willie wrote:Taste of Death wrote:
Whether internal or external the form looks the same. How would the guards know the difference? Touch hands with most taiji guys and they are external. And that includes most of the so-called masters. No matter how hard they train the secrets never reveal themselves and that is because they were never taught them.
LOL! no one even agrees on what internal is...
it is a worthless conversation and one that should be done with the questioner in the horizontal position.
o.k. so what are the secrets?
amor wrote:Chen seems to focus more on 'structure' but Yang seems to believe that structure is not so important
MaartenSFS wrote:Last week my master told me that he had been doing some research and talking to people and that he believes that Taijiquan doesn't come from Chenjiagou. He has studied most styles of Taijiquan, so he has no bias towards one or another.
He told me that the Chen clan was known for their Paoquan and that the names (and movements) in the form obviously show a Buddhist, Shaolin influence, whereas Yang and the other styles from out of Chenjiagou are more Daoist in nature. He believes that a Taijiquan master came to Chenjiagou and taught Chen Wangting the original (TM) Taijiquan.
It was evnetually passed down to Chen Changxing, who wasn't able to teach it, as it was frowned upon by the others in Chenjiagou (being an art from the OUTSIDE), so he taught Yang Luchan, as no one was allowed to teach him Paoquan anyways, as he was an outsider. Over time some Taijiquan rubbed off on others in the village and the Paoquan gradually became Chen Taijiquan. It wasn't until Yang Taijiquan became popular that they changed the name. So, even then, they were already savvy marketers. Yang's style, Shifu says, bears an uncanny resemblance so Wudang style and he doesn't believe that it was his style that influenced Wudang.
Still, my master studied Chen Taijiquan and highly respects it as a form of Taijiquan (and the others as well), just not the original. Yang Luchan, he says, learned many other arts before and after he studied in Chenjiagou three times. After he left the last time he systemised his own art, which was a mixture of a lot of things as well.
In the end, one can rest assured that we can never know the exact foundations of all of these arts and should instead focus on learning and being able to use them as best we can and not blindly follow a village's PR. Similarly, that Zhang Sanfeng created the art is also likely a crock of shite. Anyways, happy training!
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