Some MA teachers only teach form without application?

[Wing Woo Gar]

While I agree with your first two sentences, the last part doesn’t follow. Borrowing from tai chi is no more problematic than borrowing from boxing and Taekwondo. I see no issue with someone deciding any MA, without application, makes for good exercise. The “why” is because it interests them.

As you please. It’s not for me to tell others what to do, I’m just sharing my perspective which is based on my training, my teachers, and nearly 3 decades of practice. I’m very opinionated and biased, so we should look at what I say through that lens.

 

[Wing Woo Gar]

The long form should be practiced three times in a row, so if it’s 20min you got an hour together, but thats not meant as to be brutal for the legs

3 times in a row? It depends on my speed but I definitely don’t do it 3 times in a row. I might redo a section many times to work on something specific. Do you go through the form on both sides?

 

[Wing Woo Gar]

Hey, if my dumb *** wants to answer a question, it will. /s

Same.

 

[Wing Woo Gar]

This has been a very interesting thread. Thanks everyone. It’s actually very civil in here.

 

[windwalker099]

The long form should be practiced three times in a row, so if it’s 20min you got an hour together, but thats not meant as to be brutal for the legs

The long from is not meant to be.
Training to do the long from, can be .
Depending on line and linage of ones practice.

Ben Lo:

"
Prof. Zheng taught students in China differently from the way he taught students in the United States. When he taught me, he was very strict, especially when he was younger. My legs would be so sore that, when I went to bed at night, I had to use my hands to lift my legs onto the bed.

He was kinder with American students. He got softer as he grew older. The Professor also
said in the Thirteen Treatises that practicing taiji made him softer."


Ben was very strict in enforcing his training requirements.
His classes were legendary among those who trained in them, having endured the effort and pain of his teaching methods.
Meeting the requirements was not easy—though it may have looked effortless, the training that created that appearance was anything but.

Teacher Wang also told an example of Yang Chengfu teaching him. Yang asked him to stand in the "lifting
hand up" posture and walked away to smoke a pipe. Yang came back more than ten minutes later and kicked Wang, who was kicked down.


Yang said, no, not relaxed enough. You have to continue standing and find how to relax.
Wang continued to stand, and felt that he could not support himself and had no strength, so he tried to find a way to not be exhausted.

Gradually, he felt that his whole body was relaxed and comfortable.

Yang came back and kicked him again, and he did not fall. Yang asked: "Do you have a feeling about
relaxation this time?"

Wang said: "I have a little experience."

I would imagine so

The purpose of the practice is not merely to perform the form— it never was.
The form is just one component, used to teach different aspects depending on the lineage and training approach.

 

[Taiji Rebel]

The long form should be practiced three times in a row, so if it’s 20min you got an hour together, but thats not meant as to be brutal for the legs

Jwing-Ming Yang recommends exactly this in his book Tai Chi Chuan Martial Applications, where he says:

However, if you intend to to practice taijiquan for martial purposes, you should perform the sequence continuously three times, both morning and evening if possible. The first time is for warming up, the second is for qi transportation training, and the third time is for relaxed recovery.

 

[Kung Fu Wang]

I see no issue with someone deciding any MA, without application, makes for good exercise. The “why” is because it interests them.

You need a Taiji teacher to teach you the correct Taiji form. Even your Taiji teacher doesn't teach you the application, he still needs to teach you the correct way to shift your body weight, proper method of breathing, and ...

For example, in this short video "Taiji ending", it involves 2 inhales and 2 exhales (This is the only place that 1 inhale and 1 exhale = 1 move rule has been broken).

1. Inhale - when your arms are above your head.
2. Exhale - when your arms cross in front of your chest.
3. Inhale - when your arms are separated to shoulder width.
4. Exhale - when your hands finally drop down next to your knees.

The application of this move is "藏气 store Qi" and may not have any combat application at all. Someone taught a 90 minutes workshop and charged $60 by teaching this "Taiji ending". For health, this Taiji ending move can offer a lot.

