Wu Family Tai Chi - Master Wei Xiaotang

[Bob]

Wu Family Tai Chi Stage 1 and 2 Master Wei Xiaotang Demonstrates Movements

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ctXu88UkP5c

In 1931, Mr. Wei Xiaotang, the master of the Eight Step Praying Mantis Kung Fu, was invited to Shanghai by the Shandong Province Traveling Shanghai Sports Association to serve as a Mantis Boxing teacher. During this time, he met Wu Jianquan, the Tai Chi teacher of the Shanghai Jingwu Sports Association. The two exchanged martial arts experiences and Mr. Wei learned Wu-style Tai Chi and Push Hands techniques. He then brought the Wu family’s 108-style Tai Chi and Push Hands techniques to Taiwan.



his film was shot in the 1970s, recorded by the elders of the school. The master of the Eight Step Praying Mantis system, Mr. Wei Xiaotang, demonstrated the Eight Step Praying Mantis system in the Taipei Botanical Garden, which includes the eight steps (八步) the first summary (摘要一段), the second summary (摘要二段) , and other routines of the empty-handed practice. The latter part is the demonstration by the master’s students, which includes the two routines of force splitting (力劈對) and patting(拍按對打). It is currently the most complete record video left by Master Wei Xiaotang in the Eight Step Praying Mantis Boxing system in Taiwan on the Internet.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qyZ2VhB ... LjRjq7Cg23

[wayne hansen]

Thanks for that
It asks more questions than it answers
When splicing the film they put in one section twice
Was he taught a simplified form there are lots of bits missing
It is very Yang like
Was Wu like that in the 30’s or was he also exposed to yang

[Bob]

20 years back or so, when I was "reluctantly" learning 8 step praying mantis, my teacher also said he learned the Wu taijiquan form of Wei Xiaotang but he said all the stances were extremely low and it was a very difficult to learn because of that - unfortunately he never got around to teaching it but I suspect he has it on film

[edededed]

Nice videos! Interesting to see Wei Xiaotang's Wu style taijiquan - perhaps he was the only one teaching it in Taiwan at the time. Like Wayne says, it looks a bit Yang-like, but it could have been that Wu style just looked more Yang-like back in those days (e.g. Chu Minyi's 1935 video also looks somewhat Yang-like, and Chu would have been learning from Wu Jianquan around the same time).

I'd love to see a low stance Wu style practice - some others were said to have practiced it as young men also, but I have not seen it before.

Bob, do you still keep up and remember the 8-step mantis that you learned? Many Shandong mantis masters in Taiwan seem to have shared / exchanged material, some of Wei's forms can be found in other mantis schools also there.

[Bob]

Nice videos! Interesting to see Wei Xiaotang's Wu style taijiquan - perhaps he was the only one teaching it in Taiwan at the time. Like Wayne says, it looks a bit Yang-like, but it could have been that Wu style just looked more Yang-like back in those days (e.g. Chu Minyi's 1935 video also looks somewhat Yang-like, and Chu would have been learning from Wu Jianquan around the same time).

I'd love to see a low stance Wu style practice - some others were said to have practiced it as young men also, but I have not seen it before.

Bob, do you still keep up and remember the 8-step mantis that you learned? Many Shandong mantis masters in Taiwan seem to have shared / exchanged material, some of Wei's forms can be found in other mantis schools also there.

EdEdEdEd

At this point in my age & life I am limited as to what I practice - so I only actively do liuhe duan chuei (six harmony short punch) out of the mantis I learned although I occasionally run through 7 Hand and li pi (we didn't learn the entire system - I stopped at the 1st zhai yao form)

What I worry about with regard to many Masters learning something like a taijiquan form from a major master is they don't get the fundamental jiben gong and shen fa so their forms takes on a different flavor - e.g. Wei Xiaotang's tajiquan, in my eyes, has the same flavor and shen fa as his 8 step praying mantis - this is not a criticism but rather an observation of inferring what the original wu style looked like - wished they had filmed the the person who taught him

A similar observation would arise from the material exchanged between Liu Yunqiao and Chen Fake in 1928 hence much of the Chen style taijiquan in the Wutan line comes through Du Ye Ze

[edededed]

I guess that with accomplished masters, it is a bit much to ask them to start over again - so they may go through a different learning path.

Regarding Wu taijiquan - anyway, we can see much changes comparing "old Wu style" (e.g. Chu Minyi) with various extant Wu styles (e.g. Beijing, Hong Kong, and Shanghai). I wonder if the flavor changed as Wu Jianquan moved out of Beijing, to Hong Kong, and then finally to Shanghai where the flavor is the most different (and what I aim for).

