Yang Style Tai Chi Chuan
From Karate, Kungfu, Wrestling, Mixed Fighting Information Source
Yang Style Tai Chi Chuan is one of the three (of the four, counting Liu He Bafa) famous Chinese internal martial arts. While celebrated as a modern exercise throughout the world, it was originally a martial art combat style. Yang Style Tai Chi is a internal energy and physics type of martial art that employs chi training/manipulation, weight stepping, and high tension joint muscle training. Practitioners of the art are able to withstand higher weight forces as their training and stepping techniques allow them to endure greater physical force from an opponent. Their training is meant to develop physical techniques that allow them to not only overpower larger opponents, but also repelling the opponents attacks against them. Yang Style Tai Chuan practitioners use their internal powers to cause internal damage that affects internal organs and blood flow that would not be visible to the naked eye. The techniques developed expands to manipulation of the internal chi circulatory system as a means to enhance and/or heal the practitioner (such a technique has never been seen or proven as it has been lost through time).
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Training
The curriculum of The Yang Family Tai Chi Chuan's System consists of solo and weapons form, push hand and internal power development training.
Forms:
- 108 Movements Solo Form
- Fast Tai Chi Chuan Form
- 13 Animals Form or 13 Postures
- 2-Person Sparring Set
Weapons:
- 13 Spear Techniques Form
- Tai Chi Sword
- Staff
- Dao (Chinese Sabre)
- Ji (halberd)
Power Development:
- Qigong Meditation
- Wu Chi
- Da Lu
- Dynamic Push Hands
History
Yang Lu-ch'an (楊露禪), aka Yang Fu-k'ui (楊福魁, 1799-1872) is the founder of Yang Style Tai Chi Chuan. Between the 1820's he witnessed a Chen Style Tai Chi Chuan practitioner at a local shop throw out a much larger opponent. Yang Lu-ch'an was very impressed and entered the Chen village in the Hebei area of China (birthplace to many famous martial arts) hoping to be a disciple of Chen Style Tai Chi Chuan. Because Chen Style is a family martial art, Yang Lu-ch'an couldn't find a Sifu until he encountered Sifu Ch'en Chang-hsing.
Yang Lu-ch'an’s Tai Chi Chuan training origin had a few versions, but the most consistent follows:
Sifu Ch'en Chang-hsing at the time met a man that taught him new stepping techniques and had incorporated them into his Tai Chi Chuan training. Because there’s no proof of this aspect of the story it can be accepted that Sifu Ch'en Chang-hsing modified his style through his own martial art development. Sifu Ch'en Chang-hsing didn’t want other people to know he changed his Tai Chi techniques and been secretly training his students in the middle of the night. Yang Lu-ch'an happen to catch what were they doing and the versions split here.
One account claims that a student was practicing the techniques from Sifu Ch'en Chang-hsing and performed them incorrectly. Yang Lu-ch'an happened to noticed and corrected him. Sifu Ch'en Chang-hsing was impressed that an outside observer could understand his techniques better and taken him under his wing as disciple.
The second version is that Sifu Ch'en Chang-hsing didn’t want to risk Yang Lu-ch'an exposing what was he doing and taken him in as a win-win situation. Regardless of the actual events, Sifu Ch'en Chang-hsing starting training Yang Lu-ch'an sometime in 1820’s.
Yang Lu-ch'an eventually modified his Tai Chi training and became Yang Style Tai Chi Chuan. His sons are also masters Tai Chi Chuan and eventually the family gained notoriety by the Chinese imperial family.
According to legend, one of Yang Lu-ch'an's sons was invited to a martial arts gathering. During the gathering, no one knew of Yang Style because it was unknown to the older established martial arts clans. No one was sure of the skills behind Yang style and so several martial artists had a friendly duel to experience Yang Style Tai Chi martial arts. Of the challengers, a Shaolin monk (or practitioner of Shaolin) was curious and in one attack, the Shaolin practitioner was pushed back. No one could defeat the Yang master and when word got to the imperial court, they were given the title of "Supreme Ultimate Fist." The Yang family were hired to teach various imperial members of the court and the elite imperial guards. The descended practitioners of the imperial court would eventually use their training to form Wu Style. Yang Lu-ch'an continued his training of Tai Chi Chuan until his death.
