Embrace Tiger Return to Mountain

[RandyBrown]

This is in response to a post in another thread under Mantis. I didn't want to digress that thread so my response is below -




Many confusion that caused in CMA could be our ancestors was good in CMA but may not be good in literature. The Taiwan Taiji Association had tried to figure out the meaning of "holding tiger back to mountain" for years. Why anyone want to "hold" a tiger and go back to mountain? Will he try to get himself eaten by that tiger? Never heard anyone was strong enough to pick up a full growing tiger, not even mention to carry a huge tiger and walk up hill is almost impossible task for any human being to perform.

Let me offer my take on Embrace Tiger Return to Mountain.

First a couple points -
1. The move is applied as if someone is attacking from the rear with strike and/or kick.
2. The description of application offered in Yang Cheng Fu's 'Essence and Application of Yang Style Taijiquan' explains that the opponents hand and foot attack is fast and you can only brush them off which is followed by their counter-attack. As they counter, you move into Lu (Roll Back) which is stable and secure.

With that said - Tigers stalk their prey and attack from behind. Certain tribes when moving through Tiger country would adorn the last person in the party with a mask that faced behind them. The mask would have eyes and other facial features painted on it. Tigers want the element of surprise and would therefore move on to other prey as they would assume they were being watched and their surprise was foiled.

So if you look at this and apply that logic to the nature of the move - you are turning to look (embrace) the tiger. Since your move is countered you apply Lu and return to the mountain (or secure posture).

Just my opinion so feel free to comment, correct, or cross.

Randy Brown

www.iron-needle.com

[qiphlow]

nice description!

[cjurakpt]

our take on it is a little different:

the move actually starts with the cross hands from the end of the first chapter: when you turn to the right about 45 deg, as the left leg pivots on the ball of the foot into hip internal rotation the left armswings down across the body(clockwise), leading with the back of the hand; the right arm rises up slightly: you are intercepting a right punch with the right arm and the left is swinging down into a groin strike, or gut / rib cage (depends); then, you continue to turn the entire body to the right, to the rear 45 deg, as you sifht weight to the left foot, as the left hand comes up into what looks like a prep for a brush knne - the right foot steps to the rear 45 and you complete the move: what you're doing is, after the groin shot, you bring the left to the outside of his right and do an arm bar (or if he parries it to the outside, same thing); or if you get the right arm straight over your left shoulder, you can use your left as a fulcrum against the body (if he parries, you can roll over the parry and trap his left arm against his body as well, and then do the throw); you might also get the arm behind the head as well and do the throw

I know this is hard to visualize base on my desription - just play with it, you'll figure it out - the key is the turn - you don't turn into something, you are turning to do the throw

oh, and the move is NOT done the same as brush knee - it looks similar, but there is a different quality of the body / arm / hand movements (impossible to describe, easy to see)

BTW, we also translate "bao fu gwai san" as "leopard tiger returns to mountain" (we call a number of the moves by different names) - i forget why, there's something significant about the leopard / tiger amalgam - it's in my notes somewhere...it may be based on Taoist alchemical practice, leopard and tiger being yin / yang, and "return to mountain", is based on both i jing / baat gwa (I think post natal arrangement, but I'm not sure...have to look that up) returning to mountain, the source, something like that - (my teacher interprets the form as one big alcemical formula for generating the elixir, so that's why it comes in as such)

thus, the notion of embracing / holding a tiger is not something in our version - according to my teacher, it's a homphone that was mistakenly written as embrace / hold versus leopard (according to my teacher, YLC was illiterate: he heard the names, and repeated them to his literate students who then wrote down what they thought were the correct characters...so there was some linguistic drift - we name a number of other moves differently as well based on this)

I know it's a non-traditional perspective - but our lineage is from YLC through a non-family member who was a Mandarin court official, who taught my teacher's teacher (our form is an "old" version - pre-YCF deletions / changes), so that may explain it...

[RandyBrown]

cjurakpt,

Excellent description and I thank you for disclosing this piece from your system. Your version sounds similar to ours except for the entry and the additional blocking you have in the beginning.

Cheng Man Ching in one of his books describes the same method as Yang Cheng Fu except he adds a descriptive about the brush knee piece. He states - like Brush Knee but not, and the hand after you block downward turns to palm up like embracing a tiger. Just another tidbit from a different source.

Thanks for your input.

