the rum soaked fist: internal martial arts forum

GrahamB wrote:
1. All styles of Tai Chi definitely pay lip service to the dantien (of course they do). But you only need a pair of eyes to look to see that the way Chen style and Yang style use the dantien is quite different. Chen style goes for a "reeling silk" approach, while Yang style has a "drawing silk" approach. These two are different in how much dantien control is actually involved. Just look at Yang Jun in the video posted twice now on this thread. Of course, if you can't see it, you can't see it.

It might be more interesting to look at the Yang Sau Cheung lineage for comparison, Yang Jun and co are largely "official" taiji. I'm not saying it is or isn't silk reeling, but it's a different flavour to the popularised forms

Good stuff as always Wuyizidi. But there's a side part of the story that I think is really interesting.. You don't mention small frame Chen style. In comparing styles the small frame Chen is a lot more comparable to what Yang Lu Chan passed on - in my opinion. Wu Yu Hsiang also went back to Chen village - surely YLC his first teacher would have been involved in that arrangement in some way. Wu Yu Hsiang went back and learnt what - yes, Small frame Chen style. Is that per chance or is the choice of the specific teacher significant? There's maybe two ways to look at that.. WYH/ Wu-Hao/ SLT is all connected to smallframe Chen via WYH and what he learnt from his Chen teacher rather than YLC, or it was also, give or take, the same thing Yang learned anyway.

Perhaps 'large frame' was the beginner level training, used to build the foundations. The small frame could have been reserved and kept as the progression and container of the more refined and hidden (internal) teachings. The "taiji.." so to speak. The container for the inner door material learnt from Jiang Fa. There also seems to be more connection and common ground with small frame Chen and Zhabao who also claim Jiang Fa as the guy who brought it from the Wang Zonghyue lineage.

If you recall 'middle frame' was attributed to Yang Jian Hou and Large frame to YCF, other than that it's maybe a fair bet that everything else besides these namings can be considered a continuations of that small frame tradition without significant change. Is that a hint to the correct forerunner to YLC art being small frame Chen rather than large frame and it's revisions ?

I also think a certain number of changes on either side would be inevitable, over the years.

cloudz wrote:Perhaps 'large frame' was the beginner level training, used to build the foundations. The small frame could have been reserved and kept as the progression and container of the more refined and hidden (internal) teachings. The "taiji.." so to speak. The container for the inner door material learnt from Jiang Fa. There also seems to be more connection and common ground with small frame Chen and Zhabao who also claim Jiang Fa as the guy who brought it from the Wang Zonghyue lineage.

If you recall 'middle frame' was attributed to Yang Jian Hou and Large frame to YCF, other than that it's maybe a fair bet that everything else besides these namings can be considered a continuations of that small frame tradition without significant change. Is that a hint to the correct forerunner to YLC art being small frame Chen rather than large frame and it's revisions ?

I also think a certain number of changes on either side would be inevitable, over the years.

That was always my understanding. I think the popularised Yang forms were based on simplified medium frame. The "real" large frame I learnt was very open and "stretchy". I've seen a few versions of small frame, all broadly very similar

RobP3 wrote:

GrahamB wrote:
1. All styles of Tai Chi definitely pay lip service to the dantien (of course they do). But you only need a pair of eyes to look to see that the way Chen style and Yang style use the dantien is quite different. Chen style goes for a "reeling silk" approach, while Yang style has a "drawing silk" approach. These two are different in how much dantien control is actually involved. Just look at Yang Jun in the video posted twice now on this thread. Of course, if you can't see it, you can't see it.

It might be more interesting to look at the Yang Sau Cheung lineage for comparison, Yang Jun and co are largely "official" taiji. I'm not saying it is or isn't silk reeling, but it's a different flavour to the popularised forms

It's definitely a different flavour Rob, but there's no silk reeling going on that I can see. He seems much more similar to Southern martial arts. The Dong family Yang style is also much more like that in expression - more "haka".