Modern
Yang Shou-chung
Yang Shou-chung (aka Yeung Sau Chung, Yang Zhen-Ming, 1910-1985) was the oldest son of Yang Ch'eng-fu (by his first marriage) and started training when he was eight under his father. During World War II his only son was killed by Japanese bombing raids over China. In 1949, he escaped from the Chinese communists to Hong Kong. Coming from a traditional background Yang Shou-chung wanted a male heir for Yang Style Tai Chi Chuan, but he only had three daughters (Tai Yee, Ma Lee and Yee Li). Facing extinction of Yang Style Tai Chi Chuan, he decided to break tradition and openly taught outside students, but he accepted only three students as his "inner door disciples (canto, Yup-Moon-Dai-Ji)". His students are Sifu Ip Tai Tak (Yip Tai Tak, 1929-2004), Sifu Chu Gin Soon (Boston), and Sifu Chu King Hung (UK).
Yang Zhenduo
Sifu Yang Zhenduo is the fourth generation of the Yang Style Tai Chi Chuang legacy. He was born in Beijing in 1926 (son of Yang Chengfu and younger brother to Yang Shou-chung). He started studying with his father at a young age and continued studying with his elder brother (Yang Shou-chung) after his father died. In 1960 he moved to Taiyuan, Shanxi Province to promote Yang Style Tai Chi Chuan and since had spread within Taiyuan and to other cities, provinces, and countries. Sifu Yang Zhenduo has since gained international notoriety and actively promotes Tai Chi Chuan with is grandson (6th generation) Sifu Yang Jun throughout the world.
False Yang Family Adaptations/Affiliations
Currently there's a rampant misuse of the Yang Family Style name. Many practitioners without real research or knowledge of Tai Chi Chuan simply entered schools that take advantage of their naivete. Students themselves become the victims of financial fraud and at times unknown to themselves become affiliated with these false schools for years to genuinely help promote or even become a teacher of their schools. Such schools tend to have a poor understanding of dynamic hand pushing and even held competitions where real Tai Chi practitioners were rejected from competition, citing their pushing is "incorrect." These false practitioners have no real internal power and constantly victimize Tai Chi enthusiasts. Because the corruption isn't easily detectable and there was never an official standard or expectation of what true Yang Style Tai Chi Chuan is, practitioners tend to accept they see is "real." False Yang Style practitioners are most prevalent in the western countries. They falsely advertise online, selling "Tai Chi" DVD's, and selling publications with false or poorly trained Tai Chi "masters" through book stores and using media like YouTube to garner attention for their own financial gain. Such occurrences are left unchecked, true practitioners of the art could do little to remedy the situation.
Teachings of Yang Shou-chung Vs Yang Zhendou
The Yang family recognizes Sifu Ip Tai Tak as a true disciple of the family art and visually comparing his (and further as Yang Lu-ch'an ) their forms have high consistency with each other while Yang Zhendou shows a great difference. Sifu Yang Zhendou's father (Yang Chengfu) died when he was very young, but his brother had already trained several years into his teens before he died. It's claimed Sifu Yang Zhenduo never completed his training and adapted various martial arts forms and called it Yang style; Yang Zhendou explained he had his own understanding of Tai Chi Chuan and since developed a different form from his original family style. It's known that that there was sibling rivalry between the Yang brothers, but Yang Zhendou was publicly well known versus the lesser known elder brother Sifu Yang Shou-chung. The differences are visible when observing a student of Sifu Yang Zhendou's teachings and the descended students of Sifu Yang Shou-chung.
Variants
Yang Style Tai Chi Chuan had some of the largest evolutionary changes through the descended students of the Yang Family. Some were modified while others were incorporated as templates for something new. Of the many variants, some are:
- Hao Style Tai Chi Chuan
- Wu Style Tai Chi Chuan
- Sun Style Tai Chi Chuan
- Li Style Tai Chi Chuan
- Modern Wudang Tai Chi Chuan
- Taoist Style Tai Chi Chuan
- Yangjia Michuan Taijiquan
While it was the Yang Family that help bring fame to Tai Chi Chuan, other styles exists as well:
- Chen Style Tai Chi Chuan
- Song Style Tai Chi Chuan
- Traditional Wudang Style Tai Chi Chuan
- Shaolin Style Tai Chi Chuan
Links
Expanded subjects on Tai Chi training:
Tai Chi Styles:
Yang Masters:
Legendary Figures:
Yang Style Tai Chi Chuan Links:
- Yang Shou-chung's Students:
