Is Shaolin-Do for real?

[kwaichang]

http://youtu.be/pVHwDNo2LB8
For your entertainment KC

[Leto]

I am by no means a scholar of CMA, but I've always considered that SD taught that TC had origins and connections to Shaolin Temple, and that beginning training in TC started with what SD teaches as the "Yang 64" or whatever it is called, and then expands TC training with the TC weapons and Chen style as well. I first learned TC (the Yang 64) in Lexington in the early 80's, directly from GMST, don't recall ever being told anything about it was THE form done at the SL temple.

So here are some other perspectives on the history or TC and its connections to Shaolin:

"After graduating from the famous Shaolin Monastery, the fountainhead of Shaolin Kung Fu, Chi Kung, and Zen, Zhang San Feng continued his martial arts practice and spiritual development in the Purple Summit Temple on Wudang Mountain, which is one of the most important of the sacred mountains of Taoism.

"One day Zhang San Feng witnessed a fight between a snake and a crane (some documents say a sparrow), and this inspired him to modify his comparatively hard Shaolin Kungfu into a softer style which was then known as Wudang 32-Pattern Long Fist. This later developed into Tai Chi Chuan. . . .

"Some people suggest that Chen Wang Ting might have been influenced by Shaolin Kungfu directly, as the Chen Family Settlement is not far from the Shaolin Monastery in the same province, and virtually all Tai Chi patterns and principles, except those touching on Taoist philosophy, are also found in Shaolin Kungfu."

From: Wong Kiew Kit, "The Complete Book of Tai Chi Chuan" (2002), p. 19, 23. GMST told the same story about the crane and the snake fight day 1 in Tai Chi class. One could theorize that the "Temple" referred to in so-called "Temple Style" is in fact the Purple Summit Temple (see the quote from Lu Shengli, below). Also:

"The highest level of Weijia [external fist] practice was Shaolin, and Zhang Sanfeng is known to have been an innovative student of Shaolin. He may well have made the changes in Weijia practice and concepts that provided the basis for the new style of Neijia [internal fist]. . . .

"The history of the founder of Tai Chi Quan has puzzled people for 200 years. According to legend, there were originally 5 different kinds of Tai Chi Quan. . . .

"Xu Xuanping, a hermit who lived on Chengyang Mountain during the Tang Dynasty, practiced a form of Tai Chi Quan called 'San Shi Qi' or 'Thirty-Seven Postures.' He was tall, had long hair and a beard, and could run as fast as a horse. Every day he carried wood down the mountain to barter it for alcohol. . . . The movements of Xu's 37 Postures form, known as Chan Quan or the Long Form, are very close to what we practice today. . . .

"Zhan Sanfeng's Taiji Quan is called Shi San Shi or the '13 Posture Form.' It has become very popular and is the form most commonly practiced today. When people say Taiji Quan, they are usually referring to Zhang Sanfeng's form. The main variants of this style Chen style, Yang style, Wu (tone 2) style, Wu (tone 3) style, and Sun style.

"Today, with the exception of Zhang Sanfeng's form, the old styles of Taiji Quan are almost lost. Only a few old masters know anything about them. Some people even doubt the existence of these old styles, believing instead that the forms were devised within the last one hundred years."

From: Lu Shengli (translated by Zhang Yun), "Combat Techniques of Taiji, Xingyi, and Bagua" (2006), p. 6, 43-45. SD is not unique for tall tales (Xu "could run as fast as a horse"). And by the way this book also discusses the qigong practice methods of "Xiantian Quan," or "Pre-birth Skills," which some SD students will recognize as what GMST called "Shien Tien Chi" or "breathing methods from before you were born" training in his chi kung or qigong classes.

Although just a theory, there is nothing to say that someone from China or somewhere else who learned what SD calls the Yang 64 or the 24 didn't have contacts with one of the other teachers at the Chuan Yen school in Indonesia. And told stories of the "Temple" Style of Zhang San Feng which according to these texts developed from Shaolin Kung Fu and into the modern forms. Just a theory.

