Yang Family Tai Chi Discussion Board

by **goto** » Fri Jul 22, 2005 12:53 am

Hi All
Kalamondin

Yes, i always copy the movement, for my teacher,from book,from other ones .I think it might be a good way to develop the taiji if something or somebody is better than me. If you write english better , i will alway copy the words and sentences from you. From my perspective, it is a process of learning good things

AS chinese proverb says, Where there are three men walking together, one of thme is bound to be able to tech me something, which i copy from the dictionary.

I am a common taichi lover ,not a skilled one.I have a lot of things to learn.Why i want to write in this form, the main objective is that any skilled ones or unskilled ones can give me more advices , which is benifical for improving my techniques.

Thank you . Kalamondin .I like your elaboration very much.AS you mentioned abouve, i have never be taught about them.

And thanks everyone who advises me and criticizes me.

Best Regards

[This message has been edited by goto (edited 07-21-2005).]

by **CheeFattTaichi** » Fri Jul 22, 2005 3:05 pm

Yesterday 4 of us gathered to do some self-defense training. 2 are Karate black belts, another is Shaolin Ghor Choh (5 ancestors) instructor and me. He did some power hitting using focus and kicking pad. Amongst the 4 of us I have to admit I am the least fit physically and I have not been hitting any pad or bag for more than 15 years now. We took turns to strike the holding pad using our respective techniques and to my and their surprise, I strikes the hardest and all of them conceded. Another equally evidence is; we striked as hard as we can 25 times each hand and all of them were breathing hard but me. My breathing was normal.

From this I saw with my own eye and experience that taiji principles do give us an edge over others. `Sung' conserves our energy while the ability to focus and use whole body weight to fajin provide us with far greater striking power. I hope my this sharing will inspire all my friends here to have confident in taiji and train harder. Taiji is indeed the supreme ultimate boxing. We did some light sparring after that and as usual, taiji won.

by **Kalamondin** » Fri Jul 22, 2005 5:41 pm

<BLOCKQUOTE>quote:<HR> I am a common taichi lover ,not a skilled one.I have a lot of things to learn.Why i want to write in this form, the main objective is that any skilled ones or unskilled ones can give me more advices , which is benifical for improving my techniques.
<HR></BLOCKQUOTE>

Thanks Goto, I think we are here for the same reason!

Best wishes,
Kal

by **Bamenwubu** » Fri Jul 22, 2005 10:08 pm

Kal,
Thanks for the save. I didn't understand why he was confused, even when he explained the lack of skill with English.
I believe I tried to be clear on the fact that I can't converse coherently in English.... At least I tried to.
I only know the modern, Americanized English, and that not well. So if anyone is confused by my writing, please do as Goto did and assume I'm not insulting you, because I'm not and never will. Please, assume I'm just being a very poor user of the English language and give me the benefit of the doubt.

That said, I was, indeed, using "you" and "they" improperly. As Kal so graciously pointed out, if you replace "you" with "a beginner" and "they" with "your opponent" and so on, you're there.

Sorry for the confusion, Goto. I didn't undertand where it was even after your post to me. I would never cast an aspersion on you, your teacher, or anyone who hasn't given me prior cause.

Bob

by **Kalamondin** » Sat Jul 23, 2005 12:49 am

No worries, Bob, I much prefer the slang of my childhood and it makes me feel so...snooty grandma-ish to try to use the "One could..." convention. I like to say "you" when I mean "one" and I like to say "they" when I mean "she he or it." Yet my mother, whose third language was English, trained me rigorously in English grammar so I generally know when I'm breaking the “rules.” And my childhood Hicksville (small town) slang is complicated by many hours of reading big books when there was no one around to talk to (Yes! Dangling participle!). As a consequence, I mispronounce many words I know from print but never heard until it was too late. But English is such a mish-mash of other languages and grammars that it’s a miracle that anyone manages to speak it at all.

Fortunately for me, I had one semester as a linguistics major where I learned the terms "prescriptive linguistics" and "descriptive linguistics" (de Saussure) before discovering that linguistics as a whole was a rather, erm, constipating field. See here for an example: http://people.ucsc.edu/~cgpotts/writing1-36-linguistic-claims.pdf And here’s further definition: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Prescriptive_linguistics .

