the rum soaked fist: internal martial arts forum

Hi Wayne, Sorry to bother you again. The reason why I asked all these questions is I always thought Fajing has nothing to do with a style of MA but the way one uses one's body in an effective way, now you made me think may be CLF use the body differently to Yang Taijiquan, to Chen, to Wu, to Xingyi, to Bagua, to Hung Gar, to a boxer and to a wrestler and so forth. But how can that be? All our bodies are constructed more or less the same and the same physical laws applied to us all. It might look different on the outside but internally it must be the same, otherwise we would go against the physical laws and the way our body is constructed. Now I am confused.

Yuen-Ming wrote:

SCMT wrote:Followed the Yang family webpage for awhile and watched the changes, the family tree lineage chart even got changed. Also talkes with my sifu, and never said Shouhou line was doing Taijiquan and as far as my sifu knows in Hong Kong they were not, but they did exist, and I probably should not have said entire, that I do not know, only Shaohou had family there.

Zhensheng is the son I was speaking of, that Shaohou had in his late teens, and who was taken care mostly by Zhao Bin's family. He never practiced Taijiquan and later moved to west China, where he passed away pretty young.
Of course "descendants" might be in Hong Kong or even in New York City for as much as we know, but to be a blood descendant doesn't mean anything - wrt Taijiquan, which is the only thing we care about the family, that line had NO direct (family) descendants, only disciples.

YM

So when did this become about disciples?

I also never said they did Taiji in Hong Kong and said as far as my sifu knew they didn't...also pre the Yang family there are a lot of blood relatives from Yang Shaohou, just look at the family tree on the page they magically appeared on in 2007… although back in late 2006 early 2007 they claimed they did not exist.... but this is getting side tracked into a rather pointless area...of all I posted the Yang Shaohou stuff gets the most replies....intersting

My original point here was to Andy_s about the stylistic changes in other Taiji styles, not just Yang style. And to Doc Stier who I agree with and added some stuff, althoough I do not think he needed the addition, I jsut wanted to add those bits. And then to yeniseri and that is where the Yang Shaohou stuff pops up.

It was the response to yeniseri that got me to the Yang Shaohou bit and it was not in trying to prove anything about yang Shaohou it was more to the point that after Yang Chengfu died he seemed to gain a lot of students that he never mentioned before one of those being Yang Zhendou who likely trained with his father briefly but how much could he have actually learned by the time his father died, answer not much. I then mistakenly said he trained with his brother Yang Shouzhong and I was told that was incorrect and that he trained with Fu Zhongwen. And that makes sense. The reference to Yang Shaohou had more to do with you can’t believe everything the current Yang family says more than trying to prove anything about Taiji skill, training and or lineage.

It is a Yang Family Tree we are looking at, nothing more and it gets modified when more information comes through.

extrajoseph
it is where the fajin is placed i have seldom seen it practiced in the slow form.
it is either done as extra exercises or as part of a fast set or in the weapons mainly the pole or spear.
saying that it is also how it is done,it arises as a pulse from the feet,it is hard to explain but i know it when i see it.

Hi Wayne,

Thank you for your explanation, any reason why Fajin is not done in the Yang slow form like the Chen form? Here is a video of "Best Fajin, period!". Is it the best?
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SVIT9EGWbdQ

Erle also does Fajin, how are the two compared? He does it standing up quite straight, doe it arises as a pulse from the feet?
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SVIT9EGWbdQ

I am just wondering if there is a standard to judge in a demonstration what is a good fajin or not, apart from the ability to knock someone off his feet in a fight.

extrajoseph, please check the link to the second video - it is the same as the first. Thanks.

Opps, should be this one: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8WZx6LjnjJY

It is impossible to say with certainty anything about the quality of the fajin the guy in the first clip can produce as he doesn't hit anything. He has developed some shen-fa, (some of which looks as if it would be detrimental to meaningful fajin) but... I think you would be safer sticking to what Erle is talking about... he's talking about effect. Judge for yourself. Can you do what he is? If you can find a willing pad holder, it shouldn't be hard to test it.

Fajin is different in different styles, and a lot of the shen-fa (body technique or body movement if you will) of individual styles was aimed at developing/producing/supporting their characteristic fajin. If a style is practiced primarily as a pushing/throwing/locking art it is likely to adapt the shen-fa with a resulting weakness in fajin.

Graculus
http://www.ichijoji.blogspot.com

I apologize if this has been posted already (I only got to page 8 or so before replying). But the clip that Yuen Ming referred to (Zhaobao?) struck me as similar to the way I've seen Wei Lun Huang do his Yang taiji.

extrajoseph i really dont have any comment to make on any of the clips,sorry

Buddy:

Good to see you are still in the land of the living. Been a while!

RE: Wei Lun-huang:
Very nice performance, very athletic. And I can only assume from his flexibility and his stances that he actually trains this way - it is not just "demo style." GIven the responses to this and to the other "What made the early-generation Yangers so good" thread, I would hazard a guess that early Yang style Taiji - complete with fajing, low stances, and a generally higher level of athleticism -looked more like this than most of the Yang Taiji we see today.

Dmitri:

Is this the same guy you posted a very good applications clip from a month or two ago?

Reports of my demise have been greatly exaggerated. But two hip replacements later I had thought I had given up martial arts. But this and other in depth and fascination threads give me pause. But at 55 the thought of starting over is daunting.

Tom wrote:In connection with the existence of various "animal" frames in Yang Sau-chung's teaching, a gent from Singapore, Y. Wu, who had trained a particular Shaolin style in Hong Kong wrote (back in 2006):

When I learned Yang Shaochung’s version of taiji through a friend who studied (and for a few years also lived with) with Chu Kin Hung who now teaches in London there was never any mention of animal forms. The only forms mentioned were the long form and a secret fast form. Perhaps my friend weren’t privy to the secret transmission of the 3 animal forms. Perhaps……………

Fast forward to more than a decade later and I was learning from a teacher in Hong Kong. This teacher mentioned that a long time ago (I didn’t asked for details then as I wasn’t interested to know back then) Yang Shaochung came to their school to challenge his grandmaster.
After trying conclusions (I won’t say who lost or won but the inference here is quite clear), Yang Shaochung stayed for some time to learn. How long I am sorry to say I didn’t ask also. What was interesting is that the Shaolin system that Yang Shaochung learned also emphasized on the animals of snake and crane. I was also told that there were 8 more animals and it should not come as a surprise that one of the eight animals was the tiger.

That's an interesting take. Seems like there's no shortage of anecdotal evidence whenever it comes to MA history. Here's some of mine, LOL. Ip Tai Tak taught the 3 variations of the long form and the "Cheung Kuen" fast form to his students. The sequence of the long form stayed the same, with some variations in body method (regarding the tiger and snake variations). The variations of "animals" were not specific techniques or shapes, but slight variations on the way the body moves... so to my understanding, have little in common with any Shaolin animal forms I've seen... So unless YSC was practicing some other form that none of his students seem to practice or know about, it's hard to connect those dots. It seems like these stories that are handed down from 2nd hand, 3rd hand sources, are typically generations removed, where someone's grandmaster is always beating up someone else's. I guess it comes down to what one decides to believe based on the understand and material they know.

Indeed.

My dad can beat up your dad.

Oh yeah? My see-foo can beat up your dad!

Well my god can beat up your see-foo. Hah!

How do you know? Did your god ever fight my see-foo?

No. My god doesn't do sport. He's too deadly.

Okay, you win.