Here go's nothing...
Im gonna open myself up to a bit of fire probarly over this one but seeing as this is an interesting discussion and some very knowledgeable people are posting im hoping someone else may know what im talking about.
My linage has a Yang 'traditional' two man form, its a fairly long and complicated set and first contact is made when both partys meet palms with each standing in single whip face to face. From then on the form basicaly never breaks contact.
According to my sifu.
My sifu's Tai Chi comes from his family, his grandfather was a student of Yang Chen Fu in his reasonably early days and was taught along with several others buisnesmen basicaly for a large sum of money. This may sound crass but it was expected that each would be taught proparly and as such the Tai Chi is of a high level and contains all the other hall marks of the style of that time. No short form, long form of 85, short and long sword form, short and long sabre although my sifu now only practices the short, spear or staff, push hands, Doi Da (sounds like that said in Chinese) which is the two man set.
Again according to my sifu this set *was* taught by Yang Chen Fu but only to some students, he also claims this form was from Yang Lu Chan and not Yang Chen Fu's creation( yeah yeah i know). As a prime example my sifu claims YCF stopped teaching this set later in his life and even within the Yang family only YCF eldest son actualy practiced it. My sifu believes this was mainly due to the intervension of the govenment in many Kung Fu schools and YCF not wishing to come under to much scuritiny changed quite a bit of the outward apperence of what he was teaching. This would also be around the same time YCF's postures became much larger and he stopped performing the form with any fa-ging in public.
Ive read elsewhere that this set was a creation of one of YCF's students. The only thing i cant understand here is my sifu's grandfather learnt from YCF directly so i cant get this link.
The other thing which supports my sifus claim is by simply looking at the set. Its complicated fairly fast contains fa-ging and can be done in multiple ways to try and offset your partner. The circles are smaller and there is is a fair amount of actual punching and striking as oppossed to just pushing and pulling.
Im just interested if anyone has any experience with this set, i only know what ive been told. Ive read some other explanations and know of some other linages who practice this set including (ive heard) Yang Shao Hao's linage.
Im not trying to imply that what ive stated here is the gospel truth, its simply what ive picked up from broken conversations with my sifu. My sifus english is far from perfect and my Chinese is non existant so there is of course also a chance ive misinterpreted some of this sets history.
Anyway, anyone else know anything about this?
Last edited by jon; 01-31-2003 at 06:04 AM.
Up and down, forward and backward, left and right, its all the same. All of this is done with the mind, not externaly.
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Shaped dragon and looking monkey, sitting tiger and turning eagle.
"I wonder how they would do against jon's no-tension fu. I bet they'd do REALLY WELL."
- Huang Kai Vun