R Brown

[omarthefish]

...BTW, we also translate "bao fu gwai san" as "leopard tiger returns to mountain" (we call a number of the moves by different names) - i forget why, there's something significant about the leopard / tiger amalgam - it's in my notes somewhere......

I hate to say it but this sounds like a classic example of what YouKnowWho was talking about, being good at MA but not at literature. If you think that is a leapord - tiger, then someone in your lineage got this only orally and never had a written quan-pu. There's a really obvious reason why it would be called "bao fu guai san" and a less obvious reason too.

First of all, that is NOT different from what other poeple call it. That is exactly what it's called in Chinese.

抱虎归山 - standard mandarin pronunciation = bao hu gui shan.

Then add in that what you spelled looks like it must have come from a southern dialect because in Cantonese, tiger/hu = fu and Mountain/shan = san. Somebody in your line just interpreted the "bao" at leapoard which in standard mandarin is pronounced "pao" and the two words bao and pao would be virtually indistinguishable to anyone who didn't speak both Mandarin and whatever dialect the speaker spoke.

In other words your "bao fu guai san" is basically hominyminous with "carry tiger back to mountain" or "satiated tiger returns to mountain".

[Three Harmonies]

I am not familiar with Yang Taiji, only Sun, but I do not think it is reasonable to interpret this as an attack from behind. No one is psychic, so you cannot forsee your would be attackers behind you.
In Sun one way we apply this move is intercepting their strike and kneeing them as they come in. For instance we are in a closed stance, right leg forward. My opponent throws a right cross. I intercept it (can grab wherever you like, I personally like to parry a bit with my right, grab around the neck in an outside clinch with my left)and use his momentum to knee the **** out of him.
My literal breakdown would be;
The reference to Tiger is in regards to the fierce (read: commited) attack by my opponent. "Bao" embrace / wrap / hug simply means to grab onto something. I am no expert, but I interpret it as getting close and controlling the body (ie. clinch, half clinch etc.). Return to mountain means to stand strong like a mountain, sinking your knee deep, not allowing his momentum to barrel you over.

My .02 cents,
Jake :)

[cjurakpt]

I hate to say it but this sounds like a classic example of what YouKnowWho was talking about, being good at MA but not at literature. If you think that is a leapord - tiger, then someone in your lineage got this only orally and never had a written quan-pu.

I hate to say it, but that is an incorrect assumption, for a number of reasons...

first off, the written character that I got for it from my teacher is leopard; as far as i know, he got it from his teacher who was a school headmaster, and his teacher got it from his teacher, a Mandarin Court official who studied directly from Yang Lu Chan: all three were / are highly literate in Chinese texts by training, so the reason it's this way is not due to lack of education (my teacher minored in classical Chinese literature when he was at Princeton, and routinely translates classical Taoist texts for us); in fact, probably the the only oral transmission was from YLC, as he was illiterate; so as for our kyuhn po, I am pretty confident it is reliable; but the fact that it is different doesn't surprise me, as our sahp yiu (ten essentials) are also somewhat different from the ones that you usually see, as is our form, which is probably one of the closest versions to what YLC actually taught (e.g. - we still do the spin kicks, the jump kicks and the sweeps; we also have some hand movements that the YCF version does not have)


There's a really obvious reason why it would be called "bao fu guai san" and a less obvious reason too.

and those reasons would be?


First of all, that is NOT different from what other poeple call it. That is exactly what it's called in Chinese.

I don't understand what you mean by this: as I said, the way we write it is different from other styles, no argument; and I am not saying that the way other styles characterize it is incorrect - just that we do it differently; and again, the reason for it, I think, has something to do with the description being based on something from yik ging / taoist alchemy, but I don't remember exactly what it was - so I will have to ask my teacher when I see him this week


???? - standard mandarin pronunciation = bao hu gui shan. Then add in that what you spelled looks like it must have come from a southern dialect because in Cantonese, tiger/hu = fu and Mountain/shan = san.

my teacher's primary language is Cantonese, so we use that dialect to name the moves; hence the "southern" transliteration...


