Wudang Taijiquan vs Wu Style Taijichuan

[JonBest]

Are they the same style?
If not how closely related are they?

I am going to be starting Wu Style Taijichuan at the end of the month , but after Crouching Tiger the name 'Wudan' just gives me the shivers.

Have you hugged your Black Dragon today?

[count]

Wudang is a region of China and Wu Tai Chi is a family style. No relationship that I know of.
By the way, welcome to KFO!
:)

[Ghost Dog]

Yeah, as mentioned above, Wu style Tai Chi Chuan is a family style of tai chi chuan - I am sure you will easily find the lineages on the web. As for Wu Dang Tai Chi Chuan - it was (is?) the tai chi chuan practiced at Wu Dang Shang - the mountain temples you saw in Crouching Tiger. Hsing I Chuan and Ba Gua are also practiced there.
There is however, just to confuse things more than they already are in Tai Chi, a tai chi school called Wu Dang Tai Chi Chuan - check out

http://www.taichichuan.co.uk/

and see for yourself.

Is this your first encounter with Tai Chi? Best of luck to you anyway :D

[wujidude]

And, of course, Dan Docherty adapted his Wudang taijiquan from the Wu style taught by his Hong Kong teacher . . .

[RAF]

Wujidude:

I am very curious about Dan Docherty's form and training. He talks about a square frame of his taiji--which in baji, is the first stage and refers to getting the structure first and no power. Later circularity is added and then power. If you know anything more about his stuff, please give a good posting. I read his book and I think its best to leave the whole lineage/fighting blow-up aside.

Some of the Wu Tang students from GM Liu learned Wei hsao tang (8 step praying mantis master) Wu style and it is supposedly very different from what is seen out Shanghai and Beijing (although I can find some similar movements of my Yang's taiji with that of Wang Pei Shang (I really like his forms. Saw one of his students play the short form in a tournament and I would love to learn it!).

Supposedly, from my teacher's perspective, Master Wei's Wu style is much more martial and performed in a very low stance

[dingo]

Sorry to butt in here, but hopefully I can add a bit of info about Dan Docherty. I studied under him for a few months last year, quite intensively, and then gave up when I saw how much hard work was required :D The square form he talks about is a teaching method devised by Wu Gong Yi when he first went to Hong Kong to teach: sometimes he would be teaching many people at a time, and breaking the form down into "do this, then do that, etc.. helped his instructors correct people's postures. After the student has learned the form 'square' he then learns it 'round': I learnt about 1/3 of the form square then round, and I can say that there is a very big difference between the two. I assume Cheng Tin-hung adopted this method of teaching too. If you want to know anything else, I'll try and answer as best I can.

[RAF]

Dingo:

Please, butt in! Anyone.

Does he emphasize stance training at all?
How about his guen, dao, jian and qiang training?

He is pretty disparaging about Chen stylsts and that was a bit disappointing.

I used to read his website but lost it. Sort of like some of his no BS attitude and suspect he can fight. How about his qi gong? Any good?

[dingo]

RAF: to answer you rquestions in order: No, as far as I could tell, he doesn't emphasise zhan zhuang (that's what you meant by stance training, right?). In fact, during the few months I was there, we never did any zhan zhuang at all. All I can say about his weapons training is: the weapon forms are done quite a bit faster than the hand form; I am unsure as to whether they do sword sparring and stuff, but I definitely saw them practicing 'sticking spears' once in class (looked pretty cool, as you can imagine :D) I think he is dismissive of Chen style because he has not had contact with any good Chen stylists; the UK Chen scene seems to be mostly filled with forms collectors, not fighters. Then again, his style claims Zhang Sanfeng as founder, so maybe he has to discount Chen style (i.e. it may all be political). He definitely can fight: you do applications from day one, and I know a guy who had only been going a few months who got to do free sparring at an intensive; I could hear him urging them to trap the opponent's feet and stuff. Again, pretty cool :D One of his students (Neil Rosniak) competes in NHB competitions. His website is at www.taichichuan.co.uk (http://www.taichichuan.co.uk) or www.ptcci.freeserve.co.uk. (http://www.ptcci.freeserve.co.uk.) When you say qigong, I take it you are talking about his 24-posture neigong set. I didn't learn it, because I wasn't there long enough, but again, I'm sure it works because I practiced applications against some of his students who had learnt it, and they were pretty tough. Anyway, take everything I say with a large pinch of salt, as I was only there for 4 months. Hope this helps