Of course, other people have told legends and myths about the origins of martial arts, always have. But we have a responsibility not to get the myths confused with actual knowable history and lineage. Yang style taijiquan is a fairly recent historical development, it is less than 200 years old, the story of where it came from is well known, the people involved historically verifiable. The fact is, we learned Cheng Man Ching's 37 posture form, and the Beijing simplified 24 posture form (and some also got the Chen style 83 postures laojia), with some changes due to 'artistic license' perhaps. So telling the tales of hermits and monks inventing taijiquan is nice, but the forms we learned have specific knowable histories which should be taught. It is a bit delusional for people to keep denying that these are the same forms we learned. The best that could be said, if you want to insist that Sin The has an actual lineage in taijiquan, is that he learned some strange unknown style somewhere and chose to superimpose that style onto the framework of these well-known modern forms for some reason, rather than teaching taijiquan the way he originally learned it. Of course, that theory is not likely in the least. It is much more likely that Sin The had a brief introduction to taijiquan and the other internal arts, and taught the forms he picked up the best he could, adding to his knowledge over the years as instruction sources became available. You could, perhaps, say that SD's taijiquan forms are "cover versions" of the original CMC 37 and simplified 24, equally valid to the originals due to artistic license and the fact that Sin The worked out applications for his movements. (Myself, I prefer the original Yang style to the way I was taught in CSC). By no means do we have a basis for thinking they are really ancient styles linked to any temple.

[brucereiter]

Look familiar
http://youtu.be/sR0FLOJyQQA

Things that make you go Hummm KC

This is not the same form as cmc/yang 64 forms. Kc what is your point in posting this video?

What does this video have to do with the tai chi CHUAN sin the teaches.
This tai chi CHUAN group seems to be more heath oriented and offers some very expensive ($8000) for a 2 day chi kung class... http://www.chikung.com/ has more info.
Kc did you read the history and information about this person and style?

[brucereiter]

http://youtu.be/pVHwDNo2LB8
For your entertainment KC

That's pretty cool

[kwaichang]

In discussing the Yang 64 I do not know what or who taught you but I see some similariities to the CMC 37 but not as many as the Yang Temple form I posted. So which form is it more likely to have derived from the Temple one or the Other. I think the Temple form not CMC form at least as I was taught. KC

[brucereiter]

In discussing the Yang 64 I do not know what or who taught you but I see some similariities to the CMC 37 but not as many as the Yang Temple form I posted. So which form is it more likely to have derived from the Temple one or the Other. I think the Temple form not CMC form at least as I was taught. KC

Kc you should check out Waysun Liao he is the "leader" of that tai chi group.
Waysun Liao says he learned in Taiwan at a Taoist temple by a wandering monk.

[brucereiter]

Kc what similarities do you see in the waysun Liao tai chi style and yang 64 as sin he teaches it?

[Leto]

This is what i was explaining with the posting of the Wu Dang style form and the mention that many forms are called 64 or 37 or 108 or whatever. KC

It isn't just about the naming/numbering. Yes, there are other Yang style 64 posture and 37 posture forms out there, and they are different than the SD form. actually, the same traditional Yang style long form is named differently according to who you talk to, some number it 108, some 103, some 88, some don't bother numbering it, but it is all the same form. When you actually look at the contents of the SD 64 form, it is identical to Cheng Man Chings's 37 posture form, that is what I base my conclusion on, not the name. You even posted a link to a performance of the form which should make it obvious. Don't get thrown off by Cheng Man Ching's super relaxed performance that we see on those old films of him, or the slight differences in stance and hand position, look past the performance and see the postures. There are the same postures in the same order. What are the odds that two people, from different parts of China and separated by decades or centuries, coincidentally came up with the exact same sequence of postures? Or do you think Cheng Man Ching really learned the form from someone else, and he lied about having created it from the Yang long form that he was taught? Do you think SD's 64 form is really Yang style like we were told, or do you think it is something else? All I have to go on is the actual material, I can't believe anything Sin The and his students have said. What is your basis for saying the 64 form is not the same as Cheng Man Ching's? What specifically are the parts that you feel indicate they are not the same form? Could they really have so many identical matching postures but not be from the same source?