I assumed a more down to earth explanation of the frames bit. YCF seemed like a big guy. YLC seemed like a compact guy. Fedor moved a certain way as a guy with a large frame. Mayweather Jr. moved a certain way as a guy with a small frame. If theoretically Mayweather Jr. did MMA, surely his style would look different. If they tried to make forms out of their typical movements, things would look different. One can see his movement types in the Fedor book where he breaks down some of his favorite moves ("forms"). It's the same with Stephen Curry and LeBron James, or Messi and Zlatan. Surely it was the same with Helio Gracie and Carlos and Maeda. One can learn a lot imitating these different people, but it seems like it's the taiji hippies and nerds (edit: buying into marketing hype) that over exaggerated some of the outer differences. Not sure if that's true of the silk reeling bit. Edit: that seems natural. Everyone imitates Stephen Curry nowadays. There are many good articles about people imitating his form and taking ridiculous numbers of three point shots.

cloudz wrote:Perhaps 'large frame' was the beginner level training, used to build the foundations. The small frame could have been reserved and kept as the progression and container of the more refined and hidden (internal) teachings. The "taiji.." so to speak. The container for the inner door material learnt from Jiang Fa. There also seems to be more connection and common ground with small frame Chen and Zhabao who also claim Jiang Fa as the guy who brought it from the Wang Zonghyue lineage.

YLC made the form more visually pretty to attract officials and literati. But the large frame was invented for teaching form to very large groups of people. So maybe YCF should be more to blame for the large frame.

Wuyizidi wrote:Ed,

Within Wu lineage we are very open in our admission that Song Shuming kicked Wang Maozhai and Wu Jianquan's asses before they reached level of mastery (Quan You had passed away at the time).

First of all, you are not a spokesperson for Wu style. This story is the typical bullshit lore from people who like to lay claim to having received a secret, ancient transmisson. Xu Yusheng wrote in the part of his book, where he lists his teachers and gives credit to them that he himself (Xu) has learned from Song as well as from Wu Jianquan. Use the search function of this forum for my translation. Wu Tunan, a proven liar, concocted the story that Wu Jianquan became a student of Song in order to link himself to Song.

I would also appreciate if you didn't write Wang Maozhai's name, a Quanyou student for about 3 years, ahead of the Wu style inheritor's name Wu Jianquan or mention him in the same breath. Thank you.

Love this book.

grzegorz wrote:Love this book.

cdobe wrote:

Wuyizidi wrote:Ed,

Within Wu lineage we are very open in our admission that Song Shuming kicked Wang Maozhai and Wu Jianquan's asses before they reached level of mastery (Quan You had passed away at the time).

First of all, you are not a spokesperson for Wu style. This story is the typical bullshit lore from people who like to lay claim to having received a secret, ancient transmisson. Xu Yusheng wrote in the part of his book, where he lists his teachers and gives credit to them that he himself (Xu) has learned from Song as well as from Wu Jianquan. Use the search function of this forum for my translation. Wu Tunan, a proven liar, concocted the story that Wu Jianquan became a student of Song in order to link himself to Song.

I would also appreciate if you didn't write Wang Maozhai's name, a Quanyou student for about 3 years, ahead of the Wu style inheritor's name Wu Jianquan or mention him in the same breath. Thank you.

So who did wang train with

Oh well... Chen Pan Ling, a real student of Yang Shaohou (not an imaginary person), visited the Chen village in the 1920's. In his book, he says that it is sure that Yang came from Chen. His book is translated into English and readily available.

GrahamB wrote: But you only need a pair of eyes to look to see that the way Chen style and Yang style use the dantien is quite different. Chen style goes for a "reeling silk" approach, while Yang style has a "drawing silk" approach. These two are different in how much dantien control is actually involved. Just look at Yang Jun in the video posted twice now on this thread.