[silfversurfer]

Hi Folks,
I just wanted to add somethings in this discussion.
I am an indoor student of sifu DD. Regarding the square form, it is nothing Dan himself invented. As said before they teach this way in Hong Kong as well in Malaysia, where i trained Wu style. As said before it was a good idea to divide the form in this way when teaching huge crowds of people.

Regarding stance training and qi gong, these concepts are incorporated in the nei kung training, which is taught after the student 'bai shi'. We have 'dao', 'jian' and 'qiang'. The forms are related to the tiger and the dragon, both physically and mentally. I've myself competed sucessfully against other internal weapon forms with the sabre and in handform. As well as in the hand form there is a lot of stress on understanding the movements and the applications with the weapons.

Have a good one!

[RAF]

Thanks for the replies. I really enjoyed his book and the lineage thing, what can anyone say anymore.

I was curious as to how they train for power but not smart enough to realize that no one is going to detail this on a public forum.

So again, thanks and, oh, does he have some tapes out? I saw a book on his style by Cameron??? but didn't buy it and I thought his websited indicated tapes available.

Good luck in your training!

[dingo]

As far as I can remember, he has a CD-ROM with the short form on it, a video with the long form on it, and an applications video. To get hold of them and find out more, you could either e-mail chiron books (who carry his videos) at ronnie@taichiunion.com, or e-mail the administrator of his website, Lachlan Scott, at lachlan_scott@yahoo.com. As for the book by Ian Cameron, if it's the one I'm thinking of, it's probably not very useful unless you actually study Practical TCC. Hope I helped! :)

[gazza99]

There are 2 theorys on the Wu style of taijiquan.
1. The Wu family were Manchurian (outsiders) , so they were taught taijiquan incorrectly on purpose, breaking all the rules,bending at the waist, double weightedness,ect...
2. Master Wu had a crook hip.therefore doing all the forms wrong because of this, his students just copyed him, and therefore handed down as such.
-either way its not a good thing,,
the wudang shan is where the internal arts might have started taijiquan/baguazhang/hsing-i chuan. but it was not called tajiquan, it was H'ao ch'uan "loose boxing"

[dingo]

Gary, debating whether the Wus got the full transmission from the Yangs is fine, but double-weightedness and bending at the waist are just as much errors in Wu style as in any of the other styles. Please try and do a bit of asking around before you post stuff like that.

[brassmonkey]

I dont believe Wu TCC bends at the waist, I think it more is tilted and the explanation I understand them doing this is to align the crown of the head and the bubbling well at the foot in a straight line while keeping the spine erect. As to the double weightedness I myself have limited understanding of the classics so I'm unsure of the correct interpretation of this but have heard 2 popular interpretations: 1. referring to weight on the foot
2. not using force on force
Dingo(or anyone please) I'm assuming your referring to the more common popular interpretation, maybe you can explain why double weightedness on the foot is so bad? Thank you in advance.

[mliddament]

Theory number one has to be suspect a) on the grounds of common sense: how long would Yang Lu Chan have lasted teaching ineffectual martial arts to experienced soldiers in the Manchu Nobles Athletic Camp? and b) on the evidence that no-one differentiated between Yang and Wu style before the early 1900s.

Theory number two is flatly contradicted by the photographs of Wu Jianquan demonstrating the form (especially with regard to the kicks, diagonal flying and the downward posture) and by the traditions and detail of the teaching in the Wu lineage. Blind copying is the last thing that would have happened and one can also look at the weapons forms and many of the ancillary exercises and realise that Wu Jianquan (who was also an expert and athletic equestrian) did not pass on something shaped by a dodgy hip.

