I wrote a little bit about the CPL form in the Tai Chi styles post as well...
just lately Ive been freestyling some and thinking more about the odd directionality, the ba gua and hsing i influences in the CPL and am more and more amazed with this style of tai chi kung fu... I think that Master Chen may have left us with a truly great system of martial art and meditation...
"Give me just a few more years..."
well i have also been doing bagua and hsing-i for about two years
and the chen pan-ling style for about a year. the aspect i have been trying to figure out is how to use it in combat. and how many different types of the chen pan-ling style are out there.
most people go from the CPL form to studying Bagua and hsing i, as theyre considered more advanced study...THere arent but about five teachers in this country, it seems, who teach the Chen Pan Ling...and youre wise to look at the combat applications of this form...espescially how it works with the ba gua and hsing i for dealing with multiple opponents on multiple sides and multiple planes...you say youre in texas??? who's youre Sifu???
I think there are two lines of CPL in the US...one from General YW Chang in New Orleans/Alabama, the other from Sung Kai Sifu- a teacher who brought the form from Taiwan...
Some of his students started the Rochester Tai Chi Center in NY, my teacher also learned from Kai Sifu
If you are in TX it may be the form closer to the one in the textbook disseminated by Gen Chang (who died last year)
You need to order the textbook from amazon.com or straight from the Chen Pan LIng website http://bliltzdes.com/cpli/
Otherwise I think we are very lucky to have this style of kung fu and much respects to Master Chen for the wisdom imbued in this system...
what BGZ/HIC ideas do you see in the form? lets start a discussion of that aspect w/ an underlying discussion on applications...
first of all my sifu studies with Andrew Chung and yes the form i studie is like the one in the book by Gen Chang of course with some modifications. the book i already have it is a very good book and as for the bgz/hic in the form well i haven't really looked at the form in that way because i was trying to use the cpl the way it is. like trying to find different ways to use single whip or needle at bottom of sea. just experimenting.