Trick wrote:In a previous post you write SLT removed aspects from the original Wu taijiquan “pulling the spine out of the form”. That sound as he took away an quite important aspect of the original teaching, that of course must be filled with something else but similar, otherwise it’s an empty shell ? You go on writing Sun’s Taijiquan is an complete art”stand on its own legs”, but then continue with its merely an Qigong exercise “he had no combat in mind when creating it”. ...Now I would believe his Taiji has combat applications.
Of course applications are there. The Wu/Hao form has martial applications. That is not what I am talking about. I am talking about soul. What SLT changed was the frame, the whole body method. The Wu/Hao form is based on a very precise use of angles and structure (probably very much the same as in the old Chen small frame which the old Wu is based on. ). It is designed to teach the body where your angles and posture are as strongest as possible. Old Wu use a lot of coiling and spine movement, a body use that is sometimes more similar to Liuhebafa and some Bagua styles than compared to Yang or Chen Tai Chi. This spine and coiling is less visible in modern Hao, but you can compare the two Wu/Hao vids with different Sun style vids and I think you can see it by yourself. The body method in Sun style is vastly different even if the movements are pretty much the same....
But what you see today as Sun style Tai Chi is not exactly how SLT seems to have practiced his own form. If you look at picture on SLT performing his Sun style, in many postures he has a more dynamic, stretched and less relaxed look than compared to Sun Jianyun and this lineage. Especially if you see earlier pictures of SLT, you can see differences. His disciple I showed you, Wang Xikui, has also a different body use, a more "full" body use, more pumping from the Dantian and more spine movement. There is also a less known Tai Chi style, the Fu style that comes from Sun Lutang's student. The Fu style has a very clear, almost an over-exaggerated spine movement. So from where did this come? From SLT of course. He might have lost the interest of fighting, but he certainly learned and also at some time taught a Tai Chi style that is different from the Sun style that you normally see today. What we see today is the public Sun style, something he taught for health and not as a martial art.