Yang Family Tai Chi Discussion Board

Oh, and Bob: reverting to an earlier series of messages on sword maintenance, I thought I'd point out that I did in fact polish my sword just before posing for my Mum to take the sword pics in her garden. But yes, I have to admit, I hadn't cleaned it prior to that for, er ... six months, I think! .....

Bob: thanks a lot for looking at these and now you've pointed it out I have to agree that my right shoulder in Hit Tiger right is severely lifted, not least I think, because my right fist is positioned too high, which is drawing my right shoulder up. I've just checked some of those vintage photos of...

I have just had two sequences of photos taken of myself in postures from the Yang Cheng Fu form and the Yang Ban Hou/Dr Yang Jwing Ming 54 movement sword form and I have uploaded these onto a public gallery on AOL. I took trouble to present them in the sequence as in the Forms but AOL have presented...

Cesar, thinking about this again, I'd like to revert to your quotation from Yang Zhenduo, namely: 'In the Newsletter of the International Yang Style Tai Chi Chuan Association (N° 10), Master Yang ZhenDuo says: "...Doing the form one time commonly takes about 25 minutes now. In the past, we took...

Cesar and Audi: I can't really work out whether Yang Zhenduo's statement on the form practice in his younger days took 40 minutes or so for one set or 40 minutes or so for three. But I take on board what Fu Zhonwhen said (that slower speeds are useless,) which makes me a bit worried. Maybe I'll have...

Audi: I hope wer'e not talking at cross purposes here. It's difficult to put the point across without demonstrating it physically. I'm referring to the point after the immediate turn and chop with fist/reversed flat of hand after Fan Though the Back. After that,connecting to Chin Pu Pan Lan Chi, is ...

Bob: if you're on the wrong lines, then so am I, as I agree entirely with everything you say. Personally, I always try in accordance with fundamental principles to initiate all movements with the waist and guide them with it and therefore regard full and empty as intricately bound up with the waist....

Cesar: yes, I did get these references from Douglas Wiles' book, and I did attribute the reference in my first reply, though it was buried in the text, so perhaps didn't stand out. I'm afraid I really have no idea why the Masters differ so much on the relationship of the Thirteen Postures to the tri...

Bob: I agree, it's not martially necessary to do the form this low, but I figure I might as well 'kill two birds with one stone' and get some strengthening exercise out of my Tai Chi as well as the internal stuff. I used to do weight training, including leg press, etc., for the legs before I took up...

Bob: three reps a day sounds admirable. I think YCF advocated even up to five or seven, if I remember rightly. I did two reps the other day, though. And thereby hangs a tale. There's a two week festival of the arts, etc., going on here in Brighton at the moment with a lot of street performers. So I ...

That's an interesting observation, Jerry. Frankly, I still sometimes forget where I am in the form, even after years of practise. And it's always either because I'm distracted by some disturbance or noise from passersby if I'm outside, or the opposite: sometimes I feel so 'sunk' and loose, I just se...

The movement of course is similar to turn and chop with fist, except that the chop is done with the reverse of the flat of the hand rather than with the reverse of the clenched fist. But what happens thereafter? In Fu Zhong Wen's various videos on YouTube, the following movement is just as it is in ...

By the way, as far as the five elements are concerned, Yang Lu Chan gives these as follows: Advance - fire; Retreat - water; Gaze-left - wood; Look-right - metal; Central Equilibrium - earth. Presumably Yang Jun as Yang Lu Chan's familiar descendant would advance the same correspondences. Kind regar...

On the subject of the Eight Gates - their orientations and corresponding trigrams from the Lesser Heavenly Circulation (or 'Primary Arrangment'), Yang Lu Chan listed these as follows: The Eight Gates and Five Steps Ward-off (south) K'an (The Abysmal - Water) Roll-back (west) Li (The Clinging - Fire)...

Sorry for accidentally signing myself 'T'. I use that on another website. Kind regards, Simon.