[mantis108]

I would echo BrassMonkey points. We also have to take into account that Wu style emphasizes on Shuai (throwing) more so than the other styles. Quite a few moves resemble the throws in Judo. The White Crane Spread Wing for example is bending forward in the form, yet in the application it is a hip throw. In Wu style's case, IMHO, the form expresses vivid applications; therefore, the form is the style and style is the style. Also, Silfvsurfer is right about the Neigong is only taught after the formal "Bai Shi". Not all the 24 would be taught at least the "Lao Sao Sui Dan" meditation won't be. Just a thought.

Mantis108

Contraria Sunt Complementa

[dingo]

Brassmonkey, unfortunately, I'm no expert on taiji either (although I'm working hard to correct that :D). However, 'double-weightedness' does not refer to just having the same amount of weight in the two legs; I don't know what you think of Mike Sigman, but he has said this repeatedly in the past (and using Chen Xiaowang as his source). This discussion at http://www.yangfamilytaichi.com/ubb/Forum7/HTML/000002.html might help as well. Hope that helps.

[gazza99]

Thank you ML! Why would they not differentiate between the two until 1900?

Those are just the theories I have heard, as far as mistakes go ,I have not seen any Wu stylist as good as even the worst Yang stylists. maybe I just came accross a few bad schools that do not portray the wu style correctly? Thanks for you input everyone...
kind Regards
Gary

[mliddament]

Wu Jianquan and Yang Cheng-fu taught and practiced together at the Athletic Research Institute in Beijing in the early 1900s. Both men revised and developed their slow forms around that time after which point people started to distinguish between them. Compare *early* photographs of WJQ and YCF.

[Sam Wiley]

On another thread, I quoted a statement from Feng Zhiqiang where he said that the Wu style creator learned Zhaobao Taiji before he came up with his own. He doesn't mention him learning Yang style, as is the usual statement. Any thoughts on that?

Everything I have seen on the Wu style shows a lean. Where are you guys looking to find upright players?

*********
"I put forth my power and he was broken.
I withdrew my power and he was ground into fine dust."
-Aleister Crowley, The Vision and the Voice

[mliddament]

You are referring to the other Wu style, I think. Wu Yuxiang is said to have combined Yang Lu Chan's teaching with the Zhaobao form.

[Sam Wiley]

Feng said it was small Chen style. In other words he classified Zhaobao style as Chen style.

*********
"I put forth my power and he was broken.
I withdrew my power and he was ground into fine dust."
-Aleister Crowley, The Vision and the Voice

[WenJin]

Yesterday I saw a Taiji performance and the Chen style did not look anything like Zhao Bao ! Chen looked very rooted where as Zhao Bao looked very continually changing shifting. Chen seem to stay low, Zhao Bao was high low medium etc ....

That is from an external point of view

[brassmonkey]

Hey thanx for the link Dingo. Makes sense what Sigman says about empty and full. " I don't know what you think of Mike Sigman" On a personal level I dont particuliarly care for him. On a professional level I dont have much to go by. I do however have a video of him doing some push hands with Don Miller where he gets schooled thoroughly. Of course he'll argue that Miller was simply pushing him and muscling him but if this were the case then Sigman would not have graduated past Novice skill imho. To me it looks like Miller just uses good body structure but gimme another year and review the tape and I may have a different opinion. When I saw this video originally a year ago(when I was a rough beginner and knew almost nothing of push hands) I thought Sigman got beat but not soundly but now its easy to see he really does get schooled. Its always fun to review martial arts materials you havent looked at in a great while after training and its almost like reading a completely different book, video etc. Of course push hands isnt fighting but has some components that are useful in fighting. Sigman is a funny guy, he'll talk smack endlessly about someone how they only are good at competition shoving and not fighting, critizicing theyre teachers etc. then when that person publically challenges Sigman he'll blow it off basically saying your a p*s&y and then says if you got some much skill why dont you challenge this particuliar judo teacher whom I'm not even sure knew someone else was making challenges for him. Can you imagine me saying how much you suck and your teachers have little skill then when you challenge me I call you a punk and say why dont you challenge Rickson Gracie if your so tough. I've seen him make challenges for Chen Xiao Wang and I wonder if CXW was aware of this at the time. Sigman is a funny guy he says how he's not good enough to teach tai chi but then he teaches internal components to non tai chi people using guess what peng, lu etc. Probably more then what you wanted but you asked

[Metallica]

Sam Wiley,

The Wu style you are talking about is also known as Hao style, promulgated by Hao Wei-zhen. Yes, Wu yu-xiang learned small frame Chen style and this is the Wu style Feng was referring to.

