Yang form of YCF ... what was YLC form

[Appledog]

Many stories exist whereby the form is simplified by removing anything which makes noise, in order to not disturb the family or the household. This is a Chinese rule. It's not unusual.

There are lots of stories passed down about this by the Yangs, the Chens, and also many other practitioners, such as within Sun style, etc. and even other arts -- many arts, harder arts, northern and southern arts, hakka, hui, everyone has a story about this.

It may be in Chinese or it may be an oral tradition (i.e. hard to search google for) but if you are interested in knowing the truth, I believe the truth is out there.

YLC's form developments are the same; YLC is clear about why he changed the form; one quote which sticks in my mind is that he said this form still retains significant martial benefit, but that it must not be changed any further. What he meant, clearly, is that further means in the direction which it was changed. This may be confusing if you are unaware of what the root forms were or the ways in which it was changed. In general it was changed to become yet more open round smooth and circular as well as square. For the purpose of teaching the body method. The implication is that once you have mastered YLC's form it may (or may not) behoove you to learn a smaller circle version of the form.

YLC's version is very big.

That has plusses as well as minuses.

As for me I like a big open form. But as the saying goes, start big, and then get smaller.

[everything]

To slightly rebut my earlier analogy about Tyson, if we watch Tyson shadow box, it's very, very much his actual style. in contrast, if we watch Mayweather, Jr. shadow box, it seems completely different. Watching Tyson shadow box, if there were never any video of his bouts, we could still almost guess how he'd look boxing. Not really the case with Mayweather, Jr.

For Yang Luchan, if we buy (it seems reasonable) the stories of not teaching the Manchu the full "real deal", but something "more real" passed down to the family or a few non-family but Han, maybe Wu (Hao) or Guang Ping or Yang "small frame" give some interesting ideas. I don't know. It's just interesting.

[Trip]

To slightly rebut my earlier analogy about Tyson, if we watch Tyson shadow box, it's very, very much his actual style. in contrast, if we watch Mayweather, Jr. shadow box, it seems completely different. Watching Tyson shadow box, if there were never any video of his bouts, we could still almost guess how he'd look boxing. Not really the case with Mayweather, Jr.

Cool observation
Would you post an example of the two?

[everything]

Mayweather - not what he looks like in bouts - at least, it seems to be attack portion and not his famous defense, afaik


Tyson - kinda similar to his actual bout style...the left hook power is frightening even when he punches the air


overall they look different (but "same" in that the public can recognize it's boxing same as they could recognize tai chi form, I guess)

[Trip]

After seeing the video you posted of Mayweather Shadow boxing I see what you mean.
It looks like it was just the striking part
but not his defense

I looked too and noticed he didn't post that much
but I did find some.
It's very small movements
But, it's him Shadow Boxing showing the defense
He uses in his fights

[everything]

yeah i was thinking the exact same.

i think this gif might be him doing more of a "demo" of philly shell and shoulder roll move for that other guy (rather than "shadow boxing" as a sort of "long routine" for practice).

which is kinda interesting in the sense of "long form" for something else, but not exact "application" (mayweather imo) versus "long form" very much more like "actual application". idk. maybe.

think it also makes discussion of "long form" very weird because:
1. one kind of "long form"/"shadow boxing" might "look similar" but we don't know (unless there is something written or filmed) what it looks like for that particular person in "application".
2. if we copy different "long forms" of someone like Tyson or Mayweather, Jr. ... very interesting and fun, but we may not have the attributes of that person we're copying. so does it really make sense to do that?
3. and then weird, weird, weird, academic arguments about "which long form" to do based on the person who did it ... doesn't that seem even odder, given point #2?
4. even more so b/c "internal" is presumably about the "inside" to a larger extent than these other things, and we want to mainly discuss the "outside" for this kind of topic.

idk, i find it odd and maybe a bunch of red herrings people chase (but I'm still curious about YLC nevertheless, lol). I guess if we learn "multiple examples" and then something fits us better (as in the stories of Dong teaching a type of BGZ depending on the student), it all still makes sense, though.

[yeniseri]

We will never know Yang Luchan's external form sequence! The ten people claiming to have learned his form all display different versons and they rarely
mesh with each other, if at all. Even the famed Wang Lanting, one of Yang Luchan's best student, showed a unique display of expression as experessed in Li style.
It appears that when the switch from Chen to Yang occurred, what we see as Yang chengfu's shows itself as a modern equivalent of what we call Yang style.

In the long run, however one plays the routine, and they are expressing an effort to realize the teaching of their instructos showing the YAng Chengfu tenmplate (more or less)
as being post Chen and being Yang in all spheres of objective knowledge. Even the lifted leg ennunciation is unique though it does have a positive training effect for proprioception, heart disease
and inner ear synchronization!

[wayne hansen]

You can’t divorce the form from every other aspect of training
I always say the long form is like the barre work of ballet
It is a starting point
You can’t judge how Yangs students differed by how their students do
They might be the ones who changed it
I hope if I outlive my teachers my form develops after their departure

[Doc Stier]

Interesting comments and perspectives on this thread thus far. Mine are based solely upon my own personal experience in studying and training an older, pre-1930's version of Yang Style TCC since the early 1960's.

