Evolution of Taiji Quan?

[Slim]

My experience with both Chen and Wu is that they both, by necessity of design, train high and low stances.

Chen people most defiantly use high stances, although I've rarely seen it in public (other say than Feng Zhiqiang).
Also my teacher, a 3rd gen. Wu stylist from Shanghai, at times will have his students working on a low stance while practicing the Wu Jianquan round form.

IMHO basicly what Ors layed out seems pretty on the money:

Unfortunatelly when someone speak about the different schools, they usually imagine the form, what they see from an avarage competition or an avarage demo. This kind of form is a representative of the style, so this kind of thinking is acceptable.
But! There are lots of methods to train a form, and you can't say that chenstyle is low, yangstyle is medium level and the wu styles are high, because there is medium or high practice in chenstyle as well, and low and high practice in yangstyle and so...
I would say that the development goes from big to small, and from small to unseen, but you can find that, in every kind of taijiquan not just one.

Cheers.

[Doc Stier]

In the early Yang Style Tai-Chi Chuan, prior to 1930, there are clear differences between the Large Frame Sets and the Small Frame Sets. They are definitely not simply different ways of performing what is essentially the same form set, as often seen today within some of the major family styles. They are uniquely separate form sets, with different sequential arrangements of postures, and are practiced with uniquely different training agendas for specifically different goals. The Small Frame Sets also include individual form postures which do not appear in the Medium Frame and Large Frame Sets.

Generally speaking, the Large Frame Sets are practiced with larger circularity of the arm and hand movements; use longer steps and considerably lower stances; and are performed at a much slower normal speed of performance. The intention is to develop a relaxed flexibility of the body's physical structure; to increase overall physical strength, stamina, and endurance, especially regarding the lower body (legs and hips/kua); to establish centering and rooting through a progressive lowering of the body's center of gravity, combined with a gradual sinking, consolidation, compression, and storage of the intrinsic energy between the lower abdomen and the perineum; and to open and clear the internal energy meridian channels so they can transport a larger volume of energy with less resistance to and from the extremities, as well as to and from the major internal organs.

These training agenda priorities make the Large Frame Sets a moving chi-kung exercise internally and an athletic conditioning exercise externally, while simultaneously blending and synchronizing both in order to develop a unified power for fighting applications later on.

The Small Frame Sets are essentially Fighting Forms or Usage Forms. As such, stances are much less low to the ground, and steps are shorter and more frequent, producing footwork that is more rapid and agile on the whole. Additionally, the circularity of arm and hand movements is much smaller and faster, with more frequent and pronounced power issuance (fa-jin) throughout the set. This training agenda focuses on fighting applications for combat usage as the primary goal, and allows a competent practitioner to make maximum use of the internal and external qualities developed in the Large Frame Sets when applying the smaller, faster postures to actual combat usage.

In stark contrast, most of what I see presented as Small Frame Sets or Fast Forms in different styles today are essentially only minor modifications of Medium and Large Frame Sets, perhaps performed at a slightly faster speed or with slightly smaller steps and circularity, if even that, but without any greater mental or physical expression of practical combative application priorities.

There are exceptions of course, but not many.

[ors]

Hi Bao!

Sorry for the late answer! I have no freetime in the last days to write...

[quote ]... while in xiaojia there are lots of possibly centers, or (if you want) a continously changing center.

Well, that was certainly an interesting thought, something I haven't heard about before. Is it about the three different Dan Tian, shoulder/scapula movement or something else? Maybe you could develop it? [/quote]

It is about the joints. Every joint of the body can be a center of movement. The dajia way of movement develop one strong basis (center) of the movement what is usually somewhere close to the dantian area. Some use a pont inside the body usually the middle dantian, some use a point in front of the body. The concept of this kind of movement is that the person is like a ball, and his movements are like the ball rotating or rolling, with a fix center.
Those who place this center in front of his belly use a concept where the person an his "enemy" make a ball together and the center of his movements similar to the center of this ball. This way in the form the hands represent the enemy as one half of the ball, and your own torso is the other half o this ball. This concept is quite common in the chenjiagou forms.

In xiaojia this conceptual ball is not one big ball, but lots of smaller one, where there is a contact with the enemy, there will be a center of this ball and in this way there will be a center of the movement.

In the Kai/He part you are right of course. What I have tried to say is that the dajia usually uses a more open body. They emphasize more the opening. They use much bigger movements to open up the body. Usually the stances are wilder the movements are bigger but not necessary deeper than in xiaojia…

In xiaojia the body is more “solid” or closed. The stances are narrower, the movements are smaller but not necessary higher than in dajia…

Both of these concepts or methods can deliver the practioner to an understanding of Kai/He naturally, But the way, they use are different.

So, maybe I was easily misunderstood, since my English is not the best and I not always use the right phrases, but all I wanted to say that the different is not in the deepness or highness of the stances…

Sophisticated? If you call commercialising sophisticated that is... That is almost everything the Taiji stylists was doing by that time, Chen or Yang, -they were trying to make business out of their art and put their own name into the CMA history.

You are a little bit sceptic aren’t you?

Örs

[Bao]

Sophisticated? If you call commercialising sophisticated that is... That is almost everything the Taiji stylists was doing by that time, Chen or Yang, -they were trying to make business out of their art and put their own name into the CMA history.

You are a little bit sceptic aren’t you?
Örs[/quote]

Hi And thanks for taking time to develop your thoughts.

Sceptic?

1. When external appearance gets more important than substance, there is always something wrong.
2. It is extremely important to look on the teachers of old as normal people, not worshipping them as gods.
To see them as common people will help your confidence. You will see that everything they achieved is possible for you as well.

[Doc Stier]

It is extremely important to look on the teachers of old as normal people....To see them as common people will help your confidence. You will see that everything they achieved is possible for you as well.

Providing of course that you seriously train the same material in the same way that they did.

Nonetheless, since neither of these conditions are relevant factors for most martial artists nowadays, such duplication of knowledge and skill is rarely encountered.

Thus, while similar achievements are certainly possible for anyone, they remain highly improbable for most.

[ors]

Thanks for the advices!

I have never thought these men were gods, but "hardworkers" instead... I think when your way of thinking is that “they could do those things, because they were superior”, you can safely stop training…