Tsin Man Ching

[Eddie]

Sorry, I translated it from hear say so im not to sure about the correct english spelling.

anyone with some info on this master?
I hear he was responsible for bringing yang style to usa?
please post some info or relevant pages
thanks
eddie

[uncle]

I believe you mean Cheng Man Ching is the correct spelling.Willow Leaf is the resident expert on that style and a very mellow cool guy at that. See if you can get him to respond. Peace Bob

[Repulsive Monkey]

A Taiji Master of great skill and also to those without the training/info, a controversial Master too. He learnt the body of his Taiji from Yang Cheng-fu, grandson of Yang Lu-chan (Yang family Taiji founder). Opposition grew because he didn't carry on under the banner of Yang family Taiji, and some other internal politics in the Yang family, and taught Taiji openly in Taiwan and then in America under the banner of Cheng Man Ching style. This it was, as he had at this point taught a shorter form of the Yang style with some modifications (but without deviating from correct Taiji principles). Some other Yang stylists harboured a grudge against Cheng Man Ching and didn't rate his skill much claiming that he had spent minimal time with Yang and that he was merely an average student, a good example here is a prominent Yang family lineage Grand Master who teaches in America today who slated Cheng's style all the time until he was beaten by a student of Chengs and then halted in his insults strangely enough!. However Chengs reputation was well known in martial arts circles in tawain and is still known today through a lot of the descdants on his Tawainese disciples students too.
Cheng brought his Taiji to America and it gained popularity although there has always remained a divide between his American students and his Tawainese students and how the lineages even today evolve.

This is just a smattering of info. based upon my lineage through Cheng Man Ching and his Tawain disciples, I'm sure others will have much more to say against or in union with it.
You could of curse try the Chengmanching.com website which has some good info on it, but not enough in my opinion.
Again I'm sure others will add to this thread too.

[Eddie]

Thank you everyone,
I'm a kung fu student but I did some chen style for a short while, but nothing serious. I now have the oppertunity to study taiji with one of cheng man ching's taiwanese students (or rather a second generation student of CMC). The sifu is very nice and her taiji is good. Her kung fu skill is also pretty good and thats why I thought it to be a good idea to train with her.
I'll check out the sites. If you get more info, please post it here.
thanks
ed

[Repulsive Monkey]

Your Taiji teacher to be, of which Taiwanese disciple of Chengs does she come from, just out of curiosity? I know a lot of people who come from the American lineahe disciples will probably not like this but I have been tol dthat there is a disticnt difference between the division betweeen them in the lineages somewhat.
It still would be interesting to know who your teachers teacher is/was?

[Eddie]

Repulsive monkey.
The taiji sifu is called Dr Lu. She is from Taiwan originally, but she stayed in Argentina for many years. I believe she learned her taiji (cheng man ching style) over in Argentina from another taiwanese sifu. I do know that before she learned this style, she did som other styles but im not sure which. I havent spoken to her about her master yet, as I thought it to be a little disrespectful upon first meeting. I did display some kung fu, and she displayed some taiji, and based on that, I decided that she would be a good teacher to learn from. For me, lineage is imortant, but not essential. Its more important to learn from a good martial artists and a good teacher. But I will find out who her master is just out of curiousity.

Anyways, I will be having my first actual taiji class with her tomorrow so I will keep you up to date. For now its back to the kung fu class..

[Repulsive Monkey]

Whilst I think it is a an honourable thing to be rpesctful to your Sifu, any teacher worth their weight in gold will have no problems and will in fact expect a certain degree of questioning to their lineage. A poor teacher will probably get angry and clam up, and good teacher will let you know exactly what their lineage is. Lineage is crucially important if your teacher has leanrt well from a lineage holder as this will provide more evidence that you too will have the opportunity to go far along the path from that lineage too.
Anyway I hope you enjoy your class, ans as I say out of curiosty I would very much like to hear about her lineage, if its not too rude a thing to ask of you.

Enjoy!

[Eddie]

Repulsive Monkey
sure thing. I will let you know about the teacher's lineage. I will see her later today.

How much does the Chen MC style differ from the modern Yang form?

[Repulsive Monkey]

In some ways I think its hard to say other than the amendments that Prof. Cheng made seem to deviate still today and thus his original teachings are hard tocome by today. This is just the same for the Yang teachings in that if you find a good teacher who can transmit faithfully the lineage teachings then you essentially get the Taiji intact. Many people say they teach Yang family and Cheng style Taiji but are poor imitations ofd what a good lineage teacher can provide. I suppose essentially speaking the changes that were made by Cheng still remain today as they did when he went to Taiwan to teach a simplified form. However some people are under the illusion that he created his 37 posture form and was all they learnt. He taught his first Taiwanese diciples the form he learnt from Yang Cheng-fu along with the original Yang Long form too. So there are many things which actually almost remain the same from the Yang family, after all Cheng style was borne from it.

[Eddie]

Repulsive Monkey
thanks for the info. Youve been a great help. I asked Dr Lu about her lineage and she said her master was (again, I translated it from the sounds and not from writing) Wong Jin (sounds like Wong Gene).

He was living in Argentina about 20 odd years back. He learned from Cheng Man Ching in taiwan as well as in the usa. I suppose there must be some students who knew of this master.

I spoke to her about the internet and about this forum, and she was very interested in reading some articles like these. Maybe next week, I will take her to my kung fu school so that she can post on this forum.

Once again thanks for the info.

[bob10]

Rep Monkey - who was the Yang teacher you refer to being beatne by CMC's student?

I've heard a few different things, be interested to know.

cheers

[Repulsive Monkey]

the name I was given was of Grand-Master Chu Gin-soon.

[Walter Joyce]

I'll ask his son Vincent about that. If you are going to use hearsay, you might at least site your source, it may aid or lessen the reliability of the information. And the name of the student of Chen Man Ching may also be helpful to verify things.

[bob10]

Well that is very different from the things I heard. You might also want to check William Chen's opinion of GSC

[Walter Joyce]

bob10,
What have you heard, and if possible within discretion, from whom?
Regards,
Walter

[Repulsive Monkey]

Where as I do repsect the person who told me this info. and I do have respect for Master Chu, I am as you have guessed a little short on details at the moment (naturally I hear you all say). However I will try my best to get hold of more details about who Cheng's student was who either fought or did push hands with Master Chu, and the exact line by line deliverance from person to person, from the incident (if it genuine, which coming from the source so far as I see it should be!), all the way to me mentioning it on the board.
Unfortunately, if it is legitimate then this is gonna look like me bad mouthing Master Chu and I do not wish for it to be so, it was info that someone told me. If it's absolute rubbish then it will be me with egg on my face, and I'll consider an apology too.
As I say I will try to get more info. on the incident. I have a sneaking suspcision that we are talking about this maybe happening in the 70's.