Hmmm
Well yes but then every person who takes on a form taught to them by and large is creating or personalising their own form you could argue! Within the Yang family the different generations of Yang members are remembered for their distinctive take on the family forms.
As to laziness bit I'm not sure if this is reliable, you'll always get some saying it was laziness as to why he shortened things and others saying it was refinement/efficiency as to why he shortened stuff. Thing is he taught all his Taiwanese disciples the Yang family Long form untouched. He taught them what Yang Cheng-fu taught him.
It's no surprise that he was only a name in Taiwan becuase that's where his reputation spread, and thats where he spent a lot of his Taiji years, so that is correct. It's hard to say what his reputation would of been like if he had paraded his skills around China as a whole, but I don't think that was his mission in life. And the last bit about him being "constantly challenging, and constantly being beaten by boxers of reknown." sounds about right from his early years under Yang's tutelage, as I think Yang encouraged his pupils to challenges especially with members of different styles at times. Cheng was not the best fighter he was just up there with some of the greats, but by no means the best.
There is always someone who can beat someone else, surely this is the nature of peopole's gong-fu evolving and developing?
Last edited by Repulsive Monkey; 12-23-2003 at 08:45 AM.
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