Yang Family Tai Chi Discussion Board

Dear Shugdenla,

I hope you will forgive me for the snarkiness of my comments to you.

Here’s a favorite bit from the West Wing:

Donna Moss: This is his way. He's just gonna snark me every April. Prince of passive-aggressive behavior...

Sam Seaborn: What does 'snark' mean?

Donna: I don't know, but he's doing it.

Take care,
Louis

Greetings Steve,

Your remarks are cogent and well-founded. I was taking issue to the suggestion that “the language of taiji” contributes to or enables superstition. I just don’t buy that. Superstition is not caused by language, but by ignorance.

As Stevie Wonder said, “When you believe in things that you don’t understand, then you suffer.”

Superstition ain't the way.

Take care,
Louis


[This message has been edited by Louis Swaim (edited 10-03-2006).]

Hi Louis,

I agree, "the fault is not in our stars, but in ourselves." People glean all sorts of things from the language. It's not the fault of the language.

I think there's also an interesting thesis that TCC exists at the places where our different interpretations agree. I.e., we may not all agree on what "peng" is; but we will all agree that "it" is essential. Actually, we do agree on what "Peng" means in one sense. At least, that is stable.

regards,
Steve James

Ah. Shakespeare!

--Louis

Louis,

Agreed.
Ignorance is the mother of many things.

<BLOCKQUOTE><font size="1" face="Verdana, Arial">quote:</font><HR><font face="Verdana, Arial" size="2">Originally posted by Bob Ashmore:
<B>Very interesting watching Wu Tunan do form work. This looks to me to be small frame. Very controlled movements, very well done. I'm quite interested in his hand movements and placement. It almost appears he's giving the thumbs up in a couple of places...

Bob</B></font><HR></BLOCKQUOTE>

Its called the fast frame and use for fighting. the strokes are very smooth even when you play it out very fast, compare to the practice strokes, which focus more on internal visualization and need to be much slower.

The thumb is used to hit the opponents accupuncture points after hitting him with the back of the hand using Dan Bien.

<BLOCKQUOTE><font size="1" face="Verdana, Arial">quote:</font><HR><font face="Verdana, Arial" size="2">Originally posted by twc:
<B>There are a few publication on this yongjia (so far I have seen three), but they are all in Chinese. The authors are all WTN's disciples and student (Ma Youqing, Li Lian, and, the third name just slips my mind).

Hope that helps.

cheers,
twc</B></font><HR></BLOCKQUOTE>

The name of the third student is Sim Pooh Ho. Sim Pooh Ho in turn taught his brother Sim Poh Huatthe Taichi he learned from Wu Tu Nan.

<BLOCKQUOTE><font size="1" face="Verdana, Arial">quote:</font><HR><font face="Verdana, Arial" size="2">Originally posted by bamboo leaf:
<B>The question was because just reading it, it seems so different from my own experiences. I don’t know how my own teacher would say it but I just wondered weather he was writing from first hand experience.

Thank you for the time in translating it is interesting reading just does not describe my own feelings on it.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0QRj4aqLsu8&watch2

[This message has been edited by bamboo leaf (edited 10-01-2006).]</B></font><HR></BLOCKQUOTE>

Check out Nam Wah Pai in youtube.com, you will find his disciple and there of demonstrating the Qi fighting skill.

Wu Tunan was a well known but tendentious figure in recent martial circles. He especially didn't make any friends in the Chen family with his public criticisms of them.

I agree the form he was doing in the youtube link doesn't look like he learned it from Shaohou or Jianquan, I'll bet it was his own form. The idiosyncratic finger strikes and thumb hooking he did in that video are similar to some techniques that are trained in Wu style sparring, though.

I have seen a Chinese govt. wushu video of him doing a more traditionally Wu style form (he was instructing a young Jet Li I believe), but even in that one his hand formations were somewhat different.