I'll tell you the differences from the way I learned it with CMC's form.

1. - lift hands posture was done incorrectly, I learned it more like a ridge hand before coming down to the shoulder
2. - I was told that there was a second white crane spreads wings after the first brush knee and step (later I saw this was just a misinterpretation of the intermediate movement that leads into the brush knee posture)
3. - we called "deflect parry and punch" "plant hammer under the sleeve" for some reason
4. - I was taught that "embrace the tiger, return to mountain" was a movement that came before cross hands, a low scooping movement with the back of the hand leading to a takedown in a horse stance, rather than it being a brush knee-like movement that follows cross hands, and going in a north-western direction (if cross hands is facing south).
5. - There was a full grasping sparrows tail, with a ward off, directly to the north, following the cross hands, rather than embrace the tiger, roll back, press and push. I could see how someone would misinterpret that sequence as such, the embrace tiger posture is only subtly different.
6. - there was an intermediate "tiao" palm like movement directly to the south following the setup to single whip, and then a regular single whip stepping out directly to the east, instead of a simple diagonal single whip to the south east. I can also understand how this developed, if someone was having trouble with the diagonal directions or wanted to cut them out for some reason.
7.- fist under elbow posture was not called that, I don't think we had a name for it. We set it up with another ridge hand-like movement with the right hand, which isn't too far off from how the posture is supposed to be, but the left hand stayed stationary until it moved up sort of like in hands play the guitar, and the right hand pulled back into a chambered fist. again, I can see how fist under elbow could devolve into this if someone only had a picture of the ending posture and didn't get where it came from.
8. - cloud hands is performed stationary in a sort of horse stance, and only three repetitions (two to the left and one to the right). I also learned it in a strange way, with one hand sort of waving as you lower it while the other rises. The waist movement was largely missing, instead there was just a slight shifting of weight from one leg to the other. The cloud hands footwork can be difficult to get, I could understand someone leaving it out if they couldn't follow it from the pictures in the book. The posture is listed three times, but normally each mention of cloud hands refers to the movement on both the left and right side which includes one complete step out to the left and step up with the right leg. So that would be a total of six times you wave your hands, not three. Of course, from what I understand the number of repititions of these types of moves were not really considered all that important, as long as you end up in the correct place.
9. - Snake creeps down, or low single whip, was taught with a bit of an extraneous movement with the hand swooping out and back in again before the beak hand hooks forward and is pulled back while the left hand strikes forward in a splitting motion. This is rather than the simple scooping motion which happens in normal Yang style.
10. - I was taught three golden rooster stands on one leg instead of two, on the final one-leg stand you are on the left leg with the right leg up, and move immediately into the kick.
11. - the first kicks/separate leg posture is preceded by a crane-like hand flick movement, and the hands go straight out to the sides with palms out while kicking rather than one arm over the kicking leg and the other arm towards the rear. There is no rolling back type movement setting up the kicks as there is in normal Yang style. The second kick is followed by another hand flick, before rotating to the west to thrust with the heel, where again the arms are straight out to the side.
12. - instead of plant the fist, I was taught another "under the sleeve plant the hammer" move here, aka the punch part of deflect, parry and punch, but in a horse stance instead of forward stance. We called it a "special" plant hammer under sleeve.
13. - eachof the fair maiden works the shuttles was followed by pulling back the upper hand and flicking it out again like a crane wing attack, before turning and stepping into the next works the shuttle movement.
14. - I was taught turn and sweep with lotus leg and bend bow to shoot tiger in a messed up way. Following ride the tiger, we would start turning like the beginning of sweep with lotus leg, but instead of finishing the 360 degree turn/sweep and then kicking with an outward crescent (lotus leg) kick, we would twist all the way facing east again, step back with the left leg and do what we called bend the bow to shoot the tiger, which was similar to the the first half of that posture from original Yang style, then we would do what we called "hang the lotus" and do a sort of scooping kick with the right leg, which could also be a side thrust, and then move into deflect, parry, and punch. It's like bend the bow was stuck in the middle of turn and sweep the lotus leg, and the outward crescent kick is replaced with a raising side kick.
15. Once again, cross hands is performed differently, with a lead in move that we called "embrace the tiger return to the mountain". For the actual cross hands, there is an extra movement where the right leg and arm trace a circle inward and then outward again into a horse stance where the actual cross hands finishing posture occurs, rather than in a more natural stance as in the normal Yang style.