"Prescriptive linguistics" attempts to say how a language ought to be spoken. Examples are attempts to make people speak “Standard English” or the “King’s English” or the French government’s attempt to prohibit all non-French words from entering the language. No lie, they have government officials whose job it is to find French words for encroaching American ones: http://classweb.gmu.edu/eshiraev/facts.html .

“Descriptive linguistics” tries to describe language as it is actually used, and does not say “This is right” and “This is wrong.” I prefer this one myself—it lets me justify how I write and speak. My favorite word is Papua New Guinean pidgin for “helicopter.” The word is “mixmaster belong jesus christ.” Mixmaster is a machine for preparing food with a whirling blade. The missionaries taught that Jesus Christ lives in the sky. Here are some more for fun: http://paxnortona.notfrisco2.com/?p=2595 and some other good words from other languages: http://www.wordswithoutborders.org/article.php?lab=InOtherWords

OK, sorry for being so off-topic! I love words about as much as I love tai chi (though I don’t retain them well). I’m going to stop geekin’ out right about now.

Take care,
Kal

by **goto** » Sat Jul 23, 2005 4:54 am

Hi
Bamenwubu

The confusion between us is a small problems.Actually i knew nothing about the modern American english.And i will watch more American tv to familiar with these usages.

I am sorry for my confusion.If i have any misunderstands or misusages.please let me know.

According to your comments,you have learn taichi in Yang Cheng Fu Center in KY
Maybe you have a experience with Yangcheng Fu.or Yang junCould you describe your feeling with them about hand-pushing or practicing taichi quan.
They are famous masters.

Cheers

[This message has been edited by goto (edited 07-22-2005).]

by **Yuri Snisarenko** » Sat Jul 23, 2005 6:34 am

<BLOCKQUOTE>quote:<HR>Originally posted by CheeFattTaichi:

From this I saw with my own eye and experience that taiji principles do give us an edge over others. `Sung' conserves our energy while the ability to focus and use whole body weight to fajin provide us with far greater striking power. I hope my this sharing will inspire all my friends here to have confident in taiji and train harder. Taiji is indeed the supreme ultimate boxing. We did some light sparring after that and as usual, taiji won. <HR></BLOCKQUOTE>

Cheefatt,
thank you for sharing about your experience. I usually feel a little uneasy in such gatherings because I don’t train speed factor for several last years, only very occasionally. Karate guys train with speed every day, so they have psychological advantage in sparring (even in a light one) with me. It’s great that you could deal with it.

[This message has been edited by Yuri Snisarenko (edited 07-23-2005).]

by **Yuri Snisarenko** » Sat Jul 23, 2005 12:40 pm

<BLOCKQUOTE>quote:<HR>Originally posted by goto:
Actually i knew nothing about the modern American english.And i will watch more American tv to familiar with these usages.
<HR></BLOCKQUOTE>

I like to watch contemporary movies on DVD with English subtitles. Thus I can be sure that I'll understand what I am hearing.

However it still didn't improve my English much, sory for that. Math was always easier for me than languages. :-(

[This message has been edited by Yuri Snisarenko (edited 07-23-2005).]

by **cheefatt taichi** » Mon Jul 25, 2005 3:04 am

Hi Yuri,

Many people misunderstood Taiji as been slow and incapable of speed and that's not true. We train speed differently than external artists and I dare say taiji has more knowledge of speed imbedded in our system than any other MA I know-off. Many artists took speed for granted as they train to be fast in all their movements but speed deteriorates over distance. Karate guy could launge a very fast attack but if we analyse his speed `curve', he is the fastest in the beginning when he first launch an attack i.e thrusting a punch or swinging a leg. This is the point when he first burst the energy like a rocket. His fist and leg will then has to travel a distant to reach target and it slows down somewhat. It will then slow down to almost a pause when reaching or penetrating 6 inches behind target point. In short, his speed is max at launch and min near the target. Taiji founder knows about this hence, he designed taiji fighting to always move a little bit further than target point and this even disminished opponent's speed.

In contrary, taiji fajin is short and explosive instead of long and thrusting. We execute fajin at close range hence our speed is max at contact. I haven't has the time to word it correctly to explain this speed concept of taiji yet, if you study fajin closely you will see its advantage. Maybe some of you guys out there who can nbetter express this in words can help me. This is also one reason why taiji focus on defend and intercept more than attack.