Somebody in your line just interpreted the "bao" at leapoard which in standard mandarin is pronounced "pao" and the two words bao and pao would be virtually indistinguishable to anyone who didn't speak both Mandarin and whatever dialect the speaker spoke.

you are correct that someone interpreted it as leopard; you are incorrect that it was done because it was mistaken as a homaphone (I have to spell that word incorrectly, otherwise the censor takes out "hom o" - weird...) - especially as my teacher's teacher spoke Mandarin (being the head master of a primary school, I think he was fairly well educated), and my teacher speaks it fluently as well (he learned it to be able to communicte with his teacher, and was his official translator for all his American students for over 10 years)


In other words your "bao fu guai san" is basically hominyminous with "carry tiger back to mountain" or "satiated tiger returns to mountain".

here's the deal: one of my teacher' specialties is reasearching the classical origins of tai chi names; for example, an alternate translation of "dan bian", and the one we use, is "Transforming the Elixir" (and I actually saw one of the texts he got this from, so he's not just making it up); now, this is obviously very different from "Single Whip" and has to do with a taoist alchemical interpretation of the form - it doesn't mean Single Whip is wrong, just that it's an alternate translation (if you don't practice the form from this perspective, then there's no real point in having it as a translation); so, in this case, as I said, we interpret / write / translate BFGS as I mentioned above; it is not a mistaken homaphone, it is a deliberate alternate version; again, I don't remember exactly why it is this way, something to do with taoist alchemical imagery, and I will check on it this week when I see my teacher

BTW, there is a possibility that I am mistaken about this, of course - but if there is an error, it is because of my faulty memory, not my teacher's lack of literary education...

but thanks for the input ;)

[omarthefish]

Here it is in simple form.

The entire Taiji Community around the world all agree that it is "bao"/carry/full except your your particular line. The only real disagreement is wether "bao" should be interpreted to mean "carry"/"embrace" or to mean "full"/"well fed". Those two meanings are from nearly identical characters.

抱 vs. 饱

This "community" I speak of includes scholars, lineage holders, native speakers etc.

The group that believes the character is "leapord"

狍 includes, you, your teacher and others in your lineage.

When you come across something like that in any other field of study, you have to ask yourself some really serious questions about who is most likely write and who is wrong. It is theoretically possible that Yang Luchan called it "leapord" and somehow everyone else since except for you guys got it wrong....but not likely.


an alternate translation of "dan bian", and the one we use, is "Transforming the Elixir" (and I actually saw one of the texts he got this from, so he's not just making it up); now, this is obviously very different from "Single Whip" and has to do with a taoist alchemical interpretation of the form - it doesn't mean Single Whip is wrong, just that it's an alternate translation

This too is an incedible stretch. Dan Bian is a pretty easy one too translate. You can draw all sorts of potential conclusions about what a "single whip" is supposed to represent but again, it flies in the face of basically all the other Chinese speakers and scholars in the world. Your "pai" vs. "everyone else.

If it's not a mistake then it is somebodies addition or renaming of a bunch of stuff just as happened with Bajiquan, once known as "Paziquan". From "rake fist" to "8 Ultimate Extremes Fist". Clearly someone added some culture to the form.

This has nothing to do with any sort of implication on your teacher or lineage. I am just speaking from a common sense academic perspective.

[cjurakpt]

I actually don't disagree with your point - and to be fair, I should not have said that rendering bao/pao as "carry" was an incorrect rendering of a homaphone: rather, it would have been more approprite to simply say that the way we write / interpret the name is different from the one that has become the standard;

why this is the case, from what I understand, is that the person in our line who learned from YLC (I believe that his name was Yang Zi Teng, although I am probably transliterating it incorrectly) interpreted the names he was given based on his understanding of taoist alchemical practice (which would explain why we translate dan bin as Transforming the Elixir [as i said, I did see those characters given as an alternate way of writing the name in a book on Chen style, so it's not just us], and other moves, such as "Cloud Hands", we name as "Bear Walk"); since YLC was illiterate, I guess it left room for different students to write down the names as they best saw fit, or even to change them based on their own understaning / interpretation of the material they learned in context of something else (in our case, taoist alchemical practice); and as we are obviously a minor, small lineage, it's not surprising that we may be the only one that does it like this, and based on the way in which we practice and interpret the form, it is not inconsistent for us to use these names the way we do;

anyway, I don't claim that what we have is necessarilly more correct than any other version, that it is the truth and that others are wrong - it's just a different perpective - and again, i will ask my teacher when i see him exactly why we use the leopard/tiger imagery as opposed to the standard "carry-tiger"

[omarthefish]

Well that went well.

I've got opinions I can't support academically as well. I just tend to not post them.. .for that very reason.

[cjurakpt]

Well that went well.

