is doug wylie a wanker?

[jun_erh]

I've been reading the lost tai chi secrets or whatever it's called. There's no real mention of Wudang at all, unless it's in the context of disproving Chan san Feng. Have any of these academic guys ever seen Wudang Kung fu? How would Wudang have come from chen village? It mkaes no sense to me, unless Wudang Mountain dropped out of the sky thrity years ago.

[Brad]

Have any of these academic guys ever seen Wudang Kung fu? How would Wudang have come from chen village?
How would Chen Taiji come from Wudang?

[Laughing Cow]

Jun_Erh.

AFAIK, what call itself Wudang Tai Chi does not come from Wudang but is a variant of Yang TJQ.

Naturally might be wrong there, but from what I have read the MA practicted at Wudang today does not look like any of the other TJQ styles even though it shares some common stuff.

I know not a real answer.

[taijiquan_student]

If you're talking about Doug Wile, then no, he's not even close to being a wanker.

[WanderingMonk]

Originally posted by jun_erh
I've been reading the lost tai chi secrets or whatever it's called. There's no real mention of Wudang at all, unless it's in the context of disproving Chan san Feng. Have any of these academic guys ever seen Wudang Kung fu? How would Wudang have come from chen village? It mkaes no sense to me, unless Wudang Mountain dropped out of the sky thrity years ago.

Wudang mountain has been around for a long time and since it is in my ancestoral province, I am obliged to defend its honor.

Yes, there is wudang kung-fu. I read articles on it and seen the last lineage holder in the chinese papers several years back. There are a bunch of VCD on wudang arts as well. So, it is not a fabrication.

WuDang mountain is one of the holy taoist training ground, and daoists have been training there for several hundred years at minimum. During this time, people who joins the Wudang daoist school bound to bring in some MA. Being a daoist training ground, the daoist philosophy would influence these arts (they might also name one of their form, Taiji quan). Their style definite will have daoist flavor but not necesssarily the "Taji Quan" as invented in the Chen village.

But, there is a competing theory which state the founder of the Chen Taiji learned Taiji quan from a wanderer (monk?). So, you never know. Not necessarily Chang San-Feng, but maybe he learned Taiji some WuDang Daoist priest.

wm

[IronFist]

lol, you said "wanker."

:D :D :D

Sorry to be off topic.

IronFist

[Laughing Cow]

Originally posted by WanderingMonk

But, there is a competing theory which state the founder of the Chen Taiji learned Taiji quan from a wanderer (monk?). So, you never know. Not necessarily Chang San-Feng, but maybe he learned Taiji some WuDang Daoist priest.


From what I have heard it was Jiang Fa that introduced the taoist concepts to Chen Want Ting while he compiled the arts that were practiced at Chen village into the forms we know today (5 or 7).

Some might correct me on this, AFAIK, CWT simply combined the forms and added the taoist concepts, he didn't create/invent anything.

If I remember correctly too Jiang Fa was buried close to the Chen Village after his death.

Cheers.

[Laughing Cow]

Having never read any of his books as I study a diferent TJQ style I can only go by what I have heard.

Some seem to praise him to the highest notes, whereas I have also heard that his writings got some errors in it

Said that the recent Chen TJQ Book also got some mistakes in it. ;)

Anyhuh, AFAIK, he was one of the first to offer translation and information about Yang TJQ to the west, his books contain a lot of good info but like all MA books will need to be verified and updated against info that came out after it's publication.

Not sure how apllicable the info will be to non-yang stylists, but nevertheless I think they will provide good references and material for thought.

[Repulsive Monkey]

I'll corroborate waht Laughing Cow says about Jiang-fa being the visitor to Chen Xia-Ghou from what I've read (and that's from from non-Wile sources too!). Jiang-fa seems to be linked by some through the lineage of Wang Tsung-Yueh and further back to Zhang San-feng himself. This of course is historic data which may or may not be true but I'm sure the Chen family could verify the meeting of Chen Wang Ting to Jiang-fa couldn't they???

[Laughing Cow]

Here is an article from Jarek's site.

Article (http://www.chinafrominside.com/ma/taiji/TJQorigins.html)

I guess the info can be verified quiet easily by speaking to people that studied at the village.

Cheers.

[Laughing Cow]

People can feel free to correct me on this.

AFAIK, Douglas Wile is historian, researcher and translater.

I don't think that he ever studied Tai Chi Chuan as such.

[taijiquan_student]

He does practice taijiquan. He doesn't claim to be a master or anything, but he practices. I'm not sure what style.

[Esteban]

gee,

why would anyone think that Doug Wile never studied tjq? I'm not sure it would even be possible to translate a cma book without having practiced it. The last poster is right, though. Wile's practiced tjq for many years. That, fwiw, is a fact.

Anyway, I think it's uncalled for to say that someone --anyone-- is a wanker because he mistranslated something, even if one could provide a better translation. It makes a lot of sense to criticize a translation, and I think that Wile probably appreciates that. He makes his living in a university setting where one's scholarly reputation is important. You can argue against his conclusions, but he might be more interested in a review by peers.

