Daniel-san wrote:
Hi George, do you mean that Jim Uglow and Rob P learnt the form from Erle in London before Erle returned to Australia?
Not sure exactly. I saw Rob performing it in one of his clips - probably still up I think. It surprised me, when I asked him about I recall that he mentioned Jim Uglow. Rob could say more, but I think he learnt it from Mr. Uglow who learnt it from Earl I guess. Timelines I have no idea really - it could have been when he came back to these shores at some point?
Yes, I agree, it's not likely.
Indeed then and now on reflection they had a really good level of skill and knowledge and you simply couldn't get to that by learning off videos alone..
That's interesting.
I have seen video of Paul Brecker performing the Old Yang form, but are you referring to him performing the Old Yang form or the "masters form"?
Thanks
No, it was my teacher who had and performed a "higher level" form ("masters form"). I know even less about this form - next to nothing really. But from what I could gather looked part of the same system and had elements of the other ("old yang") eg. the GST sequence which made me think they were linked. I never saw anything like this anywhere else. At the time I thought I saw bagua type movements or at least one part that made me think "bagua!" at the time.
Could easily be a hybrid of some sort, but where it came from, no idea. The way he performed it was blistering, to be frank. Again the level of it, made me think there's no way they've made this up they had to have learnt it off someone.. He had a habit of making us practice our form as fast as we could from time to time and make that part of our practice. I was lucky I even got to see it that once. It still ranks up there as one of the best form performances I have ever seen and I have watched a few.
I have also seen a clip of P. Brecker doing the WTBA old yang on you tube, probably the same one - I didn't find it good, disappointing actually. I'm not a fan of what they do with it, if you know what I mean.. I went to one of his seminars on short stick years ago now, he seemed good at stick form at the time, so that performance of old yang wasn't what I was expecting. I just found it pretty strange.. What did you think ?