I'm not sure if you are being sarcastic - it seems that way, and if that is so, I don't really understand why...(if not, then my mistake); again, I can understand why you are being skeptical - looking at it from your perspective, as you point out, if someone comes up with a claim that is incongruous with the opinions of the recognized authorities in the field, it is not unreasonable to raise questions about it: certainly the burden of proof is on the minority; that said:


I've got opinions I can't support academically as well. I just tend to not post them.. .for that very reason.

I am not a Chinese scholar, unlike my teacher - he could cetainly provide references to all this based on his own reasearch, (I guess you could e-mail him and ask if you are really interested: www.dantao.com ); not surprisingly, almost all of it is in Chinese, and since my skill s in this area are limited, obviously I am giving him the benefit of the doubt about what he tells me (as I have no reason to do otherwise); so all I have are "unacademic" opinions - which is why I am not discounting what you say, as I personally do not possess the ability to directly prove my stance nor to refute yours - for now, the weight of evidence is clearly on your side, so all I can say is what I said: we have a different way of writing / interpreting the characters, I believe that they are consistent with the context in which we do the form, and that's about it - I don't think that you are calling the internal validity of what we do into question, but if you want to say that it's not the standard version of tai ji, that is certainly correct - the lineage is not a common one, and we do call some things by different names - that's about it in a nutshell...

[omarthefish]

Wasn't being sarchastic.

I've got a whole pile of things I won't bother going into online because I really don't feel like "defending" my point of view on them or because they touch on lineage issues or because I can't quite accept my Shifu's story and don't want to publicly disagree or because I actually honestly don't care what people think. he he. It's really true. If you REALLY didn't care about ....whatever....then you (the generic rhetorical "you") wouldn't bother responding to posts on the issue. There's an incredible amount of stuff I truly don't care about on this forum. You can tell which items I don't really care about because I am not posting on those threads.

Anyways, I made a comment about literacy and translation and you came back at me with what seemed kind of defensiveness about your teacher and how scholarly he was and all so I tried to back off a bit and depersonalize it making it an academic issue, not a personal one. You actually understood exactly what I meant so...yeah...that went well.

No worries.

If you're ever curious about my indefensible positions I can post some of them but don't expect me to post counter-arguments to anyone who posts saying that those views are dumb or impossible or whatever.

[cjurakpt]

Wasn't being sarchastic.

ok, sorry, just wanted to be sure - as your obviously know, it's easy to misconster things in this medium...


I've got a whole pile of things I won't bother going into online because I really don't feel like "defending" my point of view on them or because they touch on lineage issues or because I can't quite accept my Shifu's story and don't want to publicly disagree or because I actually honestly don't care what people think. he he. It's really true. If you REALLY didn't care about ....whatever....then you (the generic rhetorical "you") wouldn't bother responding to posts on the issue. There's an incredible amount of stuff I truly don't care about on this forum. You can tell which items I don't really care about because I am not posting on those threads.

Anyways, I made a comment about literacy and translation and you came back at me with what seemed kind of defensiveness about your teacher and how scholarly he was and all so I tried to back off a bit and depersonalize it making it an academic issue, not a personal one. You actually understood exactly what I meant so...yeah...that went well.

fair enough - it's admittedly hard to be totally detached and non-defensive about it at times - so I do appreciate your re-framing it the way that you did; again, I see your point - why should you just take my word for it on it's own merit? to wit, I will try to ask my sifu for something a bit more scholarly to reference it if I am able to - or at least clarify where in the line it came from;


No worries.

none; cool


If you're ever curious about my indefensible positions I can post some of them but don't expect me to post counter-arguments to anyone who posts saying that those views are dumb or impossible or whatever.

well, I'm always interested in alternative perspectives, so as you like; otherwise, I hear you - TBH, there are a number of really contrarian perspectives that my teacher holds vis a vis the "standard" body of tai ji form, theory, practice, etc. which I personally agree with (and, like you, there are things I don't agree with either - fortunately, he's the kind of guy I can say that to directly, and he's fine with it) - as you say, many of these things are in a way "indefensible" (at least by me at this point), not to mention inflammatory (it's less in the realm of "hey, we're just different" and more into the zone of "we're right, they're wrong"), and in fact many times I have wanted to post stuff that I have refrained from for that reason; in this particular case, I guess that I sort of broke my own rule, but hey, so it goes...actually, in retrospect, I'm glad that you did respond the way you did, because it's a good example of how, in the future, if I do post stuff like that, what facts I might want to have handy to substantiate the opinion...

anyway, sorry about the initial *****ly retort, and thanks again for the input...