- All the postures occur in the same order in SD 64 and CMC 37. Note the only thing out of order was the sweep the lotus leg and bend the bow, and that wasn't entirely out of order, but sort of combined. Some of the naming may be different, the numbering is different, and some postures have added movements or small differences, but the similarities are too great to ignore. The differences can be understood and explained mostly by "migration" over time due to unorthodox or partial instruction, or in some cases possibly deliberate alterations in order to brand the form as something different from its origin. The way I learned this form from CSC may even have more "migration" than the version you guys in the east learned, so yours might be even closer to the original.

[kwaichang]

I learned the form 3 x once before Sd one in Tn , once in Tx and once in Lex. Ky. That being said all 3 do the form different. also with the Pa kua and with the Hsing Ie. However the angles and flow was different more like the Temple one I posted. There are many versions of Tai Chi and the Large Frame as I was taught it is different than the one you are comparing it to.. Any way you may be right it could have came from CMC but there are many differences and similarities, and perhaps the main progression was copied and then altered as you said. But having Trained in Yang Style prior to Sd and then doing SD under 3 different SD Master level and elder master teachers I just think it is from a Tai Chi that is very similar as most are except of course Wu Dong types. KC

[kwaichang]

http://youtu.be/Th0-NPVpaF8

I like this one best of all. Who said Tai Chi has to be slow. KC

[kwaichang]

http://youtu.be/U-kRaR8yfqg
See if you can do this form Guys It is a True master KC

[Leto]

In discussing the Yang 64 I do not know what or who taught you but I see some similariities to the CMC 37 but not as many as the Yang Temple form I posted. So which form is it more likely to have derived from the Temple one or the Other. I think the Temple form not CMC form at least as I was taught. KC

The temple form you posted was only the first section. The order of movements is identical, of course, the first section is the same for all Yang style forms. Even from just that much, it has a significant difference to the way I learned the form. For one, we don't use that toes and knees-inward sitting posture. He does deflect, parry and punch in a weird way, not at all like we do it. Of course
He does seem to emphasize low stances, which is the way we were taught as well. But that is not out of the realm of traditional Yang style, either. There are different ways to practice the form, and lower stances with bigger expansive movements is one way, the "large frame" way, which will be more physically strenuous. Cheng Man Ching taught a very "small frame" way, but the content of his form is exactly the postures from the traditional Yang long form he learned from Yang Cheng Fu. Where else can we see this "temple" Yang style, except from this guy? I would need to see the whole thing before I could consider agreeing with you. I based my decision on watching film of Cheng Man Ching and his students, reading the book of his form, and learning from someone who knows the form. Do you think Sin The learned this "temple style", and then decided to practice the postures in the order created by Cheng Man Ching? Why would he do that? Does anyone other than Waysun Liao and his students teach "temple style"?

After looking up Waysun Liao, it appears the form he uses for his "temple tai chi" is also Cheng Man Ching's form, he supposedly studied with Cheng Man Ching. So, what we practice is absolutely related to the temple style, because they are both dervied from Cheng Man Ching's form. So maybe Sin The learned something from Liao and adopted some of his mannerisms, but I doubt it. Liao is five years younger than Sin The, at the time yang 64 was introduced to SD students, Liao would only have been a teenager or in his early twenties. Does anyone know if Liao Waysun was living in Lexington at the same time as SD was starting up?

