Yang form of YCF ... what was YLC form

[origami_itto]

History is easy if you just throw out everything you disagree with.

Very true. Otoh you need to know a lot about history to have something to disagree with. At least if you want to be taken seriously.

Never make the mistake of taking me seriously.

I'm just questioning the validity of this claim that 1912 was when the word Taijiquan got invented. I'm familiar with Fighting Words, nothing in there to contradict the assertion that the Wu's called what they did Taijiquan in their own lifetimes or that they associated it with Chang San Feng and Taoism.

[Bao]

Never make the mistake of taking me seriously.

I'm just questioning the validity of this claim that 1912 was when the word Taijiquan got invented. I'm familiar with Fighting Words, nothing in there to contradict the assertion that the Wu's called what they did Taijiquan in their own lifetimes or that they associated it with Chang San Feng and Taoism.

Just because I sound serious it doesn’t mean I always take you seriously.

Weng Tonghe who is said to have written a short poem about the name Taijiquan died 1904, so 1912 seems a bit late. My teacher, a historian said Taijiquan is a late 19th century term. So the name should have started to become popularized in the second half of the 19th century.

[origami_itto]

Never make the mistake of taking me seriously.

I'm just questioning the validity of this claim that 1912 was when the word Taijiquan got invented. I'm familiar with Fighting Words, nothing in there to contradict the assertion that the Wu's called what they did Taijiquan in their own lifetimes or that they associated it with Chang San Feng and Taoism.

Just because I sound serious it doesn’t mean I always take you seriously.

Weng Tonghe who is said to have written a short poem about the name Taijiquan died 1904, so 1912 seems a bit late. My teacher, a historian said Taijiquan is a late 19th century term. So the name should have started to become popularized in the second half of the 19th century.

And that's exactly the claim, right? That around 1854, Wu Yu Hsiang et al was calling what they do Taijiquan and allegedly passing around handwritten copies of the classics and 40 chapters.

SO MANY MORE other interesting things to talk about regarding the history than just trying to revise something so basic. That's what scrambling for content gets ya!

[everything]

it would be like analyzing the "form" of Lebron James' grandson in 100 years and then trying to figure out if the "James" name applies in an odd attempt to understand "basketball" and then having a bunch of "debates" where everyone claims to be more expert. like wtf.

[Bao]

And that's exactly the claim, right? That around 1854, Wu Yu Hsiang et al was calling what they do Taijiquan and allegedly passing around handwritten copies of the classics and 40 chapters.

It is true that Wu Yuxiang made copies of the classics, but I then again if he called it Taijiquan, why didn't he change the name, made a note or something? Personally I would suggest that he never used this name, and that it was "invented" after his time or around his death (1880). Earlier or later IDK, but probably after his passing, that it became more common as the art became more publicly known.

[yeniseri]

Excellent point but in that era, the discovery of things was often related to a patron saint of that thing! in this case Zhang Sanfeng was the default individual despite
all the practitioners learning and teaching came from relatives of Chen village. Copyright, trademark, etc was not even a consideration but you must be aware that several
competing tai chi sources (other than Chen village art) tried to usurp Chenjiagou and challenges were mounted to mitigate the problem. Even the UNESCO proclamation was part and parcel
to secure that endeavour. Taijiquan's other names were too generic (neijiquan) so I can see why a 'hard sell of a descriptive' is one great way to ensure that the heirloom lasts 'forever".

Taijiquan UNESCO Intangible Asset designation
http://www.xinhuanet.com/english/2020-1 ... 598122.htm

[everything]

it's all marketing garbage.

(but the evidence based medicine health benefits and the "real" that has scant evidence will forever be interesting)

[GrahamB]

I know it’s tempting to decide that the name Taijiquan was in use around 1880 because that feels right to you, or fits your own narrative, but the fact is that there are ZERO reliable documents published before 1912 that use this name. Hand written notes were all published or came to light much later than this date. You can’t just do your history based on feels.

[Bao]

"Feel" RFLMAO

The only "feelings" here in this thread seems someone feeling but hurt.

1. Weng Tonghe is a very well respected historical person and remains today as a well known painter. He passed the royal exams with the highest score and worked as a tutor to the Tongzhi emperor (and later for the Guangxu emperor.) He was a confucian scholar and held several important positions in the Qing government, and even served on the Grand Council between 1882 and 1884.

What does this mean? Well, as he was a poet, calligrapher and a confucian scholar (Taiji is a confucian term) there's a logic in that he wrote a well cited short poem, and maybe even coined the term "Taijiquan." He is supposed to have met Yang Luchan and maybe studied TJQ with Wu Yuxiang. The problem for people who refute this story is that no one else does. As Weng was a very well respected and important person, you would be able to find several scholars who rejected it. But sorry, historians and scholars accept this story. Maybe not that he invented the term, but that he wrote a poem in the second half of the 19th century about the art of Yang Luchan mentioning taiji.

2. My teacher, a well known Chinese historian, said that Taijiquan is a late 19th century term. This is not something he "felt". He never explained why, but as he is the most meticulous scholar I've ever met when it comes to facts and sources, I have no reason to not believe him.

3. Just because a name appears the first time in print, it doesn't automatically mean that it was invented at that time.

4. Seems odd that Guan Baiyi would publish a collection of 5 Taiji classics while renaming it, to a new name nobody knew. That would surely make everyone confused. Sure, Yang Banhou might have coined it the same year or earlier, but just the fact that the book had the name "Taijiquan Jing", suggests that it was already a publicly accepted name.

