Sam Tam demonstrating form

[Bao]

Did I copy & paste the wrong source?

[windwalker]

"Cheng Man Ching tai chi chuan is a school in its own right just as the Yang style is. The first and most obvious reason is that if the old gentleman himself had not thought of it this way he would never have allowed his book to be entitled 'Cheng's Tai Chi Chuan Thirteen Chapters'.

Just thought I'd point out that the English translation is titled Cheng Tzu's Thirteen Treatises on T'ai Chi Ch'uan. It's Cheng's thirteen treatises not Cheng's taijiquan.



In the book Tai-Chi by Cheng and Smith they use the same translation Cheng Tzu's Thirteen Treatises on T'ai Chi Ch'uan. Also in the same book at the end of chapter one the Yang family lineage is enumerated and it says Cheng Man-Ching, learned personally from Yang for nearly a decade and today is spreading the Yang style of Tai-Chi throughout the world.



FWIW.

Good catch.

Seems to be many assumptions made by people who either never studied the style or had any interactions with those who directly studied under ZMC.

Teacher Ben Lo’s training was quite severe.
Very Strict in meeting exact requirements

my primary teacher of the style,
Professor Ken Wen Chi, “亓冠文” also directly studied from
ZMC .

Being collapsed which is what many seem to be talking about or too rigid are errors often
Indicating a misunderstanding of central equilibrium, and the function of “ fan song “
or ability to release inner tension while able to maintain a shape

[windwalker]

Did I copy & paste the wrong source?

Maybe it’s the browser.
Not seeing any “Attributed”
to source in the quotation

[Bao]

"Cheng Man Ching tai chi chuan is a school in its own right just as the Yang style is. The first and most obvious reason is that if the old gentleman himself had not thought of it this way he would never have allowed his book to be entitled 'Cheng's Tai Chi Chuan Thirteen Chapters'.

Just thought I'd point out that the English translation is titled Cheng Tzu's Thirteen Treatises on T'ai Chi Ch'uan. It's Cheng's thirteen treatises not Cheng's taijiquan.

That was from the source WW cited:

Master KOH AH TEE on Cheng Man-ching s teaching
Interviewed by Nigel Sutton
Zhong Ding Traditional Chinese Martial Arts Association

In the book Tai-Chi by Cheng and Smith ... Also in the same book at the end of chapter one the Yang family lineage is enumerated and it says Cheng Man-Ching, learned personally from Yang for nearly a decade .

Nearly? Is five or six years nearly? More half a decade than nearly. Nearly one is not possible because ZMC met YCF around 1930 for the first time, and he (YCF) died in 1936.

[robert]

In the book Tai-Chi by Cheng and Smith ... Also in the same book at the end of chapter one the Yang family lineage is enumerated and it says Cheng Man-Ching, learned personally from Yang for nearly a decade .

Nearly? Is five or six years nearly? More half a decade than nearly. Nearly one is not possible because ZMC met YCF around 1930 for the first time, and he (YCF) died in 1936.

Nearly a decade seems like quite a stretch. In ZMQ's intro to YCF's taijiquan manual he writes - In the spring of 1930, because of overwork while establishing the China Academy of literature and Arts, I had reached the point of coughing up blood, so I resumed my study and practice of taijiquan with my colleagues Xiao Zhongbo and Ye Dami....
In the first lunar month of 1932, I met Master Yang Chengfu at Mr. Pu Qiuzhen's house.

[wayne hansen]

Let’s say CMC only spent 4 years with YCF
This is more than enough with a generous teacher and an intelligent student
What counts is what you do after that time
With regards to the books shown
The second book with the black cover is the 4th edition of that book
One in Chinese and two in English
I have all 4
The one shown is the tarted up version by smith for an American audience
Those of us who follow Chengs way care little about the circumstances if we have a good transmission
I see as much variation within the Cheng Lineage as outside it
Someone mentioned him teaching hippies
I see 3 serperate paths
New York
Taiwan
Malaysia
The hippie intellectuals,the early adopters and those who needed to survive in the martial furnace of Malay independance

[co-lee]

All of the YCF / CMC timelines are somewhat contradictory.
Of course, none of this matters for the original discussion about whether Sam Tam's form had some origin other than via CMC. But, it's interesting in terms of tracing why the received form from YCF is so different from the form CMC put together.

Here's the best I've been able to tease out:

1926: CMC moves to Shanghai, gets a teaching position at the Shanghai Art College. Teaches there till 1931.
1927: CMC starts studying chinese medicine w/ Dr Song You'an
1928: YCF moves to Shanghai. (So CMC definitely wasn't studying w/ YCF before then.) Sometime following this, YCF's wife falls ill, CMC treats her, and YCF invites him to study. And to get lunch.
late 20s - early 30s: CMC does some private study w/ YCF. (Qu Shijing in the book Rhen mentioned, "Yang Taiji is One Family Across the Straits", says CMC And Qu's teacher studied privately together with YCF. They were really poor, would show up to study at YCFs and also to get lunch. Lunch sounds like a significant draw.)
1933, 1934. CMC has some involvement w/ teaching at the Guoshuguan in Nanjing. My guess is that he assisted YCF and may have stood in for him when YCF was out of town.
1934: CMC ghostwrites YCF's 2nd book.
1934-36: Qu claims that YCF was travelling too much to teach Qu's teacher and CMC. So, YCF brought Zhang Qinlin to Shanghai and asked him to teach the two of them. Other accounts differ on the relationship between Zhang and CMC.
1936: YCF dies
1938, 1939: CMC moves first to Hunan province and then on to Chongqing. He gets teaching gigs at the local Guoshuguan facilities.
1946: CMC finishes his Thirteen Treatises.
1949: CMC moves to Taiwan.
1950: CMC publishes the Thirteen Treatises.