[brucereiter]

It isn't just about the naming/numbering. Yes, there are other Yang style 64 posture and 37 posture forms out there, and they are different than the SD form. actually, the same traditional Yang style long form is named differently according to who you talk to, some number it 108, some 103, some 88, some don't bother numbering it, but it is all the same form. When you actually look at the contents of the SD 64 form, it is identical to Cheng Man Chings's 37 posture form, that is what I base my conclusion on, not the name. You even posted a link to a performance of the form which should make it obvious. Don't get thrown off by Cheng Man Ching's super relaxed performance that we see on those old films of him, or the slight differences in stance and hand position, look past the performance and see the postures. There are the same postures in the same order. What are the odds that two people, from different parts of China and separated by decades or centuries, coincidentally came up with the exact same sequence of postures? Or do you think Cheng Man Ching really learned the form from someone else, and he lied about having created it from the Yang long form that he was taught? Do you think SD's 64 form is really Yang style like we were told, or do you think it is something else? All I have to go on is the actual material, I can't believe anything Sin The and his students have said. What is your basis for saying the 64 form is not the same as Cheng Man Ching's? What specifically are the parts that you feel indicate they are not the same form? Could they really have so many identical matching postures but not be from the same source?

I'll tell you the differences from the way I learned it with CMC's form.

1. - lift hands posture was done incorrectly, I learned it more like a ridge hand before coming down to the shoulder
2. - I was told that there was a second white crane spreads wings after the first brush knee and step (later I saw this was just a misinterpretation of the intermediate movement that leads into the brush knee posture)
3. - we called "deflect parry and punch" "plant hammer under the sleeve" for some reason
4. - I was taught that "embrace the tiger, return to mountain" was a movement that came before cross hands, a low scooping movement with the back of the hand leading to a takedown in a horse stance, rather than it being a brush knee-like movement that follows cross hands, and going in a north-western direction (if cross hands is facing south).
5. - There was a full grasping sparrows tail, with a ward off, directly to the north, following the cross hands, rather than embrace the tiger, roll back, press and push. I could see how someone would misinterpret that sequence as such, the embrace tiger posture is only subtly different.
6. - there was an intermediate "tiao" palm like movement directly to the south following the setup to single whip, and then a regular single whip stepping out directly to the east, instead of a simple diagonal single whip to the south east. I can also understand how this developed, if someone was having trouble with the diagonal directions or wanted to cut them out for some reason.
7.- fist under elbow posture was not called that, I don't think we had a name for it. We set it up with another ridge hand-like movement with the right hand, which isn't too far off from how the posture is supposed to be, but the left hand stayed stationary until it moved up sort of like in hands play the guitar, and the right hand pulled back into a chambered fist. again, I can see how fist under elbow could devolve into this if someone only had a picture of the ending posture and didn't get where it came from.
8. - cloud hands is performed stationary in a sort of horse stance, and only three repetitions (two to the left and one to the right). I also learned it in a strange way, with one hand sort of waving as you lower it while the other rises. The waist movement was largely missing, instead there was just a slight shifting of weight from one leg to the other. The cloud hands footwork can be difficult to get, I could understand someone leaving it out if they couldn't follow it from the pictures in the book. The posture is listed three times, but normally each mention of cloud hands refers to the movement on both the left and right side which includes one complete step out to the left and step up with the right leg. So that would be a total of six times you wave your hands, not three. Of course, from what I understand the number of repititions of these types of moves were not really considered all that important, as long as you end up in the correct place.
9. - Snake creeps down, or low single whip, was taught with a bit of an extraneous movement with the hand swooping out and back in again before the beak hand hooks forward and is pulled back while the left hand strikes forward in a splitting motion. This is rather than the simple scooping motion which happens in normal Yang style.
10. - I was taught three golden rooster stands on one leg instead of two, on the final one-leg stand you are on the left leg with the right leg up, and move immediately into the kick.
11. - the first kicks/separate leg posture is preceded by a crane-like hand flick movement, and the hands go straight out to the sides with palms out while kicking rather than one arm over the kicking leg and the other arm towards the rear. There is no rolling back type movement setting up the kicks as there is in normal Yang style. The second kick is followed by another hand flick, before rotating to the west to thrust with the heel, where again the arms are straight out to the side.
12. - instead of plant the fist, I was taught another "under the sleeve plant the hammer" move here, aka the punch part of deflect, parry and punch, but in a horse stance instead of forward stance. We called it a "special" plant hammer under sleeve.
13. - eachof the fair maiden works the shuttles was followed by pulling back the upper hand and flicking it out again like a crane wing attack, before turning and stepping into the next works the shuttle movement.
14. - I was taught turn and sweep with lotus leg and bend bow to shoot tiger in a messed up way. Following ride the tiger, we would start turning like the beginning of sweep with lotus leg, but instead of finishing the 360 degree turn/sweep and then kicking with an outward crescent (lotus leg) kick, we would twist all the way facing east again, step back with the left leg and do what we called bend the bow to shoot the tiger, which was similar to the the first half of that posture from original Yang style, then we would do what we called "hang the lotus" and do a sort of scooping kick with the right leg, which could also be a side thrust, and then move into deflect, parry, and punch. It's like bend the bow was stuck in the middle of turn and sweep the lotus leg, and the outward crescent kick is replaced with a raising side kick.
15. Once again, cross hands is performed differently, with a lead in move that we called "embrace the tiger return to the mountain". For the actual cross hands, there is an extra movement where the right leg and arm trace a circle inward and then outward again into a horse stance where the actual cross hands finishing posture occurs, rather than in a more natural stance as in the normal Yang style.