 

[Kung Fu Wang]

This forum is for people with a passion for the martial arts, of all skillsets and experience.

Agree with you 100% there. It's fun to talk about MA. It's fun to share information. Trying to define that "The more you say, the less you know" discourage the online discussion big time.

 

[Kung Fu Wang]

if you intend to to practice taijiquan for martial purposes, you should perform the sequence continuously three times,

I have to disagree with you on this. If you train for combat, going through the whole form is not the correct way of training. You should take single move, or combo and drill it left and right as many times as you want.

I might redo a section many times to work on something specific. Do you go through the form on both sides?

 

[Taiji Rebel]

I have to disagree with you on this. If you train for combat, going through the whole form is not the correct way of training. You should take single move, or combo and drill it left and right as many times as you want.

You are actually disagreeing with Jwing-Ming Yang from his book Tai Chi Chuan Martial Applications: Advanced Yang Style

 

[Wing Woo Gar]

You are actually disagreeing with Jwing-Ming Yang from his book Tai Chi Chuan Martial Applications: Advanced Yang Style

They are contemporaries, they have the same longfist teacher,

 

[Wing Woo Gar]

You are actually disagreeing with Jwing-Ming Yang from his book Tai Chi Chuan Martial Applications: Advanced Yang Style

To be perfectly honest, my previous Sifu and Sigung both disagree with YJM on a number of things related to martial arts. Since I am a student of all three, I try to do things both ways to find which nuance suits me. I don’t pretend to know enough to argue. When I teach Wing Woo Gar I teach it the way I was taught and don’t inject YJM teachings into it. When I train with YJM I do things the way he tells me. There are valid points on both sides.

 

[Wing Woo Gar]

Jwing-Ming Yang recommends exactly this in his book Tai Chi Chuan Martial Applications, where he says:

However, if you intend to to practice taijiquan for martial purposes, you should perform the sequence continuously three times, both morning and evening if possible. The first time is for warming up, the second is for qi transportation training, and the third time is for relaxed recovery.

I was training with him this morning, I will ask him specifics. I don’t train Tai Chi Chuan form with YJM, I train Qinna, Shaolin White Crane Gung fu, and the Tai Chi 2 man fighting sets and applications with him. The Tai Chi Chuan form I do practice is James Wing Woo Yang long form which has some subtle differences from YJM long form.

 

[windwalker099]

"The more you say, the less you know" discourage the online discussion big time.

Among those who are practitioners, discourse is natural, not about proving or disproving—focuses on improvement, experiences, and training methods.

Those who question their own practice and share their experiences are far more engaging.

To be clear, "The more you say".
Some are writers, historians, or journalists, they don’t seem to be
real practitioners.

They don't hold much interest for me.

don’t understand, you mean you just made up the previous story you wrote where Wang Yongquan supposedly failed to gain Chen Fake’s recognition as a joke ?
If so, what’s funny about that ?

Like what happened here....

 

[Teapot]

You are actually disagreeing with Jwing-Ming Yang from his book Tai Chi Chuan Martial Applications: Advanced Yang Style

So this will likely be an inevitably provocative question, and I don't mean to imply that he isn't a good martial artist or can't fight.

But what exactly is the credibility of Jwing-Ming Yang as it relates to Yang Taijiquan? Based on his own words, his Taijiquan background doesn't sound very strong and is heavily White Crane oriented:

"I continued to practice with him until I was almost 19, when I had to move to Taipei for college. I studied with him for a total of two and half years."

Source: Taijiquan Master Kao, Tao - Dr. Yang's teacher

"I spent thirteen years learning White Crane from Master Cheng, Gin-Gsao, and did not even complete half of his training."

"due to my understanding of White Crane style I have a unique understanding of the essence of my Taijiquan. It was from this understanding that my Taijiquan books were written. The reason for this is that White Crane is classified as a Soft-Hard style. The soft side of its theory and essence remains the same in Taijiquan.""

