what happened to Zheng Manqing ?

[Trick]

reading here on the forum about the passing of one of Zheng Manqing's top students in America at the advanced age of 91, a question i came to think about a long time ago came to my mind again - 'what did ZMQ die of ?' , i mean, he was just 73, yes of course there is no surance when the time comes for us even if we live the healthiest lives......
But anyway, TJQ and perhaps more so ZMQ's taijiquan got somewhat known for being an exellent health exersise....so the question has been hanging there for me - 'what happened to Zheng Manqing ?' - accident, disease, or are there even theories about a Bruce Lee like situation happening to him ?

[wayne hansen]

He always claimed his illhealth was due to the ingestion of chalk dust from his teaching days
His love of alcohol was an added extra

[Trick]

ah, he was big on Baijiu, that certainly can have a negative impact on health. Lots of gongfu teachers（and chinese in general） like the ”white-wine”.
But ”ingesting” class-room chalk ? ? ! sure that sound nonhealthy too , but the claim of ingesting it.....well maybe.

[wayne hansen]

It’s in one of his books
He replaced the blackboard with glass and if I remember rightly used wet chalk
He said every time he stopped training he got sick and would go back to training to regain his health

[origami_itto]

He always claimed his illhealth was due to the ingestion of chalk dust from his teaching days
His love of alcohol was an added extra

The buzz is that he was served tainted alcohol and that's what did it.

Could just be a delayed black hand though from that incident n Taiwan.

[wayne hansen]

Yes it was the same guy that death touched Bruce Lee

[Trick]

about the alcohol perspective, in pictures of ZMQ he doesnt seem to show features of alcoholism（however the claim of his ill health by ingesting black-board.chalk sound as alcoholic denial）.
but sure ”tainted” alcohol is a risk, China has a long tradition of fine baijiu making, but not so good home-brewed stuff in disguise are in circulation which can be mistaken for the real thing till its too late.

the perspective of a black-hand - well its said that there were others who did not like the man and only.reason he ”escaped”
them was due to his connections high up in the Taiwan government.....people has been snuffed for less than a bottle of bad baijiu.

[Giles]

This is the problem with trying to confirm or deny a theory based on a sample of 1. There are so many variables in play with ZMQ that we can't sensibly draw any conclusions. Maybe the way he did/developed his style tai chi wasn't that health-promoting after all. Maybe it was very health-promoting and he did great by reaching the age he did, maybe he would have died or become an invalid much earlier if he hadn't done tai chi. It's recorded that he had a bad accident as a child and that for a while his health was very poor until he started doing tai chi, so perhaps that old stuff just caught up with him in the end. Maybe he just didn't have the genes for longevity. Maybe his general, documented alcohol habit pulled him down (just speaking generally, alcoholism can take various forms and isn't always obvious to all those around the afflicted person). Maybe it was just a single incident of poisoning, accidental or not.

When it comes to ZMQ tai chi being especially health-promoting: maybe, but when I see some interpretations of the style where practitioners are more or less collapsed in their body alignment and relaxation doesn't seem to be balanced by a strong internal core, then in these cases I have my doubts.

Over the years I had a moment or two where, for example, I had a bad cold and an esoterically minded acquaintance said something like: "What, but you do tai chi! How can you catch a cold / get ill ?!?" Then I had to bite my tongue and not say: 'yeah, well, if I didn't do a lot of tai chi then by now I might be in a wheelchair, or on a secure ward, or dead. So actually I'm doing great.' But of course you don't say that, you just smile and shrug.

[Trick]

yes, as i wrote in the OP - we cant be sure when our time comes.
maybe the passing of ZMQ was already back then a tabu to talk about, perhaps because of his style of taiji maybe was somewhat seen as linked to health maintaining practice and that he was a doctor in chinese medicine ?

His teacher died when much younger, but whith him the cause is established ? http://discuss.yangfamilytaichi.com/vie ... %20away%22.

[origami_itto]

Yes it was the same guy that death touched Bruce Lee

This is what I'm talking about specifically, from Ray Hayward's book "Lessons with master Liang"


i don't know what's wrong with the image host

[everything]

nature vs. nurture.

they can look at populations (such as Okinawans) and find various lifestyle habits that are better (diet, exercise, social life, stress management, spiritual aspects).

but yeah, data point of 1 is meaningless.

[wayne hansen]

The main thing I see with CMC is that many live off his name without understanding his method
It is even worse with the following generations
The story above just seems like part of advertising to me
Immortality and longevity are not about living for ever
They are about life and death both being irrelevant
The reason for practicing tai chi is the art itself
If you cling to longevity you have already lost
CMC,s legacy is in the hearts of those who really trained with him
Those like Ed who held him close to his heart for many years after he died
Those combat veterans hard men in Malaysia who not only took on all comers but fought the Japanese invasion in the jungles
Those who my teacher saw weep openly the day they heard of CMC,s death

[Steve James]

No matter what you do, you're not sure to live through the day. Not every tcc practitioner, ever, has become physically immortal or invulnerable. If it's a question of a death touch, then we could ask why Cheng's tcc didn't protect him from it.

If immortality is the goal, then all martial arts are useless. Um, except that with training a person can protect the lives of others.

[Trick]

Yes it was the same guy that death touched Bruce Lee

This is what I'm talking about specifically, from Ray Hayward's book "Lessons with master Liang"


i don't know what's wrong with the image host

could you make a small summary of the text ? would be interesting.

[Trick]

The main thing I see with CMC is that many live off his name without understanding his method
It is even worse with the following generations
The story above just seems like part of advertising to me
Immortality and longevity are not about living for ever
They are about life and death both being irrelevant
The reason for practicing tai chi is the art itself
If you cling to longevity you have already lost
CMC,s legacy is in the hearts of those who really trained with him
Those like Ed who held him close to his heart for many years after he died
Those combat veterans hard men in Malaysia who not only took on all comers but fought the Japanese invasion in the jungles
Those who my teacher saw weep openly the day they heard of CMC,s death

i agree with you Wayne, and ZMQ reached immortality despite not an exeptional long life, his work lives on , even here in mainland China, one of my Yang taiji reachers here follow the Li Yaxuan branch and he is deeply impressed by the few videos he seen of ZMQ, especially the pair-work with the sword.