Well I am a disciple of Yang Xiao Dong. to start with.
In the interrum, I managed to get your profile up and visited your website. Very nice. Was a bit confused at first as I only know your teacher as "Tony Yang". Never heard his Chinese name before. Was kind of checking because although he has many students, only a couple are officially authorized as his representatives even among disciples. I am not clear specifically who those people are but I do know that discipleship is only an entrance and not really a "graduation" so I wanted to check. I also posted this question on another board to Robert Figler who also posts here as RAF and who you should know if you are a disciple under Tony yang. I know him personally and understand that he is a kind of a "media rep" for master Yang. As a general rule I tend to defer to him on issues of master Liu's history. I don't remember clearly but it is entirely likely that I heard the story of the duel from him or from one of the articles he has sent me for translation or just among the materials he has shared with me over the past few years.
However the learning Six Harmonies from a freind is correct this i have gotten from the words of my master as well as other masters who would have no reason to lie.
That doesn't necessarily conflict with the story I heard. The way I heard it was just that early on he hooked up with Li Shuwen and after that, there was really little in the world to impress him gongfu-wise. Later on, largely from pressure from his elder "brother" Zhang Xiangwu, he started studying internal stuff. Zhang Xiangwu, my own Shiye, introduced him to Gong Bao-tian and most likely was the one to teach Liu the Kun Wu sword and quite possibly Yang style Taiji although the Taiji is harder to trace. I really don't know where the mantis came in. Just heard that Liu pretty much thought he had it all wrapped up for a while with Baji and Bagua untill an old Mantis dude kicked his ass. Where specicifically he learned his mantis I never heard so your version could be perfectly correct.
I Use GrandMaster to show the deepest level of loyalty and respect toward my master.
Just checking. "grandmaster" doesn't really correlate to anything specific in Chinese so it's always a guessing game to see what people mean by it.
The implcation that GM Liu "Needed" PM to complete his martial arts was the specific problem i had with your quote.
I actually didn't mean to imply that at all. I was just relating a story I had heard and didn't mean anything beyond that. I don't even train Mantis myself. I am only tangentially related to the Wu-tan organization, mainly through friendship with many of it's members and out of a deep respect for the friendship and fellowship that our respective grandmasters (Liu and Zhang) shared.
However, if you have an account that states of a defeat i am a historian and i would love to examine it.
Best to pm RAF about that.
Something about your method of writing leads me to believe that i spoke to you in the past am i mistaken?
I had the same feeling but I can't place it. That's why I actually posted the question on emptyflower. I was hoping someone would connect the dots for me.