[Songwind]

I read this thread because I'm currently learning ETRM, so obviously I have not yet developed any keen insight.

This struck me, however:
fortunately, he's the kind of guy I can say that to directly, and he's fine with it

I think that having a teacher with this sort of attitude, about anything, not just MA, is crucial for really full development. I think it's pretty obvious that this approach has helped to produce a thoughtful student who really feels like digging into their art.

Forgive the small hijack.

[cjurakpt]

the only two caveats I would add with that are:

1) in my experience, a significant number of Chinese teachers are absolutely fine with you telling them that you disagree with them: it's just that if you do, they will never correct you - ever again...

2) I was with my teacher over 10 years before I felt comfortable enough to do that

[RandyBrown]

I am not familiar with Yang Taiji, only Sun, but I do not think it is reasonable to interpret this as an attack from behind. No one is psychic, so you cannot forsee your would be attackers behind you.
In Sun one way we apply this move is intercepting their strike and kneeing them as they come in. For instance we are in a closed stance, right leg forward. My opponent throws a right cross. I intercept it (can grab wherever you like, I personally like to parry a bit with my right, grab around the neck in an outside clinch with my left)and use his momentum to knee the **** out of him.
My literal breakdown would be;
The reference to Tiger is in regards to the fierce (read: commited) attack by my opponent. "Bao" embrace / wrap / hug simply means to grab onto something. I am no expert, but I interpret it as getting close and controlling the body (ie. clinch, half clinch etc.). Return to mountain means to stand strong like a mountain, sinking your knee deep, not allowing his momentum to barrel you over.

My .02 cents,
Jake :)

Jake,

Thanks for your input. I did some research before answering, as I'm not a Sun stylist, and the move in Sun Style (according to Sun Lu Tang's book) is very different than the Yang Style Long Form. In Yang style you do actually turn to face an attacker from the rear. It's not an attack directly behind you but instead off to your right rear. You turn 135 degrees to face the attacker. The entire form is a multi-opponent, multi-directional set. My take is that one would be looking over their shoulder in that scenario to check their surroundings so the attack wouldn't be a sixth sense response.

Problems arise in Yang Style where they tell you to look here or there during a move but it's facing away from the direction of attack. Then you'll find one little snippet in some Yang style manuscript that says not to do that when fighting, only do that in practice. I disagree with this and I think it was a further watering down of the real system. I believe in train like you fight, and you'll fight like you train.

Randy

[cjurakpt]

spoke to my teacher the other day; in a nutshell, the reason we use the translation "Leopard Tiger Return to Mountain" is for 2 reasons:

for the first part, the hands are simultaneously in a Leopard Paw and Tiger Claw: the right hand which ends up at the right knee is the Leopard, the left is the Tiger; also, the move right before we call Tiger Tail - it's basically a hip check to set up the throw, and the move after is a Leopard technique, sort of a rake to the throat, very "leopard-paw" like - hard to explain, makes sense when you see it; so anyway, the move is named on the characteristics contained within it - which is pretty straight forward as to the rationale behind it

the second part, Return to Mountain, is based on a description of the form using the Ba Gwa Pre-Natal sequence - we stand at the center facing South, so the North is to the rear - the Northwest is therefore to the right rear diagonal; in the baat gwa of the Pre-Natal sequence, Mountain is the trigram to the NW; also, it's positional reference, in the sense that Pre-Natal is Yin, which denotes location / structure (vs. Post-natal, which is Yang, denoting temporal / funtion) - that's why you return to it...

again, I realize that this is a different fromwhat most taiji schools have as a technique name; and again, out lineage is a relatively "minor" one, coming directly from YLC through my teacher's teacher's teacher, who evidently got the names from YLC, and, based on his personal understanding of not only what Yang told him, but of Taoist practice and Martial culture in general, derived the name as such;

[JoeD]

[QUOTE=cjurakpt;723527]our take on it is a little different:

or if you get the right arm straight over your left shoulder, you can use your left as a fulcrum against the body (if he parries, you can roll over the parry and trap his left arm against his body as well, and then do the throw); you might also get the arm behind the head as well and do the throw

I know this is hard to visualize base on my desription - just play with it, you'll figure it out - the key is the turn - you don't turn into something, you are turning to do the throw

oh, and the move is NOT done the same as brush knee - it looks similar, but there is a different quality of the body / arm / hand movements (impossible to describe, easy to see)



