Steve James wrote:Well, I have a bit of experience with the tcc scene in the Northeast/Mid-Atlantic. The first -at least in terms of publishing and holding public classes- was Sophia Delza in the 60s. She was a dancer who had studied Wu style in Shanghai with Ma Yueh Liang. None of her interests including fighting, though she did some push hands. CMC and Da Liu came a little later.
By the early 70s, apart from the CMC-related schools, the only other tcc schools compete in tournaments was Shum Leung's -who taught Wu style, but was/is a major figure in Eagle Claw. In Boston, the non-CMC schools I know of were/are Bow Sim Mark's -who did Fu style, and Gin Soon Chu's -who teaches the Yang Sau Chung variation, and does the "dynamic push hands" stuff in the video above. In the 80s, he opened a school in Manhattan. By that time, there were fewer open competitions, but a lot more "push hands" tournaments.
Anyway, it wasn't until 1980s that anyone heard of Chen style. It was promoted as "the real" tcc. It was presented along with wushu acrobatics to emphasize the difference. Anyone can check how it was promoted by looking at old copies of Inside Kungfu. However, none of those Chen guys, not the Four Tigers, or their students, demonstrated as much success as CMC guys in practice, if the ever competed at all.
In the 90s, more tournaments started to emerge, specifically through Grandmaster Huang's US Kuoshu Federation. I was in Boston around that time, and can't honestly talk about the results of those competitions. But, I know people from CMC schools who've won. I can't say I've ever heard of a Chen stylist doing so. That's not to put Chen style down, only to point out that the idea that CMC stylists are somehow inferior because of the theory is just wrong.
I can't count the number of times people have asked "how will you use soft?" But, my main point is that when it came down to actual competition, CMC stylists have held up better than any other in open competition on the East Coast of the US. Why has nothing to do with softness; it's simply because their schools had more students entering competitions. I shouldn't neglect mentioning that Mario Napoli, a CMC stylist, won the Chen Village Push Hands Competition in the 90s. Mario happens to be a strong, skilled guy who practices.
Btw, CMC "theory" as presented in his book was to develop the "flexibility of a child and the strength of a lumberjack." I'd have to dig through my library to find the quote, but maybe someone has it on hand.
I wasn't trying to take a pop at CMC or his lines.. I know all about Mario and others; we had a very good guy/school here in the UK from his Malaysia lines.. no one can watch Mario doing his thing in competition and ignore the role of strength in that kind of engagement. That's a nice quote; but as always there is a general conception; maybe that's 'mainstream', there are always two sides, and maybe his tai chi (or how it was interpreted by some} appealed more to the "relax", don't use strength crowd too.