Yang Family Tai Chi Discussion Board

Greetings, I don't know what form you do, but in the received form of Yang taijiquan there is no sweeping or extending of the leg during the turn after Left Separate Feet. Here are Fu Zhongwen's instructions for Turn Body and Kick with Heel: Movement One: The left foot drops down, with the left knee...

Greetings T,

It's good to see your update! It sounds like your software needed to be rebooted. I'm glad you're practicing again.

Take care,
Louis

Oh, and if you don't mind, it may be a good idea to remove the link from your post.

Thank you,
Louis

Hi Sean,

Yes, piracy is not very nice. I'm not sure what I can do, not knowing who is responsible or how to get in touch with them.

Thanks for your concern.

Louis

Greetings T, An occasional brief hiatus from form practice can sometimes be a good thing – a cognitive and somatic reset that brings refreshed perspective and appreciation when you re-engage. Last March, for me, marked the fortieth year I’ve been seriously practicing taijiquan. My form and I have be...

Greetings, I recently downloaded a free app for my iPhone called Pedometer++. The iPhone 5s has an extra chip in it called M7 that senses and records the user's movements throughout the day, and there are a number of fitness apps designed to work in conjunction with that functionality. Pedometer++ r...

Greetings all, There are some real gems in this 1936 publication: http://brennantranslation.wordpress.com/2014/06/01/martial-arts-discussions-by-huang-yuanxiu/ I was interested to see, for example, that one of the contributors was Tan Mengxian, who is identified in T'ai-chi Touchstones as the source...

Hmmm. . . On the other hand, I came across this Eagle Claw site listing kicking methods: http://www.laufatmangeagleclaw.com/eagl ... kicks.html

One of them is: Choi Teui - 採 腿 Low Chop Kick.

Who knew?

--Louis

Hi Audi, Re: When I saw Chen's reference to 採 (cai3 "pluck"/"pull down"), I subconsciously read it as 踩 (cai3 "step on"/"trample") and so did not think it odd. I assumed he was describing the same kick I had been taught. The characters differ, of course, only ...

Greetings, I wanted to bring up for discussion another passage in Chen Yanlin's book, presented in Brennan's translation as: 單練式基本採腿法 SINGLE POSTURE TRAINING OF THE BASIC STAMPING KICK METHOD What Brennan translates here as "stamping kick" is 採腿 (cai tui), which Chen contrasts with "s...

Greetings all, Update: I see that Brennan has revised the lingkongjin section in his Chen Yanlin translation. The English now reflects the bei passive, and the referents are clarified. I've said it before, but I admire Brennan's work, and am impressed by his productive output. I don't always agree w...

Hi Audi, Yes, TWC helped to putonghua the wenyenwen! A helpful way of understanding the usage of 或 in classical Chinese is to think of it as "some." but it often takes the meaning of "some cases," more explicitly so when combined with 者 -- 或者. It's closest in meaning here to the ...

Greetings UniTaichi, I'm fairly convinced that 一門 should be read to mean "one aspect" or "one category." One of the meanings of 門 is a numerary adjunct for a class or a category, as in the phrase 分門别類 ("to put into different categories; to classify". To me, taking into ...

Greetings Bob, For more in that vein, Chen Weiming quotes Yang Chengfu in his book, Taiji Da Wen: “Taiji Boxing techniques are responses according to situations and are without a fixed pattern. If you know how to listen to energy, then hearing one thing lets you know a hundred, and if you don’t know...

Greetings, I'm pressed for time, but I wanted to quickly weigh in on this: 能聽。然後能懂。此固為一定之理。然聽或不準確。卽不能全懂。故懂勁一門。亦甚困難。 Brennan translates: "If you can listen, you will be able to identify. This is indeed a fixed principle. But if your listening is not accurate, you will not be able to perfectly id...