- All the postures occur in the same order in SD 64 and CMC 37. Note the only thing out of order was the sweep the lotus leg and bend the bow, and that wasn't entirely out of order, but sort of combined. Some of the naming may be different, the numbering is different, and some postures have added movements or small differences, but the similarities are too great to ignore. The differences can be understood and explained mostly by "migration" over time due to unorthodox or partial instruction, or in some cases possibly deliberate alterations in order to brand the form as something different from its origin. The way I learned this form from CSC may even have more "migration" than the version you guys in the east learned, so yours might be even closer to the original.

That was a good and accurate account in my opinion.

[brucereiter]

posted by leto
>>>>>
4. - I was taught that "embrace the tiger, return to mountain" was a movement that came before cross hands, a low scooping movement with the back of the hand leading to a takedown in a horse stance, rather than it being a brush knee-like movement that follows cross hands, and going in a north-western direction (if cross hands is facing south).
5. - There was a full grasping sparrows tail, with a ward off, directly to the north, following the cross hands, rather than embrace the tiger, roll back, press and push. I could see how someone would misinterpret that sequence as such, the embrace tiger posture is only subtly different.
6. - there was an intermediate "tiao" palm like movement directly to the south following the setup to single whip, and then a regular single whip stepping out directly to the east, instead of a simple diagonal single whip to the south east. I can also understand how this developed, if someone was having trouble with the diagonal directions or wanted to cut them out for some reason.
<<<<<

this post is actually helpful to my study. i have been trying to understand the way i do embrace the tiger and return to the mountain and "finger fork" is what the diagonal single whip was called in atlanta. those are my least understood postures in that form.
i have "made up" a few applications for them but .... i could use some insight into a better method of practicing it in the context of the yang 64 form i practice.
do you or any other "sd" people have any more comments on that part of the form?

i got the cmc book in 1997 since it was the only publication that matched what we were doing i thought the book was very interesting and useful. one of the things that i always wondered is about diagonal single whip and embrace the tiger and return to the mountain. those were the postures that were the most different from how i was doing it.

a few years ago when the videos of cmc became available it was very insightful to look and learn.