Every two practitioners, even if you compare two different Chen stylists, they will look differently and emphasise dantian movement differently. IMO, it's more the concept of "dantian rotation" that is different in Chen and Yang. But still, different Chen schools have different interpretations of this concept. But sure, focusing and and practicing this should give the practitioner control over and awareness of this area.

Yang Jun is certainly not a good example when it comes to pulling silk or any better Yang style type of movement for that matter. He only show how beginners are taught how to move. If he can move differently than this, I have no idea about. He often breaks the movement in transitions between segments and he sometimes move his arms independently from his body.

I don't know how to describe it in English, but if you look at Yang Shaozhong (Yang Sau Cheung), Lee Yingarn or the early Dong stylists, they all have this something ropy, wiry about their movements, like they moved through resistance. This expression is from pulling silk. Yang Jun doesn't have it.

Bao,

Moving as if with resistance is a neat trick to shortcut your ability to 'move with jin', and that does look like what Yang SauChung in the video above is doing (that's him at the top of the page). But he is also "arms moving separately to body" *now and again*. I think at some point you have to stop making excuses and realise this is how the Yang form is supposed to be done.

Yang Jun is today's official Yang style representative and he doesn't use dantien controlled movements *all the time* ("arms moving separately to body") so the natural conclusion is that this is how Yang style is meant to be done. There's nothing wrong with that, it's the Yang style, he/they can do it how he/they want. I don't buy into the idea that in all his videos Yang Jun is only ever showing beginner movement. He would have to be continually repatterning his internal map of movement and doing things deliberately 'wrong' everytime a camera is pointed at him.

(My understanding of "pulling silk" is that it's more to do with the smoothness and continuity of movements - no gaps, no speed change, in contrast to Chen style which has stops and starts and fast bits and slow bits).

Bao wrote:

cloudz wrote:Perhaps 'large frame' was the beginner level training, used to build the foundations. The small frame could have been reserved and kept as the progression and container of the more refined and hidden (internal) teachings. The "taiji.." so to speak. The container for the inner door material learnt from Jiang Fa. There also seems to be more connection and common ground with small frame Chen and Zhabao who also claim Jiang Fa as the guy who brought it from the Wang Zonghyue lineage.

YLC made the form more visually pretty to attract officials and literati. But the large frame was invented for teaching form to very large groups of people. So maybe YCF should be more to blame for the large frame.

The large frame was invented as preparation work. Like I said before, "real" large frame is very open and stretchy. I was taught (by Yang Family lineage) that practice of large frame replaces the need to do exercises like the three circles routine in order to make the body limber. In any event, the popularise Yang forms are more middle frame than anything. The LF is not an easy form to do, whereas the simplified middle frame is less demanding, at least the way it is popularly taught

GrahamB wrote:I think at some point you have to stop making excuses and realise this is how the Yang form is supposed to be done.

Yang Jun is today's official Yang style representative and he doesn't use dantien controlled movements *all the time* ("arms moving separately to body") so the natural conclusion is that this is how Yang style is meant to be done. There's nothing wrong with that, it's the Yang style, he/they can do it how he/they want.[/quote]

Lol! You mean I should "realise this is how the Yang form is supposed to be done" and follow Yang Jun?

Or you mean that I should ignore what he does because a Yang Style practitioner can move how he wants?

So I should stop make excuses and follow Yang Jun because a Yang Stylist can move how ever he wants? Oh... I think you contradict yourself a lot...

I don't buy into the idea that in all his videos Yang Jun is only ever showing beginner movement. He would have to be continually repatterning his internal map of movement and doing things deliberately 'wrong' everytime a camera is pointed at him.

I don't say he does anything deliberately wrong. I say that he just can't move any better than that. What he is no way near the older generation. And you think that this guy is a good representative (official or not) to the Yang family?

...Well, if you can't see any difference between Yang Shaozhong and Yang Jun regarding shenfa and the quality of movement... well... I guess you just can't see it.