Though I don't know all facts around either Weng or YBH, IMHO, it still boils down to logic (not feelings) and what seems most reasonable. YBH around 1912 or Guan Baiyi's publication in 1912 seems a bit far fetched, but I wouldn't either embrace it or completely reject it without more facts.

Excellent point but in that era, the discovery of things was often related to a patron saint of that thing! in this case Zhang Sanfeng was the default individual despite all the practitioners learning and teaching came from relatives of Chen village

Actually, it should have been Wu Jianquan who really marketed, or maybe rather branded Taijiquan, using myths as Zhang Sanfeng (or semi-myth in this case). He was a personal friend with Jin Yong, the most famous of the 20th century Wuxia authors, who also used Zhang Sanfeng in his stories.

[origami_itto]

I know it’s tempting to decide that the name Taijiquan was in use around 1880 because that feels right to you, or fits your own narrative, but the fact is that there are ZERO reliable documents published before 1912 that use this name. Hand written notes were all published or came to light much later than this date. You can’t just do your history based on feels.

Oh by my recgoning it's actually 1864 at the latest with Ma T'ung Wen's collection.

ANd what is with 1912? Are you talking about the collection of existing manuals that were published publicly as Tai Chi Chuan Ching by Kuan Pai-I at the Beijing Physical Education Research Institute, where Yang Shao Hou and Wu Chien Ch'uan taught?

Is your claim he picked this name, slapped it on the docs, and everybody else was SOOO impressed by his cleverness that they went back and changed SOME of the references to the name taijiquan, but left some as the 13 postures and left some as long boxing, and added a little blurb of text explaining the evolution of the names?

I mean that makes perfect sense now that I lay it all out like that why didn't I see it before.

[Bob]

FYI Historical Source:

FEBRUARY 4, 2023
Yang Luchan, Taijiquan Patriarch
Image result for yang luchan picture

‘The Many Lives of Yang Luchan: Mythopoesis, Media, and the Martial Imagination.’

In Martial Arts Studies
Wile, Douglas. 2022. ‘The
Many Lives of Yang Luchan:
Mythopoesis, Media, and the
Martial Imagination’. Martial Arts
Studies 13. 83-97. Doi:10.18573/
mas.167

By Douglas Wile, 2022

ABSTRACT:
The life of Yang Luchan, patriarch of the Yang lineage and founder
of taijiquan’s most popular style, is a biographical blank slate upon
which conservative, progressive, orientalist, and just plain rice bowl
interests have inscribed wildly divergent narratives. Conservative
scholar-disciples sought to link him with the invented Wudang-Daoist
lineage, while progressives emphasized his humble origins and health
benefits of the practice. His life (c.1799-1872) straddled the height of
the Manchu empire and decline into semi-colonial spheres of foreign
influence, while successive generations of Yang descendants propagated
his ‘intangible cultural heritage’ through Republican, Communist,
‘open’, and global eras. Practiced world-wide by hundreds of millions,
taijiquan’s name recognition made it ripe for media appropriation, and
Yang Luchan has been remythologized in countless novels, cartoons,
television series, and full-length feature films. The case of Yang Luchan
offers an unusual opportunity to witness an ongoing process of mytho-
poesis and to compare these narratives with traditional Chinese warrior
heroes and Western models of mythology and heroology. If the lack of
facts has not constrained the proliferation of invented biographies, nei-
ther should it discourage the quest for historical context as we sift and
winnow truth from trope in the many reconstructions of Yang’s life.

https://storage.googleapis.com/jnl-uc-j ... d7206a.pdf

[Doc Stier]

FYI Historical Source:

FEBRUARY 4, 2023
Yang Luchan, Taijiquan Patriarch
Image result for yang luchan picture

‘The Many Lives of Yang Luchan: Mythopoesis, Media, and the Martial Imagination.’

In Martial Arts Studies
Wile, Douglas. 2022. ‘The
Many Lives of Yang Luchan:
Mythopoesis, Media, and the
Martial Imagination’. Martial Arts
Studies 13. 83-97. Doi:10.18573/
mas.167

By Douglas Wile, 2022

ABSTRACT:
The life of Yang Luchan, patriarch of the Yang lineage and founder
of taijiquan’s most popular style, is a biographical blank slate upon
which conservative, progressive, orientalist, and just plain rice bowl
interests have inscribed wildly divergent narratives. Conservative
scholar-disciples sought to link him with the invented Wudang-Daoist
lineage, while progressives emphasized his humble origins and health
benefits of the practice. His life (c.1799-1872) straddled the height of
the Manchu empire and decline into semi-colonial spheres of foreign
influence, while successive generations of Yang descendants propagated
his ‘intangible cultural heritage’ through Republican, Communist,
‘open’, and global eras. Practiced world-wide by hundreds of millions,
taijiquan’s name recognition made it ripe for media appropriation, and
Yang Luchan has been remythologized in countless novels, cartoons,
television series, and full-length feature films. The case of Yang Luchan
offers an unusual opportunity to witness an ongoing process of mytho-
poesis and to compare these narratives with traditional Chinese warrior
heroes and Western models of mythology and heroology. If the lack of
facts has not constrained the proliferation of invented biographies, nei-
ther should it discourage the quest for historical context as we sift and
winnow truth from trope in the many reconstructions of Yang’s life.

https://storage.googleapis.com/jnl-uc-j ... d7206a.pdf

Good article, but 'heroology'? Is that a real word? Haha!

[Bob]

Academia has it game too LOL

[GrahamB]

My teacher said it so it must be true is the very definition of feelings-based research. lol

You guys so funny.

[wayne hansen]

If your teacher can pass on the skills why doubt him