So, generously, CMC could have studied w/ YCF from 1928 - 1936. And certainly would have acknowledged YCF as his teacher in that time. Which probably accounts for the claim of "most of a decade".

In terms of how most of us would interpret "studying with", CMC might have spent 4 or 5 years directly under YCF.

When I look at my studies and how much impact a few days or months with a teacher has made, it seems like CMC could have gotten an awful lot from hanging around at YCF's digs in Shanghai, along with numerous free lunches.

CMC form has an awful lot of obvious differences from the "official" yang family forms. Which doesn't actually tell us much.

It's an interesting puzzle to tease out. But, doesn't actually tell us anything about how to improve our own practices. It does underscore just how talented these folks all were.

[robert]

All of the YCF / CMC timelines are somewhat contradictory.

ZMQ wrote a forward to YCF's book and he wrote In the first lunar month of 1932, I met Master Yang Chengfu at Mr. Pu Qiuzhen's house.

Do you think that ZMQ didn't know when he met YCF? YCF's book is published in 1934 only a few years after ZMQ met YCF.

[nicklinjm]

@co-lee / Robert: I think one person who has been missing from this discussion is Pu Bingru (Pu Qiuzhen's daughter), who first learned taiji under Ye Dami and then later became YCF's only female disciple. By all accounts she attained a v decent level of skill in form and push hands (although I doubt she was interested or taught the fighting side).

By CMC's own account he studied with YCF for 7 years, i.e. starting in 1929. However, based on the articles from people like Qu Shijing and Huang Jinghua it's obvious that even before meeting YCF, CMC learnt form and the main push hands methods under Ye Dami, alongside Pu Bingru. So my guess is that by the time CMC officially started studying under YCF in 1929 / 1930 he originally had a decent grounding in the form and basic jin skills.

[co-lee]

All of the YCF / CMC timelines are somewhat contradictory.

ZMQ wrote a forward to YCF's book and he wrote In the first lunar month of 1932, I met Master Yang Chengfu at Mr. Pu Qiuzhen's house.

Do you think that ZMQ didn't know when he met YCF? YCF's book is published in 1934 only a few years after ZMQ met YCF.

As I said, all the timelines are somewhat contradictory ... 1932 for a first meeting doesn't match up w/ the other dates. But, what do I know? I wasn't there ...

[wayne hansen]

Her form is really good

[windwalker]

@co-lee / Robert: I think one person who has been missing from this discussion is Pu Bingru (Pu Qiuzhen's daughter), who first learned taiji under Ye Dami and then later became YCF's only female disciple. By all accounts she attained a v decent level of skill in form and push hands (although I doubt she was interested or taught the fighting side).

By CMC's own account he studied with YCF for 7 years, i.e. starting in 1929. However, based on the articles from people like Qu Shijing and Huang Jinghua it's obvious that even before meeting YCF, CMC learnt form and the main push hands methods under Ye Dami, alongside Pu Bingru. So my guess is that by the time CMC officially started studying under YCF in 1929 / 1930 he originally had a decent grounding in the form and basic jin skills.

"I think one person who has been missing from this discussion is Pu Bingru (Pu Qiuzhen's daughter)"

For reference


https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AxCrftn6ZC4

[wayne hansen]

I find her form better than most of his male students I have seen

[co-lee]

@co-lee / Robert: I think one person who has been missing from this discussion is Pu Bingru (Pu Qiuzhen's daughter), who first learned taiji under Ye Dami and then later became YCF's only female disciple. By all accounts she attained a v decent level of skill in form and push hands (although I doubt she was interested or taught the fighting side).

By CMC's own account he studied with YCF for 7 years, i.e. starting in 1929. However, based on the articles from people like Qu Shijing and Huang Jinghua it's obvious that even before meeting YCF, CMC learnt form and the main push hands methods under Ye Dami, alongside Pu Bingru. So my guess is that by the time CMC officially started studying under YCF in 1929 / 1930 he originally had a decent grounding in the form and basic jin skills.

Pu is certainly interesting. And thanks to WW for reposting the video of her form.

[windwalker]

There seems to be a lot of attention on the time that ZMC mentioned he spent with his teacher.

IME kinda depends on the teacher.

For some teachers one may study directly from them, their students, or even other teachers,
with out being acknowledged as a formal student while still being close to the teacher.

To be acknowledged as a formal "student" infers a relationship between that teacher and the student as their student.


For some teachers as with my own, once they've acknowledged, or accepted you as a student, the expectation was that you would not study from anyone else.
To do so in my teachers case, would mean you were no longer his student.

In most cases he wouldn’t teach you anymore.

Some students may go on to develop higher level skills than disciples of the same teacher without having been considered as such.
Not everyone going through the training will develop the same skill sets to the same level.

According to their development.
What is develop may be very much different than from their teachers original teachings while still containing the essence.
An expression of their own inner nature.

Disciples are a little different in that they are expected to carry on, and preserve the teachings of the teacher with out changing it.