From that time period right up to the mid-1980's, the vast majority of Yang Style TCC teachers I met among ethnic Chinese in my travels throughout North America and Asia outside of the PRC practiced and taught the Large Frame Long Imperial 108 Forms Set. This is what I was taught first as well, with longer and lower stances than is typically seen nowadays, large circular movements of the arms and hands, and a slow to medium slow speed of performance, but usually not nearly as slow as commonly seen in modern TCC.

The sequential order of the named and numbered postures, and the stylistic expression of the form performance was generally essentially the same in most cases. Occasional differences might be seen in the performance of the transitional movements between named postures, usually reflecting a specific teacher's personal preference regarding the applications of those movements as the primary defensive techniques. These movement patterns are much more than a passive 'ball holding' shape in between form postures as commonly seen today.

The general consensus of opinion was a common belief that the Large Frame Long Imperial 108 Forms Set is what Yang Lu-Chan taught members of the Imperial Family and to the Imperial Bannermen of the Divine Skills Battalion at the Forbidden City, hence the name Long Imperial Form. This form set was modified to become the Wu Style TCC, and also modified by Master YCF to become what he taught as his Modified Large Frame 85 Forms Set, which remains the standardized Yang Style form set today. As a side note, what is often currently presented as the Yang Style 108 Long Form is actually merely an expanded renumbering of YCF's 85 Forms Set in a disingenuous attempt to equate it as the same set as the Long Imperial 108 set, which includes a number of postures that don't appear in YCF's style. They are not the same set.

However, it was also known that other Large, Medium and Small Frame Sets, along with additional proprietary training methods and material, were typically reserved only for Yang Family members and the Indoor Initiate Disciples of the individual Yang Family Masters. Many of these Disciples taught what they learned to their own students, either publicly or privately, so the form sets, etc, taught by Yang Lu-Chan, Yang Pan-Hou, Yang Chien-Hou, and Yang Shao-Hou were certainly no great mystery to them. The older system curriculum was simply replaced when the Yang-Cheng-Fu form set became the new family standard practiced and taught by the Yang Family Masters in subsequent generations to date.

Nonetheless, the older forms and material have survived in some lineages, but are often still preserved as proprietary training methods, which are thus rarely demonstrated or filmed today.

[marvin8]

Mayweather - not what he looks like in bouts - at least, it seems to be attack portion and not his famous defense, afaik
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4_c52pW4qEM

Your video labels the defenses Floyd Jr. is practicing and seen in his fights. Floyd uses these defenses in set pad work as well: slip, roll, catch, shoulder roll, pull and block, not just the shoulder roll. You may not see them, as Floyd's movement is efficient.

Tyson - kinda similar to his actual bout style...the left hook power is frightening even when he punches the air
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gBVpVtMDCHU

Tyson shows defense, offense and other skills, not only power.

overall they look different (but "same" in that the public can recognize it's boxing same as they could recognize tai chi form, I guess)

Floyd Jr. was not known for his power, in his latter stage. Tyson gets more weight into his punches through his wider range of movement (e.g., weight shifting).

Taiji forms are a fixed pattern. Shadow boxing is free form.

[origami_itto]

overall they look different (but "same" in that the public can recognize it's boxing same as they could recognize tai chi form, I guess)

Taiji forms are a fixed pattern. Shadow boxing is free form.

But shadow boxing is built on a limited number of essential movements that someone who knew what boxing looked like would recognize. Just like someone who knows what Taijiquan looks like could recognize even a small part of a posture, or even a whole lineage from a tiny detail, in form, application, or fighting.

[everything]

(kinda buried earlier in the thread), we were noticing the Banhou book spends only a small amount of space to say once you learn the individual postures, link them to a long routine. it spends more space talking about "8 trigrams" of 4 primary techniques, 4 secondary, plus "5 elements".

which kind of comes back to (a misconception?) a question of "is the public imagination of a long, slow form as BEING tai chi" way off base. which kind of comes back to this question of "teach Manchu (non-Han, foreign) court" something still "real" like a long form, but not "totally real"(tm) like really how to use the 13 dynamics.

which kind of comes back to my question of what do people think YLC practiced. the stories of his kids running away because training was too hard/strict, then the stories of Banhou not having many students b/c of beating them too hard ... certainly paints a different picture than what an average person would imagine is tai chi practice. of course we know tai chi is something else (whatever it is my mom does, with 100s of benefits studies keep finding out about, is certainly not "it" in terms of answering my question). I think I already guessed the answer but just curious.

[wayne hansen]

When I was younger here on the Gold Coast I walked 15 miles thru the snow to get to school

[Doc Stier]

When I was younger here on the Gold Coast I walked 15 miles thru the snow to get to school

Haha! Uphill facing a strong wind in both directions, right?

[robert]

When I was younger here on the Gold Coast I walked 15 miles thru the snow to get to school

My thoughts exactly, but a different Gold Coast ...