Now, if one can't translate Chinese texts -some too difficult for even some Chinese speakers- then it doesn't make sense to criticize. But, it really seems silly to make a personal statement about him. Well, ok, I take it back; it's not so silly to ask whether he practices tjq. But, if just anyone who could read Chinese could translate these texts, they'd all have been done a long time ago. We're lucky that there are even a few who can.

Anyhow, regarding Chang Sanfeng, I don't know if there's a way to decide whether he existed or not. I'm not sure we could prove that Socrates, Buddha or Da Mo existed. However, the ancient Daoist sects often changed ordinary people into Immortals. CSF is in that category. See here, for ex., http://www.eng.taoism.org.hk/general-daoism/eminent-philosophers&accomplished-daoists/pg1-4-29.asp

At any rate, fwiw, I think one can pinpoint the origin of a tradition of practice; but, I think tjq has components from many parts of Chinese culture. I don't think one person invented it.

respects,
Esteban

[jun_erh]

I guess by wanker I meant that he wasn't the most horrible person in the world.

Also not trying to downplay the quality of chen and yang styles.

or trying to promote the chang seng fang legend.

also, there was another mistake in the book, i think. It says that the practice of golden bell (iron body) goes back to the early 1800's. From what I've read it would appear to go back a good deal ****her than that.

I wonder why there are so many books on both shaolin and yang and chen tai chi, but very few on Wudang. In my local ma bookstore there is one "23 wudang taiyi boxing" or something.

In "Iron and Silk" I remember the narrorator being introduced to tai chi as "Wudang style". I think it was tai chi anyway.

I'm going to read the story on Jareks sight now.

many things about Wudang are coming to the surface via modern media.

etc.

[ZIM]

How would Wudang have come from chen village? It mkaes no sense to me, unless Wudang Mountain dropped out of the sky thrity years ago. This will either help or not at all... as I'm unfamiliar with the areas mentioned, generally.

This (http://ocw.mit.edu/NR/rdonlyres/850DFB17-109A-4DF3-A96C-D1DCFE53F031/0/couriermap2.jpg) is a map of the courier routes in China during the Ming period, and probably before that as well. It 'solves for' [in a sense] many of the relations seen between various arts- seeing as how these would be the principle trading routes [Hsingyi, anyone?] and communications between provinces and towns/cities/etc. It would make a lot of sense that MAs would follow the same patterns of movement throughout.

Guess I'll look at the article, too. :)

[Brad]

I wonder why there are so many books on both shaolin and yang and chen tai chi, but very few on Wudang. In my local ma bookstore there is one "23 wudang taiyi boxing" or something.
My teacher wrote that one :D

[Vapour]

Now, because I nor my instructor met the guy, I'm not going to claim that his Sanfeng taichi is authentic. Offical position of our organization used to be that Wudan Taijiquan was invented by someone recently when he was taking clap in his toilet. Anyway, we consider most Orally based lineage of chinese martial arts to be pretty much fabricated.

Then one of our senior member met this guy who is xingi expert so our organization took him as our technical advisor. I read his background and I thought "Could this be true?!"

So just take what is written as matter of curiosity.

"Master Zhao whose Daoist name is Xuan Dong was born in December 1966 in Yangchuan County, Shanxi Province, China. At the age of eight he began his formal training in xingyiquan with Master Gao Qi Sheng and was initiated as his formal, bai shi disciple. From Master Gao he learnt the traditional Xing Yi of Shanxi Province with an emphasis on the internal aspects of the art.

In 1987 he met Master Fu Zhong Wen at the Wudang mountains where he had gone to pursue further research into the internal martial arts. Impressed by Master Fu's command of the internal aspects of taijiquan Master Zhao became his student.

In 1990 He met Master Song Xu Ming from Shandong from whom he studied both external and internal boxing including tongbeiquan, tanglangquan, chaquan, changquan, nanquan, and Sun, Wu, Wu and Chen style taijiquan.

Four years later, in 1994 he became a student of Master He Fu Sheng from whom he learnt the Hebei variation of xingyiquan.

Finally in 1995 after five years of visits to the Wudang mountains Daoist Master Tong Xu (Master Zhu Hua Ying) took Zhao Wei Dong as a disciple. From Master Tong Xu he learnt Wudang Longmenpai Yangshengong, dianxue and massage as well as Daoist Quanshengpai skills including mianzhang. Furthermore Master Zhao was able to make an in-depth study of Sanfeng taijiquan, the original taijiquan of Mount Wudang which to this day is seldom taught outside of the Wudang mountains. (Note that some unscrupulous teachers purporting to be from Wudang have put together their own sets under this name. The moves, however, are a compilation of moves from the five family styles.)

When he came down from the mountains Master Zhao taught all over China and he proudly states that he has students from Tianjin to Jiangxi and from Nanjing to Guangzhou. For two years Master Zhao held the post of Wushu Instructor at the Yuedong Wushu Xuexiao.

Currently Master Zhao holds the post of Principal of the Dongfang Wushu Institute in Penang, Malaysia. "

http://www.zhong-ding.com/zwd.html