At close range our taiji striking speed is blinding.

by **Bamenwubu** » Tue Jul 26, 2005 1:41 pm

Goto,
I have only met MYJ once, at the seminar the KY Center had in Louisville a year ago. I could not afford to go this year, more's the pity, so I only have the one experience.
I did not push hands with the Master, so I can't give any impression about that. I was one of a hundred people, at least, in a large auditorium taking instruction on the hand form and then the sword form from him.
My impression from what I observed is that he's a highly skilled teacher who really knows his business.
He managed to teach me the entire sword form in three days, and I'd never taken a sword form before. At least, not the Yang family sword form and the only other sword form I trained was nearly fifteen years ago and I did not complete it.
I still can do about two thirds of the sword form to this day. I didn't stick with it as diligently as I should have over the last year and I've been having to retrain myself quite a bit from the DVD MYJ and the Grand Master put out a long while back. However, I think it's a testimony to his teaching ability that by the end of the three day session I was able to run through the whole thing in the seminar with everyone else.
Badly, but at least I could do it.
If you have not done so allready, I highly recommend purchasing MYJ's DVD of the hand form. It's an incredible tool for learning the hand form of the Yang family as he teaches it. I've been following that DVD since April, almost every day, and I feel that I'm finally beginning to understand the basics of Yang family TCC as MYJ teaches it.
It's only taken me three and half years. So that's not been too long, really.
Anyway, the DVD is truly awesome. The section where he goes over the Ten Essentials is a real gem. I watch it every Saturday morning before I meet up with Bill's practice group. He's been on the China trip with the Association and I've been leading our practice session while he's been gone. Each week I've been focusing in on one Essential, as MYJ teaches it, and doing my best to pass that on to the group.
I felt that if I was teaching as closely to how MYJ does on the DVD as I can, I probably wouldn't steer the group too far wrong and give Bill a lot of unnecessary work fixing mistakes when he gets back.
Anyway, the DVD would have been invaluable to me for that if nothing else. But it's been invaluable for so many things.
You can slow it down to frame by frame and watch in minute detail every movement the Master makes during each form. I do this a lot, watching for exact hand placements, where to turn my waist and where not to, where to turn my hip in during a bow stance or keep it turned to the corner. That type of detail you can't even get from a seminar, because you can't slow the teachers movements down to a single frame of action and then move it ahead frame by frame until you're sure of the movement you're looking for.

OK. Shameless Association plug over now.
Sorry if I carried on a bit, I just really think the DVD is fantastic.

Bob

by **Bamenwubu** » Tue Jul 26, 2005 1:52 pm

Kal,
Linguistics make my head spin. Language is not my strong suit. TCC isn't either, but hey at least I enjoy that.
What I know of the difficulty of learning or using the English language I mostly learned from watching the comedy of George Carlin. "We drive on a parkway and park in a driveway. S-e-w is pronounced so. Is n-e-w pronoucned no? NO!"
That kind of thing.
I'll leave the dangling particples, whatever the heck they are, and those kinds of things to those who enjoy them and continue to mangle the Kings English beyond belief.
I can generally make myself understood in English and I know just enough French to know how to ask where the bathroom is, order in a restaraunt, buy beer and get my face slapped. I'll do my best to get by in life on that, as my ability to learn other languages is nill.
Hey, it took meeting a pretty French girl back when I was about sixteen and wanting to get a tad closer to her to learn a bit of French. Unless my wife suddenly learns Chinese and won't speak to me in any other language, I don't see much hope of my learning that langage anytime soon.

Bob

by **goto** » Wed Jul 27, 2005 4:37 am

Hi bob

I have never seen Yang zhen duo before.Sometimes there is a seminar held by him,and it is too far for me to go and too expensive to afford. I knew him a litte from his videos and books.I look throught his pictures in the books .The movements of his hand,palm are very beautiful. I knew nothing about yanjun.Perhaps i will buy some books or videos about Yang jun.
Yet, I have met some masters,which some are famous ,some are not famous.Few of them can pratise the form correctly according to the yangchenfu's books.They created a lot of forms by their own.So i want to know the lineal desecendant of yangfamily,whether they remain the forms unchagers, and what is original forms and orginal hand-pushing?

Thank you for sharing your experience about practicing and videos.

