Steve James wrote:Jmo, but I don't think it was the Yang connection to Beijing that was the thing. It was the Wu connection to the military, not the government. Ma Yueh Liang's family was also in the military (iirc, I heard his father was a commander at one of the Beijing gates. At any rate, I think it was Sun Lutang who was the most ardently "nationalist," and his student was Chen Weiming --who later went to study with YCF. Sun was close to the nationalist generals, especially Li Jinglin. That's how ma theory came to be part of a nationalist agenda, along with the idea of internal and external.
I didn't know any of that, but it sounds like Sun is pretty central to this activity.
Another thing that doesn't seem easy to find out is if any of the "Wudang" folks competed in the tournament.