Embrace Tiger Return to Mountain

[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=JoeD;726308][QUOTE=cjurakpt;723527here is a photo of Cheng Man ching, doing a throwing version of
"Embrace Tiger Return to Mountain"[/QUOTE]

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=cjurakpt;726333]

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! )

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_for...i_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

[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

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?"