[Leto]

posted by leto
>>>>>
4. - I was taught that "embrace the tiger, return to mountain" was a movement that came before cross hands, a low scooping movement with the back of the hand leading to a takedown in a horse stance, rather than it being a brush knee-like movement that follows cross hands, and going in a north-western direction (if cross hands is facing south).
5. - There was a full grasping sparrows tail, with a ward off, directly to the north, following the cross hands, rather than embrace the tiger, roll back, press and push. I could see how someone would misinterpret that sequence as such, the embrace tiger posture is only subtly different.
6. - there was an intermediate "tiao" palm like movement directly to the south following the setup to single whip, and then a regular single whip stepping out directly to the east, instead of a simple diagonal single whip to the south east. I can also understand how this developed, if someone was having trouble with the diagonal directions or wanted to cut them out for some reason.
<<<<<

this post is actually helpful to my study. i have been trying to understand the way i do embrace the tiger and return to the mountain and "finger fork" is what the diagonal single whip was called in atlanta. those are my least understood postures in that form.
i have "made up" a few applications for them but .... i could use some insight into a better method of practicing it in the context of the yang 64 form i practice.
do you or any other "sd" people have any more comments on that part of the form?

i got the cmc book in 1997 since it was the only publication that matched what we were doing i thought the book was very interesting and useful. one of the things that i always wondered is about diagonal single whip and embrace the tiger and return to the mountain. those were the postures that were the most different from how i was doing it.

a few years ago when the videos of cmc became available it was very insightful to look and learn.

I also got Cheng's book on his form, and made some adjustments from there, and watched the videos of him and other people practicing his form. I also got Yang Cheng Fu's book on the traditional form. I met someone who practiced Cheng's form and practiced with them briefly, I picked up some things from him. I didn't try to understand or salvage the way CSC taught me, my assumption was that the differences were mostly mistakes made in interpreting what had been learned (on the part of me, my teacher, and all the way up to Sin The), and I changed my practice to the more conventional Yang way, taking guidance from the texts and videos to correct me. The diagonal single whip is just a regular single whip except for the direction you're pointing relative to the starting position. I think it's application is the same as all single whips, since your feet and body move in the same manner relative to your starting position with the push to the northwest: you turn 180 degrees and end up with a single whip to the southeast.

I found the video below very useful for getting some details in the Yang style long form, much of which is identical to the sequences CMC used. Of course there are also postures in the long form which are also found in the simplified 24 postures, if you still practice it, and I've changed how I pratice those as well, such as the "wave hands in clouds" that I originally used replaced with fan through the back, and correcting how I do chop with fist and deflect, parry and punch (aka plant hammer under the sleeve). It actually isn't hard to pick up the long form with the content of both CMC's form and the 24 form under your belt. There are only a few postures not found in either form.
It is a five hour seminar, and it covers details of the entire form. I think Yang Jun's (the grandson's) demonstrations are pretty stiff (maybe he's doing it on purpose for demonstration purpose), I just skipped over those parts, but Yang ZhenDuo goes into great detail during his explanations.

Part2 starts with embrace tiger return to mountain, he explains it at 3:52. It really is pretty simple, as I understand it. The pictures in the books make it hard to see. When I saw my friend do it, I asked him about it and he said it is just like a brush knee and press but stepping back and turning from the south to the northwest, followed immediately by a rolling back. That's what the video shows, too. There is an arm grab application in the transition from the brush knee to the roll back. My interpretation of the photo of that posture shown in Cheng's book is that it is describing the intermediate stage between the brush knee and press and the rollback, which is really the only different thing about it, where the lower hand has just turned palm up and is about to rise up for the grab and roll back.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kUnXFvDeGII
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tNa-Y2AkII8
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1wptDgG4IvU