Cheers

by **goto** » Wed Jul 27, 2005 4:42 am

Hi
cheefatt taichi

"Many people misunderstood Taiji as been slow and incapable of speed and that's not true. We train speed differently than external artists and I dare say taiji has more knowledge of speed imbedded in our system than any other MA I know-off. Many artists took speed for granted as they train to be fast in all their movements but speed deteriorates over distance. Karate guy could launge a very fast attack but if we analyse his speed `curve', he is the fastest in the beginning when he first launch an attack i.e thrusting a punch or swinging a leg. This is the point when he first burst the energy like a rocket. His fist and leg will then has to travel a distant to reach target and it slows down somewhat. It will then slow down to almost a pause when reaching or penetrating 6 inches behind target point. In short, his speed is max at launch and min near the target. Taiji founder knows about this hence, he designed taiji fighting to always move a little bit further than target point and this even disminished opponent's speed."

I agree with your statement of the speed between taichi's fajin and karate.
Karate's practitiones always focuse on their technique instead of the engery itself.They develpled a lot of complicated and beauiful movement.When they fight with others, they lose too much time to complete their complicate movements and also decreased the attacing engery on the opponent.I prefer the simple ,direct and powerful attack within lots of enery inside .Lack of speed and energy is useless in practical fighting.

"In contrary, taiji fajin is short and explosive instead of long and thrusting."

Taichi quan is well known for its fajin, especially for short fajin.But from my perspective,taiji quan has a long fajin as well.The short fajin is as important as the long fajin.And the long fajin and short fajin have their own usage in taichi quan .In my opinion why long fajin is rarely used in hand-pushing is that short fajin is easy to execute and more powerful and concealing.The long jin is not the same as that of karate.The famous exercise for fajin is to shake or jerk a long stick,called dou da gan

I guess the speed of concept you mentioned is called 'luo sheng chen cui", which is a chinese saying of wushu.It is only my guess.If you find it's wrong, please tell me.
The meaning of saying is that at begining and in middle of the punching ,the fist is loose and soft.When touching the body, the fist is hard and the power or jin is eploding to maxium.Because of soft and loose fist, the speed of punching is quick and fast

Cheers

by **Bamenwubu** » Wed Jul 27, 2005 2:10 pm

Goto,
Oh, I see what you were asking now.
I only know of one place in the long form that MYJ teaches that may be slightly different than the one YCF taught.
This is the only one I know of, there may be others but if so I can't see them and have no direct knowledge of them and it might be best to consult with someone with more expertise in the field to be sure.
The following is only my understanding of the subject and I only answer the question because of a statement made in my presence during a seminar by MYJ himself, otherwise I would have no knowledge of this.
On Left and Right Strike Tiger there are some differences in footwork between the forms as YCF taught them and as Grand Master Yang Zhen Duo and Master Yang Jun teach them.
This was pointed out by Master Yang Jun to us at the seminar I attended in Louisville, KY last year and I made note of this point because the Master took some time to point this out to everyone and explain some of the differences. If my memory serves me correctly without being able to access my notes, he described the change as being along the lines of: Before the footwork was not clear, now the footwork is clear.
I had a representative of the Gin Soon Chu Federation, a branch of Yang Cheng Fu style TCC that descends from a disciple of Yang Zhen Ming, known as Sau Chung, the oldest son of YCF, show me what he said was the "original Yang Cheng Fu" form of both Left and Right Strike Tiger postures. They were slightly different from how Master Yang Jun taught us these postures.
As the Master stated, the footwork is much clearer the way he teaches it, or at least it was to me. Maybe it was because I was much more used to the way Master Yang Jun taught it, but performing the postures as the Gin Soon Chu Federation teacher, a very polite and knowledgable teacher by the name of Dimitri Mougdis who has a school down in Stuart, Florida, USA, taught me was not as easy, not as "clear" to use the Masters word again, as the way Master Yang Jun teaches the posture.
It is my understanding that Grand Master Yang Zhen Duo made this alteration to his families traditional long form, however my memory is often suspect on such things and as I don't have my notes directly in front of me to consult it would be better to ask an authorized representative of the family to be absolutely certain if this is the case as I don't wish to make an absolute statement on something about which I only have peripheral knowledge.
Other than that one posture, and only as far as I myself know, the form is the same.
Careful study of photographs of "end" points of the 103 postures between GM YZD and his father and all of his brothers seem to bear this observation out in my opinion, but again I am not an expert on such things.

Bob

by **Bamenwubu** » Wed Jul 27, 2005 2:40 pm

Goto,
Something you posted has sprung up in my mind. You stated:
"Few of them can pratise the form correctly according to the yangchenfu's books."
I was wondering if you could explain what you meant by that?

Bob

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