'new' version or make all sort of modifcations, I think it's kind of important to know what it was changed from and why.

IMHO, a student has the right to learn a certain standard and an original form. But it's more important to not treat it as sacred. Any form, standard or variation, is just an example of how you can connect different movements together, and how you can interprete specific movements within the same form.

[RobP2]

Is there such a thing as a standard historical TCC form? Seems every teacher adapted it in some way, even in the same family line. I guess the modern 24 type forms are an exception, but I guess they were developed more for performance purposes

[Steve James]

Is there such a thing as a standard historical [Yang] TCC form?

Yeah, it was/is YCF's form. He was called the "great popularizer." His brothers and uncles had different versions; some with jumps, etc. I think your question is whether there was an original TCC form that everyone else adopted or did everyone have their own form. My guess is probably not. Long choreographed forms came after the individual movements had been practiced singly or in small combinations (imo).

Afa CMC's form, it is his own expression of tcc principles. WCC Chen's form is not the same as CMC's. TT Liang's form is also slightly different, iirc.

[Bao]

. I think your question is whether there was an original TCC form that everyone else adopted or did everyone have their own form.

Everyone learned the Chen small frame, so this should be the standard form, or reference. But because Chen style has been modernized and standardized, mostly from Chen fake, the original "look" of the form was probably not perfectly identical to how it is performed nowadays. In some respects it probably resembled the small frame of Old Wu style. But this is just speculation. Nevertheless, to return to something that is modernized and call it the original form would be silly.

[SCMT]

alrighty then

Like I said I was "mostly curious" for the record I have been I Yang style, Tung lineage" for about 20 years and I have a little Chen under my belt too. So I know that no ones form is the same and I know things evolve. But I have gotten tired of Yang Taiji as I do it and I am looking elsewhere and I have become intrigued by what William CC Chen is doing which is why I originally said " I hope to train with him sometime in the not too distant future". Also had a chance to see TT Liang do his form the year before he passed away.

Now, I am mostly curious as to who out there is doing the form "Close" to what CMC did and the reason really is that I am mostly curious. However I do not rule out that there is some slim chance that I might go check it out for myself to feel the differences "for myself" between my Yang style and (if I go this route) Willian Chen's style and CMC's style. I kind of enjoy that, felt those differences between Yang and Chen.

Thanks

[yeniseri]

This:

Why do you even want to stay true to CMC's form? He created that form himself not too long ago. . .

All the other comments are good too but I sort of understand the desire to learn a form exactly as it was created. There's something really neat about that sort of historical preservation. Also, even if you learn the 'new' version or make all sort of modifcations, I think it's kind of important to know what it was changed from and why.

That being said, wanting to do that with a CMC form is kind of funny because of what John said there. He himself taught huge liberties with the form that he learned from Yang Chengfu.

I would say that the historical preservation will always be there regardless, but function and utility will adapt to external conditions. Far more difficult to know what changed and why as I look at Zhaobao (nearby Chen village town) vis a vis Chen to Yang to Wu2 to Wu3? to Sun etc. External representations will change based on utility and the reason will never be apparent except to say that my obvious characterization is the modern taiji(quan) is about performance skill, nandu and gymnastic excellence. That is about as distinct a reason for that version of reality!

[Steve James]

Well, standard means something different to me, I guess. No particular Chen style can be the "standard" for Sun. Now, if someone claims that the Chen small frame was the first "form", ok. But, does that mean that the Chen's invented doing a form? Or, is it that they were the first to practice the movements in a particular sequence?

[windwalker]

I’m mostly curious, and for possible future reference, as to who is out there that has stayed true to the form that Cheng Manching developed. And as much as I like William CC Chen (and I hope to train with him sometime in the not too distant future), he is not the guy. He took 2 or 3 forms out and added 2 or 3 different forms back in and he narrowed the stance a bit.

Who is out there teaching today that stayed true to CMC’s form?

http://www.taichiandqigong.com/yang_compare.php

Standardization

But the message is clear: it can now be stated that the Yang style has been clearly standardized as a form. Many American Yang style practitioners will be forced to recognize that their form has varied somewhat from the original. Some have overemphasized hidden potential applications, while others have over emphasized the passive chi gung experience. To the extent that these people recognize they are using the form for their own purposes, there should be no problem. However, they will be forced to realize they are practicing a variation of the standard Yang family style.

Sung

In the case of the Cheng Manching style that has recently been erroneously referred to as the Yang style, this seminar proved there may be less room for confusion between the two internal styles. In fact, Yang Zhenduo went to great lengths to diferentiate between the types of movement exemplified in the Cheng Manching and his father's style; and he made it clear that he wanted to highlight essential requirements of his father's style. These stylistic differences can be summarized by the difference in interpretation over the Chinese word "sung." To the Cheng Manching stylists this word has always contained the ideas of being sunken, relaxed and empty. Yang Zhenduo, however, emphasized the characteristics of being open, extended and full.

To Yang Zhenduo, the Cheng Manching style would appear weak and collapsed. To the Cheng stylist, the Yang style might appear too overextended or external.

In light of some of the posters talking about standards, and differences, the link address some of this, written many yrs back.
dont quite agree with the conclusions.
interesting read.

Of all of Professor Cheng Man-Ch’ing’s students of Tai Chi Ch’uan,
Master Benjamin Pang Jeng Lo is one of the most respected, due to his
ceaseless dedication to maintaining and preserving the art of Tai Chi as it
was taught to him. Ben began studying under Professor Cheng Man-ch'ing
in Taiwan in 1949. He originally sought the Professor’s famous medical
advice due to illness, and only began studying Tai Chi to “make my body
stronger so that it could absorb the medicine he was giving me”. He
continued his studies with the Professor for twentysix years until Cheng’s
death in 1975.

He learned well. Renowned martial arts writer and teacher Robert W
Smith, who has probably studied and “played” with more martial artists
than almost anyone, lauds Ben’s skill in his 1999 book “Martial Musings”

http://www.taichicenterofmadison.com/do ... io_000.pdf

Studied with "Ben" also with another lesser known of ZMQ, professor "ken wen chi", who learned directly from ZMQ in Taiwan.
"Ben" is retired now, but has students that carry on his teachings and methods.

Cheng Man Ching The Official Family-Run Website

http://chengmanching.net/

might be a good idea to check out the family run web site

[allen2saint]

No disrespect to Ben Lo, but I think the omission of William Chen and exclusive focus on Ben Lo, at least from the CMC end, is due to the political/relational break between William Chen and CMC in the...70's? Whenever it was. Though William Chen has never spoken ill of CMC and has been friendly with CMC's family in public, there still seems to be a lot of bad blood between the martial arts students and orgs of the respective teachers. In NYC Lawrence Galante is also a popular CMC teacher who, according to his story anyway, CMC said he "could teach him no more" after a long teacher-student relationship. I understand he is not very generous when it comes to teaching or training past the form. He can push, but I understand he is pretty cagey about teaching people how to do it.