the rum soaked fist: internal martial arts forum

Master Jimmy Wong
Oct 3, 2020

Master Jimmy Wong demonstrates Wu Hao Tai Chi Application and Fajin explain 3 ways to apply Lifting Hands.


https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=89Q0cdiJlYw

A celebration of mediocrity in martial arts.

Yes pretty easy to push a little guy in goat riding stance with no yielding ability
Not very much effect for someone who has all the advantage

He is purely relying on techniques. No Taiji body skills or jin.

Nice uniforms, a bit of mystery, stories about the past and students who don't critique or question and voila - a master is born.

Maybe i'm being a bit unreasonable, i don't know the guy and am judging from this video only. But i feel the students are not going to get the benefit they think they are.

AJG wrote:Nice uniforms, a bit of mystery, stories about the past and students who don't critique or question and voila - a master is born.

Maybe i'm being a bit unreasonable, i don't know the guy and am judging from this video only. But i feel the students are not going to get the benefit they think they are.

Didn’t think that I was going to say anything... I’ve watched several of his videos. If he didn’t call himself “master”, I would probably see a kind and generous teacher who cared about details in his teachings. Now I see someone who tend to stiff up and use isolated arm strength while showing applications. I don’t care about what people call themselves but...

This is the reason why I would probably never dare calling myself “master”. I am well too much aware of all of my own flaws...

Jimmy Wong has put a lot online and Hao-style is an interesting variation of Taiji and one that I had never had any experience in.

Like so many around the world, I have been training exclusively on my own during this wretched pandemic and decided to learn a 13 posture Hao-style solo form from his youtube channel as he generously provided a lot of detailed instruction on that beginner form. That was months' ago and I still practise that short set and enjoy it as a variation to the other solo forms and methods in my training schedule.

There's lots of reasons to do any style of taijiquan and martial efficiency is usually the least important to most beginners. What's on offer in this gentleman's videos are exactly what many modern students are looking for when they explore any style of taiji for the fun of it. [I taught public group classes for decades in my home city in Canada and have experience with the attitudes and expectations that beginners often bring to class.]

I'm not advocating mediocrity and some teachers are better than others at teaching martial methods that might work under stress; but most students need to achieve a certain level of experience that most never want or get to appreciate the difference between basic martial training and what is more practical.

However, would any recreational taiji training hold up in a fight with a stranger as opposed to your classmate? Hard to say, I've know people who seemed timid and never had a martial arts lesson who successfully defended themselves in a really threatening situation and I've known people who were great at sparring in a martial arts club who folded at the first punch in a real fight. Life is often full of surprises...

As to the martial stuff that Mr Wong posts in this thread ... Bao has summed it up well to my mind.

Hao is the one last style I would try to learn on line
It's secrets need to be taught first hand

That background doesn't look like the UK! Has Ugur Osman moved to Singapore? (Planned to visit him previously but didn't end up making the trip because he lived > 5 hr drive away from where I was living)

The Hao Shaoru line of Wu Yuxiang Taiji just looks super whimpy to me.
I prefer the Zhai Wen Zhang line

Sean wrote:The Hao Shaoru line of Wu Yuxiang Taiji just looks super whimpy to me.
I prefer the Zhai Wen Zhang line

Yeah, you've said it before - Found a ten year old thread.

Hao Shaoru saw what Yang Chengfu, Wu Jianquan and Sun Lutang accomplished. So he simplified the old Wu style and turned it into "Hao" to follow them and taught Tai Chi mostly as a method of health practice.

I love the old Wu (Yuxiang), its expression is very different from modern Hao:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nffsvMZiEak
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=d6OC-7CGczI

But still, most of Hao has kept a lot of stuff that you hardly see in the other styles styles. I like the strict frame, precise angles and the details of the postures. I.e. all of the basic principles and ideas that Sun Lutang threw straight into the bin.

Agree with Wayne, and even for the "wimpier" Hao, you really need to have first hand instruction. If you lose the details and the precision of the postures, you lose it all.

There is a fine line between hyper precision and control of posture and robotic movement that lacks rythm and fluidité.

This is closer to the version that I learned.



When I was learning the form, my teacher emphasized the development of "natural" movement, flow and rythme as well as the change between "wai peng" and "nei peng". But that could just be because I tended to over control the postures/positions.

Sean wrote:There is a fine line between hyper precision and control of posture and robotic movement that lacks rythm and fluidité.

As someone in the old RSF said: you see the outcome of long time practice, but not the practice itself.

Some old Wu lineages does not look soft and they have many different exercises and tools to practice connection and structure. How they arrange their movements is also different from the Tai Chi that only teaches to "relax" while keeping correct angles.

The gent in the vid looks as he has very strong connection, structure and control of posture. But I don't believe that he lacks rhythm or fluidity.

Sean wrote:This is closer to the version that I learned.

Oh, that's Zhai Weichuan, he has very close connection to the old Wu as well: "president of China Yongnian Yu Xiang Tai Chi Chuan Institute, based in the Home Town of The Old Wu style - Guangfu in Yongnian prefecture, Hebei province."


On Jimmy Wong's homepage I can read that he is an indoor disciple of Wu Wenhan in Beijing. But from what I can make out if the information, he seems to have lived most of his life in Texas and also studied some in Malaysia and Singapore. He also has a strong connection to the Chin Woo association. So, when and for how long time he studied with Wu Wenhan is unclear.

The stages of learning the form of Wu 武 style Taijiquan

Any current examples of the end result in use?