Wan lai sheng vs. Yang cheng fu

[Francesco]

Hi veryone,

I read an article on taichi-online.com, from which following exerpt comes:

"In any event his own teacher, Yang Cheng-fu was defeated in Peking in the mid-1930s by Wan Lai-sheng, a hard stylist. (Wan is listed in 'Asian Fighting Arts' by Draeger and Smith as practising Tzujan Men - Spontaneous Boxing). I should point out that, as soon as he heard of Yang's defeat, Wu Jin-chuan of Wu style Tai Chi sought out and defeated Wan. At that time Yang was about 50 years of age while Wu was 13 years older! Funnily enough Wan still lives in Peking - teaching Tai Chi!"

Does anybody have any info on this? Is this true?

Thanks!

[cerebus]

Heh, heh. Actually Wan Lai Sheng taught his art of Ziranmen until he died. I've heard he fought many challenge matches and won most of them. Not sure about the specific ones mentioned.

[cerebus]

Oh, and I've always heard of Ziranmen as being an "internal" style.

[Brad]

Yeah, it's pretty soft. You can buy a vcd from plumpub of people from Wan's line doing Ziranmen (it includes footage of Wan as a very old man performing the forms too). The taiji defeat story sounds like BS as he doesn't seem to have been too big in taiji, and ziranmen doesn't look much more hard and "external" than taiji. He was an expert in a Shaolin six harmony boxing system too, though.

[Brad]

http://www.plumpub.com/sales/vcd3/coll_WanLaiSheng.htm

[BAI HE]

I heard that Yang was challenged by Wan, but Wu basically said "I'll take care of it" and did so.

[Blacktiger]

Here you go - check the link below for some info as to what Grandmaster Wan's style included.




http://www.ziranmen.com/artsframe.htm

[count]

The story I heard, from a teacher who was a direct student of Wan I Sheng's, says this is a true story and even though Yang lost the fight, his reputation gained as a result of fighting such a famous and successful fighter. He also told us it wasn't much of a fight and only lasted a few seconds.

[Blacktiger]

Yeah he did not mess around when dealing with a challenge.

[fiercest tiger]

I hope it wasnt as discraceful as the wu sytle vs pak hok styles grandmaster?

That wasnt even concidered a fight not even a spar in my book.

FT