Ken,
Sorry, I explained that on my blog. I had a gout attack that day and could barely bend at the ankles. I thought I was going on at 8-8:30 and ended up performing at 12:30! I ran out of water at 9:00. So yeah in a way you're right -- doing it like this was more comfortable for demo purposes because it was about as low as the gout would allow me to sink. I stood there feeling my lower body tighten up more by the hour, but there was nothing I could do about it. Needless to say, I learned a lot about tourneys by participating in this one.
The remarks you made and your experience learning it from Ms. Zhu are interesting. It seems that most everyone modified the form after they got it with the possible exception of Chen's sons.
My thoughts are that the form amends itself very well to being interpreted through BGZ, XYQ, Chen style, etc. so the CPL picks up those influences in almost every instance. I originally did it more Chen-ish myself because of my studies of Du's Chen style.
Xiaoxong also asked about Hong's version. I learned that version, too. Again, most everyone that learned CPL's taiji re-interpreted it as they saw fit even though that was never CPL's wish. He wanted a very bare-bones, plain style of taijiquan that everyone could do. He didn't want BGZ, etc. added to the form because not everyone could do a houtian version with long, deep stances, etc. What he wanted for the form was for it to become the "national form" even though ZMQ's became that by default. If people wanted BGZ, they could learn his simplified BGZ style. Unfortunately, he didn't live long enough to simplify his XYQ or Shaolin. His versions of those arts still have multiple forms.
The advanced martial artists that got ahold of CPL's form and added more advanced elements to it. I think that's fine in a way. But there's also room for CPL's original form in medium frame that everyone can do.
Dave C.
Time to put the QUAN back in taijiQUAN. Time to put the YANG back in YANG style taiji.