"Wu style Taiji Quan form by Benjamin Wu until 9:39 then Novell Bell does Jiang Rong Qiao Baguazhang. At 12:11 they do push hands. Skill and mutual respect evident."
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Very nice rendition of the Wu taiji style form. I note the (for me) unusually narrow, tight stances employed as well as the forward lean in the bow stances and the extensive hand movement, all of which differ from my own experience. I have, for years, practiced a version of Cheng Man-Ching's Yang style short form, as adapted and modified by Min Pai, a "karate" teacher who "reformed" his karate methods by adjusting them to, and incorporating into them, the movement principles of Cheng Man-Ching's Yang style teaching. Unlike the Wu form shown here, we maintain an upright stance throughout, move our hands only with the movements of the full body, driven by waist/belly acting as fulcrum, and take wider stances that require more open placement of the feet. I've always been fascinated by the ways in which the styles differ. My own experience is that styles are a function of their practitioners, that wherever you start, if you keep at it long enough, the style melds with your own physical capacities and loses its mechanical role as template for your movements. In the end all the styles become personalized to the practitioner and the only measure of the style's success or failure is what you can do with it. That's how Min Pai taught us and I've found that to be a pretty fair account of what actually happens.
ReplyDeleteSorry, I should have included something that would give anyone interested more background information re: what I'm talking about above. This is a link to YouTube where I've placed some video clips of Min Pai's forms:
Deletehttp://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLrJ91F7nXAk3j4mdMc2DK8wJeRFft9QX7
Although I'm certainly no master and don't perform them at that level, it will at least let folks see an early result (circa the early 1970's) of Master Pai's effort to fuse karate with tai chi. The clips consist of eight forms he introduced to capture the tai chi essence from his training with Cheng Man-Ching. I have not included a rendering of his version of the tai chi solo form though (as I have yet to video it). However, his other forms clearly reveal the tai chi influence.