by wassy on Wed Jan 07, 2009 2:10 pm
andy:
hi , hope u are well. i have read the discussion, it was very interesting, until it fell apart!
my teacher is a disciple of grandmaster dr li li-qun of shanghai. he was the deputy chairman at the chien chaun boxing association under ma and wu ying hua for many years and took over many of ma's positions when he got older. i can only tell u guys and gals what master ma told us through master li. this form was the original form passed from the yang lineage to quan yu, ma often watched wu chien chuan and yang chien fu practice it together in chien chuan home. when he asked chien chuan what this form was he was told the above! ma made eventually made this form public, in wu chien chuans time , it was not taught openly.
i studied have studied with eddie wu's side of the family as well as the shanghai method of practice. i must say i am very dissapointed to hear he is telling people ma made it up. i have met eddie, and learnt much from his disciples, but i am shocked at their lack of respect for their uncle and aunty. i asked dr li-liqun if he made it up, he had a chuckle, and polity told me that not one person is capable of making this form, not ma, not wu chien chuan, not sun lutang etc. he said when you practice this form for long enough you will realize it is something truly special which has been refined over many generations. having spent the last few years trying to find my feet with the form; i have to agree!! i think that wu kung yi and cho knew the form, but they probably did not pass it on! there are also many forms in china which are not taught openly by the wu family folk. They no longer practice the old long form, they mainly practice the square form as popularized by wu kung yi. i studied both forms and i prefer the old form as demonstrated by wu ying hua, this is why i stopped studying with the wu family. the emphasis on how the two schools push hands is quite different also. i was lucky to find a good/open teacher in the uk, who is teaching as dr li taught him and have been with him for over 10 years now. through michael acton i have gone on to learn things which were beyond my wildest dreams (fast form included). as stated by another kung fu brother on this forum, the fast form, completes the the syllabus, in ways which are hard to describe.
the form demonstrated by sim pooh ho. is a different form in my humble opinion. i do think it has the qualities the old tai ji was famous for, and was passed down through wu tunan from yang shou hou. my teacher suggested that maybe the yang family had more than one fast sets, i guess we may never know. sim pooh ho form seems to be striking oriented, wu chien chuan form is neutral in the sense it does not favour striking, locking or throwing; its all in there!the form demonstrated by wang hou da is interesting as he clearly shows striking and wrist locking and lock breaking techs, but this is not how ma did it and if done incorrectly will lead to broken power. i think its interesting emphasis on the form but not for me either.
peace wassy