Yang Family Tai Chi Discussion Board

The more I think about your question the more I realize how many issues it encompasses. It touches on the most basic issue of form and function. Some teachers ingrain the concept of function above all else; once you grasp the internal energies, form naturally follows. They jump directly to the essen...

Wushu Er, You have answered your own question quite clearly. Your description of how lifting up the foot “de-clutches your hips and waist and gives you a "magic inch" further back into your stance” is close to my understanding of what should happen. This is a fascinating topic and could, l...

Here are a couple photos from a visit with Xie Bingcan in Seattle earlier this summer. He studied with Fu Zhongwen (Yang style) and Ma Yueliang (Wu Style) in Shanghai.

I posted this previously, but had a problem with the link.


http://home.comcast.net/~gurouchen/Taiji/xbc.doc

Thanks Louis, I have them already. I was thinking of something more up to date and comprehensive. I was thinking of a bibliography that might include articles like the one below. Have you seen this article? Kinematic and electromyographic analysis of the push movement in Tai chi, S.P. Chan; T.C. Luk...

Often the teachers with the best credentials are not interested in teaching beginners. Teachers without fantastic credentials can still get you started. I first learned Taiji forms in a P.E. class in a PRC university. The volleyball teacher had memorized the text of the Taiji textbook and roughly kn...

Have any of you compiled or know of bibliographies of publications related to Taiji?

Just browsing through on-line databases, I see quite a bit of medical research on health benefits, although quite scattered.

Jeff

Louis, RE: "For a movement so emblematic in the opening of the received form, it strikes me as odd it did not bear mention in the early books." Folklore in Beijing has it that Yang Luchan every morning upon waking, did many repetitions of "qi3shi4", the raising hand motions of th...

The portions from YZD's Palm Methods that I find especially noteworthy: ' . . .this type of "energy sensation" (from the hands) can immediately thread throughout the entire body.' and: ". . . gain the result of one palm representing the entire body." I view the state of the rest ...

Jerry,

I sent some photos of Chu Guiting to jerry@yangfamily.com; don't know if you still use that address. I have more photos if you want to post them.

Jeff

Jerry, Small correction: from right in back row: Shen Erqiao, Huang Yuanxiu, Chu Guiting (you had Zhu Guiting) It was actually some material on him (Chu3) that I was recently given by one of his students that I found to be quite interesting, including a complete set of photos of his form. I will try...

Here is a link to a very interesting blog (in Chinese) and a couple, perhaps rare photos.

http://younker.tianyablog.com/blogger/v ... &PageNo=10

Is there a way to post photos on this discussion board?

Jeff

Polaris, Wushuer, Do the Wu's talk about practicing "the surface of a sphere" vs. practicing "the center of a sphere"? I have heard it articulated this way by Yang experts. I am wondering if this is what your school may refer to as "large circle" vs. "small circle&...

Has anyone seen "leng3jin4" translated with something like "sudden" or "unexpected"?

Jeff

Great athletes (outside of martial arts) exhibit similar focus coordinated with their movements especially when faking in one direction and going in another. Likewise, in martial arts the cat can put himself on the post, but he does not necessarily jump. To tie this in with comment by Louis from oth...

I heard that a public story was made up saying that he had some vague illness related to "humidity in the South." The other illness is not something the family would want publicized, obviously. Dysentery is -still- rampant in many parts of China as are Hepatitis, TB and a lot of other dise...