Southern Wu Stepping

[Xue Sheng]

Of late I have been doing Southern Wu style taijiquan stepping as part of my routine, actually it has become almost like an addiction. My legs start to feel stiff and I need to do two things; Halfmoon pose from yoga and then Southern Wu stepping (not form just stepping). After that my legs, and my knees feel much better.

This I do find a bit surprising since I know there are more than a few Southern Wu stylists that have bad knees from training.

Any Southern Wu people here that can shed some light on this

 

[Brian R. VanCise]

Hey Xue, I certainly can add nothing regarding this but will make some contact with some Wu Taijiquan people I know in the Michigan, Ann Arbor area.

 

[clfsean]

Rick Matz... he's around I think.

What about Ying Jow under Leung Shum? Northern or Southern Wu?

 

[Xue Sheng]

Rick Matz... he's around I think.

What about Ying Jow under Leung Shum? Northern or Southern Wu?

I know Leung Shum does Wu but I am going to have to guess Southern since most Northern Wu comes out to Beijing and it appears his Wu might come out of Hong Kong. But remember I said "guess". I actually have his book around here someplace about Wu Style, I shall have to see if I can find it.

 

[Xue Sheng]

Think I figured this out and it has to do with the Yongquan point

The Wu stepping method has a forward leaning stance over the front leg and you have to pay close attention to your root at the Yongquan. And even though your knees never really pass your toes, if you
lean to far forward your root goes forward to the ball of your foot in front of the Yongquan and then you feel one heck of a lot of stress on your knee.

It is real easy to go into a deep wide stance as well and then you have to be VERY concerned with where your root is and how far you are leaning your upper body forward. If you look in the video of Eddie Wu, below, you see his stance is not all that deep. It is much easier to maintain the proper root with a higher stance with the slight upper body lean than it is in a lower stance that causes a much greater upper body lean

I could be wrong, but this is what I am finding by paying close attention to my stance while stepping