Hi everybody,

here is a photo of Cheng Man ching, doing a throwing version of
"Embrace Tiger Return to Mountain"


www.laspeziataijiclub.it


JoeD

[cjurakpt]

[QUOTE=cjurakpt;723527here is a photo of Cheng Man ching, doing a throwing version of
"Embrace Tiger Return to Mountain"

pretty cool - it's pretty similar to what I was describing, except it looks like he slipped the punch as opposed to working with the attacking arm - but the angle and principle is the same (if I get it together, maybe I'll try to but a photo series up in regards to the way I was describing it)

[JoeD]

[QUOTE=JoeD;726308]

pretty cool - it's pretty similar to what I was describing, except it looks like he slipped the punch as opposed to working with the attacking arm - but the angle and principle is the same (if I get it together, maybe I'll try to but a photo series up in regards to the way I was describing it)





sound good! :o)

JD

[qiew]

Hope you can understand chinese so as to clear up the meaning and purpose of Bao Fu Guai San -"Embrace Tiger Return to Mountain". This is written by the True disciple of Master Cheng Mun Ching

[jon]

Ive been learning some Wu style from a long term student of Ma Yueh-Liang and Wu Ying-hua, he calls the movement "Tiger and leopard spring to the mountain". In the book by Wu Ying-hua 'Wu style Taichichuan - forms, concepts and application of the original style' it is refered to by the same name.

Just putting this out there to say that cjurakpt is not the only one who is using the leopard in the name.

[JoeD]

Hope you can understand chinese so as to clear up the meaning and purpose of Bao Fu Guai San -"Embrace Tiger Return to Mountain". This is written by the True disciple of Master Cheng Mun Ching






sorry no chinese....
but if you do, u should translate for us.

i know i'm going to regreat this........but...:O)
what make this fellow "the true disciple"?


JD

[cjurakpt]

Ive been learning some Wu style from a long term student of Ma Yueh-Liang and Wu Ying-hua, he calls the movement "Tiger and leopard spring to the mountain". In the book by Wu Ying-hua 'Wu style Taichichuan - forms, concepts and application of the original style' it is refered to by the same name.

Just putting this out there to say that cjurakpt is not the only one who is using the leopard in the name.

wow - cool - nice to be backed up by a well-known source; are there any other names that are different from the more common ones that you are aware of ?

[qiew]

Wu Chien-ch'uan was the co-founder (with his father) of Wu style Taichi, He established the Chien-ch'uan T'ai Chi Ch'uan Association (鑑泉太極拳社) in Shanghai in 1935 which still exists. On his wensite http://www.wutaichi.com/tradition/tr_01/tr_01_list.htm it was called 豹虎推山 leopard tiger pushing mountain. http://www.wutaichi.com/tradition/tr_01/tr_01_list.htm
However on http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/108_form_Wu_family_T%27ai_Chi_Ch%27uan it is written by some one as 抱虎歸山 Carry Tiger to the Mountain - Tiger and Leopard Spring to the Mountain.

Yang Taichi always calls it 抱虎归山. Embrace Tiger Return to Mountain. 歸 is the same as 归.

Yang Lu-ch'an (楊露禪) (1799-1872) found Yang Taichi. His son, Yang Pan-hou (楊班侯 1837-1890), was the teacher of Wu Quanyuo 吳全佑 who was the co-founder of Wu Taichi.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Yang_style_Tai_Chi_Chuan show Yang tai chi and the family tree of Taichi.

Wu Quanyuo 吳全佑, (1834-1902) taught his son, Wu Chien-ch'üan (吳鑑泉, 1870-1942) who both found Wu Taichi. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wu_Jianquan

Wu Ying-hua 吳英華 (3rd generation Wu Style) was the grand daughter of Wu Quanyuo 吳全佑,
Ma Yueh-liang 馬岳樑 married Wu Ying-hua 吳英華 in 1930. and they ran Chien-ch'uan T'ai Chi Ch'uan Association (鑑泉太極拳社) in Shanghai till her death.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wu_Ying-hua

Cheng Man-ch'ing 鄭曼青 was the 4th generation of Yang Taichi. He shortened Yang long form to 37 steps (short form). http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cheng_Man-ch%27ing

Wu Kuo-Chung 吳國忠神龍太極拳 www.taichi.com.tw was a student of Cheng Man-ch'ing 鄭曼青.