The Wu (Ng) style that the list is talking about is the one by Quan Yu, and now I believe it is divided into three sub-braches.
1. Northern Wu - now taught by students of Yang Yu-ting, famous practitioners include Wang peisheng and Li BingCi. Zhang Yun, a student of Wang peisheng teaches this style in US.

2. Shanghai - Wu Jian-quan popularized this version. Wu Ying-hwa and Ma Yuehliang were two famous practitioners

3. Southern version - taught by Wu Kungyi in HK and now by his students.

These three sub-branches have their own distinguishing characterstics and practice method

[Sam Wiley]

Ah, I see. That makes sense then. Translators need to spell it the way everyone else does then.

So what about the Zhaobao style? Up until recently I had never heard of it, but now I see an article seemingly every month in every magazine about it. Does Feng Zhiqiang study that one, or traditional Chen style, and either way why would he classify something bearing little resemblance to Chen style as Chen style (if what WenJin said is true)?

*********
"I put forth my power and he was broken.
I withdrew my power and he was ground into fine dust."
-Aleister Crowley, The Vision and the Voice

[Metallica]

Zhao Bao and Xiao Jia (small frame) Taiji are different animal altogether. Zhao Bao style is practice in Zhao Bao village, a village close to Chen Jia Gou.
Xiao Jia is practiced by a certain group of Chen family.
Feng was taught by Chen Fake who created Xin Jia (New Frame). Hence, Feng practiced both Lao Jia (Old Frame) and Xin Jia (new Frame). Feng now created his own Hun Yuan Taiji. But that is another story.
For more info on Zhao Bao, Xiao Jia, Xin JIa and Lao Jia, visit this site

http://www.digidao.com/nstyles.htm

Hope this helps!

[dingo]

Brassmonkey: interesting take on Mike Sigman, thanks for that. I'm going to try and attend a seminar of his in the autmn and check him out. I might even try his own teacher test on him! ;D Whatever, the basic ideas generated by his list have been very useful to me in getting a better handle on what might be going on in taiji in Western terms.

Sam: Zhaobao style is an odd animal with some subdivisions of its own. Up until recently, the Chen village claimed it as a branch of Chen style because most of the practitioners have Chen Qingping, who was trained by a Chen stylist, somewhere in their lineage. However, Chen Qingping also learned from a master named Zhang Yan, and there are Zhaobao people who do *not* trace their lineage back through Chen Qingping. Interestingly enough, Peter Lim's site reports an encounter between Wu Tu Nan and Du Yu Wan (aka Du Yuan Hua), who wrote the first book for the general public on Zhaobao taiji, and apparently his form was identical to Yang Lu-chan's, sharing similar posture names and everything. To sum up: it's all a mess, it's very intriguing, and that's all I know about it! :D

[WenJin]

There are many thoughts that suggest Chen style was not solely Tai ji as much as Chen Village arts that incorporated some Shaolin Pao Chui and Shaolin Taizu Chang Quan as well.
I read that Zhao Bao includes all the theories of the other taiji styles but adds the unique 9 thesis' of Zhao Bao not found in the other Taijiquan.
True as more & more is studied hearsay is distinguished from stories and realities.
Though in the end Taiji is Taiji and Chang San Feng real or not (in terms of founder) and what he studied are left in history unbeknown to us and probably uneccessary.