Source: https://ymaa.com/sites/default/files/book/sample/The-Essence-of-Shaolin-White-Crane.pdf

To me, Jwing-Ming Yang is way more of a White Crane guy than a Taijiquan guy. And a lot of his "Taijiquan" usages are really just White Crane. Qinna? That's from his White Crane - and maybe Long Fist.

 

[Kung Fu Wang]

You are actually disagreeing with Jwing-Ming Yang from his book Tai Chi Chuan Martial Applications: Advanced Yang Style

Jwing-Ming Yang's Taiji and my Taiji came from different teachers. Many new ideas had been added into my Chang Taiji in the past 50 years such as:

- Use breath speed to coordinate Taiji form training speed.
- Add leg skill into Taiji form.
- Open tiger mouths for pulling during Taiji form training
- Emphasize partner drills and solo drills training.
- ...

I like Jwing-Ming Yang as my long fist brother. We learned long fist from the same teacher Master Li Mao-Ching. I may start my long fist training a couple years earlier than he did (I started during the 1st year of my senior high).

I'm the 5th from the right on the 1st row.

But if he believes that Taiji form training is the best way to achieve combat, I have to disagree with him strongly on this. I believe drills training, by repeating single move or combo left and right over and over is better way to achieve combat.

In the following video, he is training drill. He is not training form.

 

[Gerry Seymour]

I actually feel that borrowing from different martial arts to mix into someone’s primary method can be filled with problems. People are gonna do what they want to do. But real problems exist that people are often not aware of and those problems can make the material non-functional as well as injurious to practice.

Chinese martial arts are typically built upon a certain foundation. The techniques and methodologies that are part of the curriculum are meant to work on that specific foundation. The foundation can be quite different from one system to another. If you try to bring techniques from one system into another and you don’t understand the foundation differences, those techniques may not work and you could hurt yourself because the movement becomes unnatural when done on the wrong foundation. By way of example, I can think of several fundamental techniques in Tibetan Crane that work very naturally on our foundation, but could easily tear up your shoulders if you try to make them work on a Wing Chun or Kenpo foundation. Mixing is not always a good idea. Often people get away with it even when it’s not optimal, but in some cases it could be downright dangerous and a bad idea.

People always want to add more to what they do. They see what others are doing, they see differences or something that looks effective so they want to add that to their stuff too. But they don’t understand that that stuff that is so effective that the other guy is doing is only effective because he is working it on a different foundation. If you don’t understand the different foundation and you don’t know how to employ it, adding that material to what you are already doing can be a bad idea. I’ve said this many times before and I’ll say it again, everyone wants to add new stuff but people rarely stop to consider what should NOT be added.

Mixing and borrowing from Taiji? Would a karate guy insert Wave Hands or Repulse Monkey in the middle of Sanchin? I think that would make no sense.

A well thought out post. But the post you’re replying to was about borrowing from a MA (without application) for fitness purposes.

 

[Flying Crane]

A well thought out post. But the post you’re replying to was about borrowing from a MA (without application) for fitness purposes.

Ah well. You gave me a plausible excuse to run my mouth off.

 

[Wing Woo Gar]

So this will likely be an inevitably provocative question, and I don't mean to imply that he isn't a good martial artist or can't fight.

But what exactly is the credibility of Jwing-Ming Yang as it relates to Yang Taijiquan? Based on his own words, his Taijiquan background doesn't sound very strong and is heavily White Crane oriented:


Source: Taijiquan Master Kao, Tao - Dr. Yang's teacher



Source: https://ymaa.com/sites/default/files/book/sample/The-Essence-of-Shaolin-White-Crane.pdf

To me, Jwing-Ming Yang is way more of a White Crane guy than a Taijiquan guy. And a lot of his "Taijiquan" usages are really just White Crane. Qinna? That's from his White Crane - and maybe Long Fist.

See my post #192.

 

[Same Trick]

3 times in a row? It depends on my speed but I definitely don’t do it 3 times in a row. I might redo a section many times to work on something specific. Do you go through the form on both sides?

if speaking the traditional Yang or Wu styles long form then they are well balanced and thus no need for going through them in “mirroring”,