Manchu during Chin dynasty were in high military ranks and were very fond of Taichi. Many Manchurians learnt the full forms and spread Taichi around. Regrettably, many were not taught long enough to understand the core principles of Taichi. Nowaday, Manchurians are Chinese.

Taichi is not the muscle movement, neither is the bone movement. It is the qi and mind coordination that motivate the movement.

I am not qualified to translate those Chinese. I would distort its real meaning. A typical word is 鬆(松) which is difficult to define and is wrongly translated in English. Some instructors would translate 手揮琵琶 as Hand Plays P'i P'a or hand play guitar. Its actual meaning is lost in the translation



What is “true disciple” and "抱虎归山" or "豹虎推山" or "Carry Tiger to the Mountain" - "Tiger or Leopard Spring to the Mountain" or "Embrace Tiger Return to Mountain"
is up to your own level to judge. Your prospective view may be different from mine and others and vice versa. It is not worth opening up for any further argument and is an issue not worth putting my view in the future.

Taichi is like many blind people touching an elephant. One blind man touches the ear and claims it is like a fan. Other touches the body and says it is a wall, one touches the leg and says it is a pillar and so on. Whoever is right is only true to his own touch until he has in contact with every part of the elephant.

Taichi nowadays is to improve health. So every style is good as long as it helps improving your health..

Final point of view, ‘IF’ I were to spend a few weeks in 吳國忠神龍太極拳 www.taichi.com.tw and pose a few photos (his signatures) with Master 吳國忠, I would proclaim that I were the third generation of Cheng Man-ch'ing 鄭曼青 taichi or sixth generations of Yang traditional style. I would put those photos on the web site(s) and..............................wow....... that would make me many happy X'mas for many years to come. So, Merry X'mas to all you.

[Three Harmonies]

Imagine how good you would be spending your time practicing the "leopard /Tiger" technique instead of silly batering over whether it was a Leopard or Tiger. When it comes down to it, who give a ****e?

Randy-
Feel free to contact me via email as this has disentegrated. Interesting input though, I appreciate it. Like I said, I have no clue about Yang Taiji's specific app for this movement.

Cheers
Jake :cool:

[qiew]

Naivety may be forgiven. Ignorant is the enemy of learning. Judging not his subject is a kid’s game.

The wording in each movement has its meaning. A wrong interpretation may have detrimental effect of the result. Publicly misleading a fact may not bother a brat kid like you, it does when it involve the name of my family.

[cjurakpt]

Imagine how good you would be spending your time practicing the "leopard /Tiger" technique instead of silly batering over whether it was a Leopard or Tiger. When it comes down to it, who give a ****e?

if you don't do the move, I guess not at all; if you do, it gives insight into the application of the move, that is, the hand configurations are described by the move, so it tells you, if you understand why you would use a tiger claw versus a leopard paw/claw, what part of the arm / torso you are grabbing with each; beyond that, it's purely for "archaeological" interest, that is, giving you some perspective on what the originator's intention was in terms of the nature of the move; the former might help you in a fight, the latter probably not (unless you want to distract your assailant with an etymology lesson, which, if done correctly, could actually bore him to the point of him forgetting why he attacked you in the first place...)

[jon]

cjurakpt
PM sent to avoid arguements :D

qiew
Great post with good information, thanks for taking the time.

[Three Harmonies]

So enlighten a "brat kid" like me, what is the difference between "embracing a Tiger" as opposed to "Embracing a Leopard?"

[omarthefish]

Well....this is an interesting development.

Some Wu style people use "leapord" in the name. This all adds confusion though as the name cited in Chinese isn't clearly refering to the same move.

1. It's a Wu style form, not Yang.
2. The character translated as "spring" in the post really should be "push" so"豹虎推山" is really incorrectly translated up there. Should be something like "Leapord and carry tiger push mountain". Some forms have an entirely different move, more of a palm strike, that is called, "Fierce Tiger Pushes Mountiain" (猛虎推山).

Three Harmonies,

You misread the context. The question raised is not "Embrace Tiger..." vs. "Embrace Leapord...." The question being debated is to embrace or not to embrace. One name is "Embrace Tiger...." and the other is "Leapord and Tiger pounce/return/push some other verb".

qiew,

I am not qualified to translate those Chinese. I would distort its real meaning. A typical word is 鬆(松) which is difficult to define and is wrongly translated in English. Some instructors would translate 手揮琵琶 as Hand Plays P'i P'a or hand play guitar. Its actual meaning is lost in the translation


Don't be silly. You're doing fine with the Chinese. Just don't mystify it. There is nothing difficult to define about 鬆(松). It just means relax and nothing more. It's only mysterious if you want it to be. Same thing for 手揮琵琶. The only thing lost in translation is that a "pi pa" is not actually a guitar but more of a lute. It's a traditional Chinese stringed instrument in that category and that's about all you need to know.