[PlasticSquirrel]

now this has me thinking. not very well... but still thinking...

erle montaigue says that yang lu-chan studied under chen chang-xing first, then jiang fa, if i remember correctly.

many zhao bao practitioners say that after (or before maybe...? i forget...) jiang fa came to chen village, he taught at zhao bao village.

so... since both claims are historically sound by my reasoning of what i know about the lineages and such... jiang fa could have very likely taught both yang lu-chan, chen chang-xing, and whatever guys were at zhao bao village.

before yang lu-chan started learning from chen chang-xing, there were already taijiquan practitioners in chen village from a time when jiang fa was there earlier... this would have given them (chen family practicioners) time before and after (especially after) to modify their forms.

if this all is true, however, the chen family cannon pounding form (aka "second routine," "cannon fist," etc.) would have to have been created in the time between the first and second times jiang fa visited chen village to teach.

after this all, the chen family had a LOT of time to modify stuff in the 1800's, and probably did so freely.

of course, this is all speculation, but it is an okay look at things, i think. on another note, some people call wu yu-xiang's style the wu/hao, wu yu-xiang, or the wuu style. of course, not many people even talk about it anymore, since it's so rare.

also, about the waist leaning, i have never seen any in any wu form. the whole body is tilted, so the waist energy is not broken.

didn't yang lu-chan have tilting just like wu? i remember sam saying something about erle montaigue changing the old form so the spine was straight (in accordance to a wudang manuscript or something like that)? sam, i'm curious about how similar the old yang small frame and the wu look compared to the old yang large frame and the yang cheng-fu large frame. i'd be willing to bet that wu is closer to what yang used to be like (with the tilting, of course).

from what i know about wudang taijiquan, it's more vigorous than the yang and wu styles. not sure when/how it was developed, however. i'd be very interested in learning more about it. i know that www.wudang.com (http://www.wudang.com) has some stuff about it, but not all that much. on an interesting note, it's 13 postures are different than what we normally consider the 13 postures (the chen family also had a different idea of what the 13 postures were).

[Shaolin Master]

Gentlemen,

Wudang Tai ji quan in name is trivial according to what I know there are at least following styles of Taijiquan that use such a name:

1.Wudang Taijiquan in 108 movements transmitted by my Great GrandMaster (Abbot of Zi Xiao Tang) in Wudang , Xu Ben Shan (1860-1932); [This being my lineage's Wudang Taijiquan]

2.Wudang Taijiquan taught by Grand Uncle Chen Helong (Also of Xu Benshan's disciple), who in turn taught this style to Wu Jiaopeng (1908-1990); it consists of six routines and is very similar to Taihequan as taught by Han Shiming of Shanxi;

3.Wudang Taijiquan taught by Yan Jiakang (1695-1786); during Republic period (1911-1949) this style was taught by Yang Zai Xin (learned in Wudang Nanyan Tang) who taught in Liaoning Province;

4.Wudang Youlong Taijiquan - taught in Tianjin in the second half of 19th century (and still popularly practised there) by Taoist monk Pei Yuanchen;

5. Zhao Bao Taijiquan is also sometimes referred to as Wudang Taiji quan or Wudang Zhao Bao Taijiquan commonly.[This being my other practised Tai ji quan]

So the myriad is difficult to comprehend.

Regards
Shi Chan Long

[Sam Wiley]

Yes, Erle changed the form after finding a manual on Taiji during his time at Wudang Shan. Supposedly, it mentions about a dozen times in the first couple of pages that the spine should be kept vertical. So after much deliberation and consulting with other masters, he made the decision to change the form. Keeping the spine upright makes the form much more difficult to do in some places. Personally, I think the changes were good, as it makes the form more of a movement therapy for me than doing it the old easy way.

Now, there's nothing wrong with doing it with a lean if you want. But I personally think that keeping the spine straight is the way to go. There are many reasons I think so, and all come from my own experimentation and experience with Taiji and other things, but of course, there will be those who disagree with me quite loudly. I just want to make one thing clear to them, and that is, that I too learned to do the Taiji forms with a lean in many places. But I was told to change it, given basic guidelines, and did so, and because I like the results I get from the form done this way, have not looked back.

Remember that Yang Cheng-fu changed the form so it would be easier to perform. While I don't know whether or not Yang Lu-chan or the earlier Wudang masters leaned because I was not there, I sort of "lean" toward the idea that they did not. I just have a feeling about it. And one other thing I think is that it is possible that the lean was something Yang Cheng-fu and others at the time added, as Taijiquan changed greatly in the early 20th century.

*********
"I put forth my power and he was broken.
I withdrew my power and he was ground into fine dust."
-Aleister Crowley, The Vision and the Voice