In mantis a similar thing happens, where the Shandong chaps are quite friendly and happy to exchange forms - but of course the flavor changes based on who adopts the forms. I also learned qishou (7 hands), but I learned with longfist mantis flavor - so the form is the same, but the flavor is of course quite different. I still like it though!

Sometimes flavor changes "horizontally" also - e.g. people just see something and they like it... later it starts appearing in their own flavor, too

[Bob]

Agree and it also raises an issue of what constitutes "traditional" martial arts and training and what "mutations" becomes a "traditional martial art" and which become extinct - all systems evolve and change

[Steve James]

Well, is Dong family tcc Yang tcc or something else?

Anyway, Wu Jianquan learned tcc from his dad who learned from Yang Panhou. WJQ and YCF both taught tcc at the Nanjing Academy. In 1928, the Academy closed and both went to Shanghai and started schools there.

I've heard people argue that the differences come from WJQ's experience as a wrestler. Personally, I don't think the way the form looks matters as much as the intention behind the movement.

Otoh, it's pretty much agreed that it started with a Chen; so we could stop there. Wu/Hao, Sun, Li, Yang, are all variations of the original thing. Yang and Wu are the same art expressed differently. Liuhebafa (?) can look like tcc, but it's a different art. Looks are deceiving.

[edededed]

I think that there is some allowance for "mutation" (individualism) in flavor, but it needs to be balanced with core principles, i.e. the quanpu/songs.

E.g. for taijiquan - Wu style's later different flavor could have been due to focus (i.e. neutralization), other influences (e.g. Song Shuming), etc.; but it still follows the rules, principles, etc. that Yang Luchan taught Quanyou, so perhaps we can call it an "evolved traditional martial art"

Taijiquan is at least fairly easy to track changes of, as it seems almost every branch at least learned the 1st form mostly intact!

[wayne hansen]

As I understand it Wu taught the square form and let others develop their own circular form
The square form or 123 form is the most rigid in tai chi
Not only is the above form very Yang Style but there are a lot of moves missing
As for Chen being the starting point we must ask did the others change or was it Chen that deviated
I learnt Wu in very deep stances it was Eddie Wu who was known for his high stances

[Bao]

I learnt Wu in very deep stances it was Eddie Wu who was known for his high stances

Eddie Wu said that some Wu style has turned semi-hard and he didn’t like Ma Yueliang's Tai Chi very much for this reason. So his focus is more on relaxation and softness, Maybe this is why he prefer higher stances?

[wayne hansen]

Not knocking Eddies form I like how he does it
I trained with some members of the Wu family in HK in 75
I was only training Yang at that time
Their forms were quite deep

[nicklinjm]

@Wayne, just one point about the square form - there are several articles mentioning that the square form was invented by Wu Gongyi when he was teaching in Hunan pre-Liberation. This is backed up by the fact that pretty much all the practitioners you see doing square form are from WGY's students and grandstudents. So I think it was round form first, then square form - not the other way around.

Also there is plenty of footage out there of both Ma Yueliang and Eddie Wu doing push hands, seems pretty obvious to me who has higher skill, not even close.

[wayne hansen]

You may be right but I had 4 teachers who belonged to two different lines that came down thru the Chen wing Kwong line
They all did the square form but they might have got it from Eddie Wu

[Bob]

Interesting clips

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ARv78Jxutrc

Vintage video of Wu (small frame) fast form and weapons forms in Beijing on 1925
Details: http://taichi.kiev.ua/page/fast-taich...



https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SPo1U_gmOWs

Wu Style Taijiquan by Zheng Rong Guang (Cheng Wing Kwong; inside disciple of Wu Jianquan)



https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8iQ5WnNFhYc

Wang Maozhai formed the famous Taijiquan organization Beiping Taimiao Taijiquan Association (北平太庙太极拳研究会) in 1930. Taimiao was the temple where emperor’s family performed sacrificial ceremony to their ancestors. It became a public park after the Republic Revolution. On any given day, at least one hundred people, sometime more than three hundred, would
practice at Taimiao. This was the biggest Taijiquan organization in northern China at that time.
Wang’s senior disciple Yang Yuting taught most public classes, and Wang taught more advanced students. Wang became very famous during that time. Many people learned with him, and many people came to challenge him. Wang, his disciples and grand disciples never lost a fight in the twenty years they were at Taimiao (they moved out in 1951). From Ying Chen Gong Fa Website.