You know, i spent 30 years in Yang style Taijiquan and all total probably 5 or so years in Chen. I’m back at Chen and all i have to say is once you get to Yang style things get mystical, esoteric, intentionally confusing and overly verbose. But then some of this can be attributed to misunderstanding of, or not knowing of, Chinese idioms. And mistranslations, and/or misinterpretations. Could also be the incredibly large number of people doing Yang… or at least think they are doing Yang, as compared to any other taijiquan style
IMO Chen is much more direct and a lot less mystical
For example 13 postures
If there is a up there is down
Strike left pay attention to right
That gets over thought, over discussed, overly explained and overly mystified in Yang
It is simply talking about eyes and where to look.
Xingyiquan is even more direct, probably why i like it best.
And i mean no offense, but this thread had gone a long way in getting me to rethink my MA goals and seriously consider making Taijiquan secondary to me, if even that high on the list