Here's a picture:

http://www.rekihaku.ac.jp/kikaku/index95/pic01.jpg

Here's a picture of someone playing one:

http://www.matthewj.mulder.name/Foto/chronological/2002/Music/images/2.jpg

[cjurakpt]

So enlighten a "brat kid" like me, what is the difference between "embracing a Tiger" as opposed to "Embracing a Leopard?"

the shape of the claw marks on your a$$ from trying to hug a big angry wild cat?:) :) :)

[cjurakpt]

Some Wu style people use "leapord" in the name. This all adds confusion though as the name cited in Chinese isn't clearly refering to the same move.
good point: it seems out of order, so to speak - do you think that maybe they flipped it accidentaly with #12, sahp ji sao? that would be my guess...


The character translated as "spring" in the post really should be "push" so"????" is really incorrectly translated up there. Should be something like "Leapord and carry tiger push mountain".
that is strange that they give it as "teui" as opposed to "gwai" - no real link there, except that secondary translations are "refuse" and "send back" respectively, so maybe there's a link there, like one day YLC was sitting in a restaurant with some students discussing names of techniques and someone brought him out a bowl of soup that he wasn't happy with and it just got all mixed up from that point on...;)


Some forms have an entirely different move, more of a palm strike, that is called, "Fierce Tiger Pushes Mountiain" (????).
is that move in the same general part of the form, or are you talking about different styles entirely?


Here's a picture of someone playing one:
http://www.matthewj.mulder.name/Foto/chronological/2002/Music/images/2.jpg

I bet he gets a lot of action from playing that thing for the honeys...:D

BTW, what do you use to get the Chinese characters into your posts? is it a special software or something you do on your own machine settings? I am on a Mac, BTW, if that makes any difference...

[omarthefish]

....that is strange that they give it as "teui" as opposed to "gwai" - no real link there, except that secondary translations are "refuse" and "send back"...

...is that move in the same general part of the form, or are you talking about different styles entirely?[/quote]

The answer to these two is related.

"tui" is almost always a palm strike or a push. I've never seen it be anything else in gongfu names. "tui shan" is a particular popular variation too. Seen that in several styles, always being a big palm strike. Those secondary translations really are pretty context specific to things like sending soup back or refusing to accept merchandise which leads me to the secind part I quoted. No. Not in the same general part of the form. Just a later move in the same form. Not related. Not a well known version of Yang style either so it may not be in any of the books out there.


I bet he gets a lot of action from playing that thing for the honeys...

You know what's funny is that there are WAY more pictures of the honeys playing the pipa. It's kind of a girls instrument. Problem was, all the pictures I came up with the honeys, they were just posing with it. No one seemed to be playing it. I also picked the dude because his pose was the most reminiscent of the Taiji move I could find.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Regarding Chinese charaters:

It's just in the settings. Actually, Chinese compatability is one big drawback to Mac. On windows it's in the language settings and it's really easy. The last time I was "stuck" with a Mac (as nice as they are) I was completely unable to figure out how to type in Chinese and even had problems viewing a lot of Chinese web pages. I think the reason is because Mac has kept all their hardware proprietary so it's not possible to buy cheap after market parts or build Mac's from parts like you can with Window's machines. As a result, they are virtually non-existant in China. As a result of THAT the software side has lagged waaaaay behind in terms of Chinese language compatability. There's just not the same kind of market pressure.

[omarthefish]

More pipa pics:

http://www.hyyq.cn/image/222.gif

http://www.waternet-sound.com/event/zanmai/img/020508wagaku-zanmai01/020508wagaku-zanmai01_01.jpg

http://www.asahi.com/china/images/TKY200502170185.jpg

http://www.hellenism.co.jp/enki/img/enkipro.jpg

Dreamy:

http://www.waternet-sound.com/display/img/cd_kotonoha_xs.jpg

http://www.philmultic.com/graph/photos/pipa_music_liu_fang_2.jpg

Here's one that's kind of more like the Taiji move:

http://www.liufangmusic.net/images/photos/liu_fang_pipa.jpg