hi r.s.f,
i've just joined the forum - looking forward to discussion
i live in auckland, new zealand and have been learning
a mixed form - mostly taiji and bagua - some xingyi too
i tried a little aikido in the eighties and studied chen
taiji with malisa ng in auckland for a few years - then
some time teaching a taiji based exercise set to senior
citizens. malisa is an 'indoor student' of zhu tiancai.
my teacher is guo hu - 'tiger' - and speaks almost no
english so i'm learning purely by copying with correction
tiger is 75 and was a professional kung fu coach in xi'an
before moving to nz with his family not too long ago.
i've asked tiger (through translators) about the roots
of his form - he just says he's had five main teachers
so i'm still not sure what the lineage of his style is but
i have found out a few things - he started practicing
when he was 8; his first form was broadsword; when
he was young he did hand conditioning like slapping
leather bags on wood and plunging fingers into beans;
tiger has boxed western style and i'm sure there is
more; his xingyiquan is shanxi - i don't know what style
the bagua is - but when asked he rates dong haichuan,
cheng tinghua and sun lutang; the taiji we practice is a
( i think ) the standardised 24 and 42; the form in the
video below is bagua-taiji that tiger has been working
on for thirty years.
kind regards,
adam
tiger guo's bagua-taiji -
https://youtu.be/wCc6q5ENbJc