Yang Family Tai Chi Discussion Board

Taichi was orriginally created and taught as a martial art. The writings of it's founders clearly state that in order to gain the civil benefits of improved health, clarity of mind, etc, practitioners must have a clear understanding of the martial. This is because in order to practise this art as an...

I recently devised a tool to make sure I was covering all aspects of my practise. I work full time in a professional job, have a home and family to take care of, organise the Australian branch of our taijiquan school, etc ... busy like the rest of you. I can put 2-4 hours at the most into practise p...

It is a good idea to learn how to care for your sword, even if it isn't a very valuable one. I have an antique jian and 5 other swords. For awhile, I was using fine sewing machine oil, which was good enough for the modern steel, but it wasn't sufficient for the antique. I now use choji. You don't ha...

Although our branch does not do ranking, there are other situations when forgetting is a problem. My most embarrassing one was after a few sessions of private tuition with my teacher on the miaodao form. We flew to another city where he was to do a seminar and he asked me to demonstrate the miaodao ...

Here's another one we use: If the duifang punches or grabs toward your chest, perhaps gripping the clothing, draw down over his elbow with the hook hand. Your elbow will need to be down. This breaks his structure and is quickly followed by either the knuckles or wrist bone of the hooked hand, to the...

Taipei, America, France, Australia, Estonia, Russia, Italy, Switzerland, Japan, Germany. I think it is also practised in Germany and the Netherlands - probably a lot of other places I don't know about as well.

Linda

Louis, thank you for that explanation. It makes me want to research it further. Since the needle analogy is as valid as the steel one, it suggests that the duifang could hurt himself in his attack. The more force he throws in, the more dangerous it is for him.

Hello Bob, You are so right. In looks, the other form appeared more martial. There is a lot of visible power built into it and lots of powerful, fast movements. My comment came from experimenting with martial applications from the Michuan afterwards, with the other student. I took my comment from th...

Hello Steve, Feel free to say whatever you are thinking. I'm not so sensitive to take offence. I was more concerned that it was my comments that might offend others, since I'm new here. Six months ago, one of Earle Montaigue's students asked to come and visit our group since he would be up our way. ...

All good taijiquan is based in the classics. Michuan certainly is. I've not heard the steel wrapped in cotton interpretted as a needle before. It would be nice to hear some learned opinions on that thought.

Thank you for that information Jerry. Steve, from my limited knowledge of history, it seems more likely than not that much has been lost or come very close to extinction. It seems that past masters chose only a very few people to transmit their best and most complete training to. They were fairly pi...

Wang Yen-nien is my Shiye. He is still alive but very old now. It was interesting to read a thread about him. I haven't yet worked out how to read older threads than the ones that presently appear on the board. I hope this thread doesn't turn into some sort of political debate. I joined the forum be...

I'm fairly much a beginner, having studied Taijiquan for only two years, and don't know much about either of the questions asked above. What I can say for certain is that the Michuan came through a direct line of Yang family disciples.

I'm going to try and post a link to an article from my school's site. This explains the history of the Michuan style better than I could. http://www.grtc.org/articles/michuan.html I suppose if you were comparing it, the most obvious difference would be that the Public style employs a lot of bow post...

Hello, I just joined the forum and this was the first topic that came to my attention. Since the topic may now be out of date, please let me know if you are still interested. I study Yangjia Michuan Taijiquan.

Regards
Linda