I'm probably a lot younger than you and less wise to boot so take it with a shaker full of salt...
dspyrido wrote:Before jumping to conclusions just consider what I mentioned in another post. CST built a foundation doing daily thousands of punches, hundreds of kicks, many squats and weighted work. Intense stuff and not just standing and soft sticking. In his 60s when I had some training sessions with him he was flexible and although skinny was well conditoned and musclar especially for his age. His muscles where well tuned to doing a lot of movement without having to exert a lot of effort but when he wanted to apply power he had a structure that could apply it.
So if your instructor did all the above then he has the right foundation to do the standing, sensitivity and sticking and be even more effective.
Agreed that conditioning makes a big difference. My sifu did a lot of it prior to learning from CST as well, and it is something important that most of us students tend to forget.
dspyrido wrote:But roll forward and a lot people took the guidance of standing and soft sticking and decided to turn away or minimize the other aspects. It was on his recommendation but having spoken to a fellow student who spent 5 years in hk with him it was clear they were missing the basics and focusing on the "internal" aspects. This is where his message imo got lost in translation but sadly is still the root cause of the degradation of the combative aspect of WC. I think CST was a wonderful guy, a great instructor who genuinely tried to impart knowledge and also did bring some great "internal" concepts to WC. But because I liked who he was that it is sad to see WC that I knew as an effective art turn into something that is less effective. Much like many tai chi'ers have gone.
That said I think some WC people are still great but that's because they stayed the course on balancing internal with external.
As far as I know CST's training became more dynamic towards the end of his life - when I visited him in 2012 there was a lot more going on than standing and SNT which is what I had expected, for example turning, kicking, single movements of the pole, etc. There were also a few older gents who came in to visit and the chi sau between them was quite aggressive, not just the vegetarian rolling hands. From what I saw/understand he had had a lot of students in his long teaching career, some of who focus more on "internal" and others more "lively" for lack of a better word. Every CST student I've met could show, rather than just tell, just what made WC useful.
As for the "internalisation" of WC, there are lots of different takes on this and IMO comparatively few voices from the CST guys - personally I don't really subscribe to a lot of what I've heard/seen from other WC guys like fajin, springing force, inch power, hand "sensitivity", rooting, redirecting... am assuming that you are not referring to these when you say "internal" here? There are plenty of WC guys who see CST's methods and gloss over with "yes, it's basically the same as what we do" but... it isn't.
CST's WC interested me from the start because it was/is an effective art, not just in rote trapping technique but rather the overall focus on improved structure and stability rather than a paint-by-numbers lap sau pak sau pattycake. My sifu could and still does toss me around like a rag doll and did not 'hide' any explanations. Despite being impressed, most of us only began training the more "internal" elements after alot of chi sau in which the value of the "internal" stuff became abundantly clear. That is what was fiendishly difficult - I'm terrible at it myself - and most students quit somewhere down the line unfortunately.
dspyrido wrote:Yes there are others who did not do wc well but they tend to be people who get ignored.
LOL. I think those who don't get a lot more attention than those who do WC well!
Considering how much of a gent he was, and now he's passed on... I think what's sad is not his teachings but what later people have interpreted from it. The conditioning that you mentioned is probably one of the best examples - I still don't take it seriously enough myself.