Question For Traditional Yang Stylists

[Xue Sheng]

Is this the traditional Yang style fast form?
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hqehUJepehc&mode=related&search=

I am not saying anything against Vincent Chu, I have the utmost respect for him. He is the son of Gin Soon Chu who was a student of Yang Zhenming and he is very good.

I am just asking because if this is the traditional fast form as taught by the Yang family today then what I have been taught from the Tung lineage as the Yang fast form is a whole lot different. There is a Tung fast form as well (my teacher knows both) but the 2 are not the same as they come from Tung Ying Chieh. And both are different from what Vincent Chu is doing, the Tung family fast form is considerably different actually.

Thanks
XS

 

[East Winds]

Xue Sheng,

Don't know where this form comes from, but it certainly doesn't come from the Yang Family!! The current Yang Family (Yang Zhen Ji, Yang Zhen Duo and Yang Jun) do not teach a fast form, and as far as I know, never have.

I have tried a Tung (Dong) fast form which was closer to Tradtional Yang than the form shown here. I suspect it is a "new" form like so many so called "Yang" forms of today.

Perhaps someone else can throw light on this form.

Very best wishes

 

[Xue Sheng]

Thank you

My Sifu teaches 2 fast forms, possibly 3.

One he calls the Yang style fast form that he learned from Tung Ying Chieh and one he calls the Tung style fast form that he learned from Tung Ying Chieh and there may be another fast form from Tung but I am not sure of that.

I Once saw 2 student who were senior to me, a few years back, doing a fast form I had not seen before and when I asked them what it was they said it was a short Tung fast form and that they were not suppose to be doing it in front of anyone, and they had not realized I had walked in. I have never asked my Sifu about it since if they were shown this and he told them not to show anyone it could have potentially caused them trouble. But since those students are no longer there so maybe I will ask him about it one of these days.

The form Vincent Chu is doing does not look at all like the Yang fast form I do it has some similarities but that is it. As for the Tung fast form it looks nothing like what Vincent Chu is doing nor does it look like the yang fast form I have been taught. The Tung fast form tends to be more martial in application and appearance

But if the Yang family is no longer teaching the fast form then the fast form I do is very different from the current Yang family I guess.

And please allow me to reiterate that I have the utmost respect for Vincent Chu he is a highly skilled martial artist in the Yang style line and tradition.

 

[themadbuddha]

Sorry, can't help with the video but for whatever reason it reminds me of a Sun style demo I watched a few years ago.

My Sifu once told me that there is no "fast" form but to work through the long form 3 times each time I train, the first at whatever speed, the second time quickly and the third as slow as possible with attention to breath control, visualisation of martial applications and stepping. My target time for the long form was 5 minutes which was a Chinese competition target time. He said not to worry about doing it with the short form as the long one was more important. Anyone else get taught that?

 

[Xue Sheng]

I should update this, I was not going to post any further on the subject for fear of it degenerating into a bit of an argument but I will give it a shot.

Vincent Chu's form is different from mine because he does not know the fast for I know. His teacher was his father who was a student of Yang Chengfu's oldest son.

After talking with my Sifu; The Yang fast form that I do comes from discussions between Yang Chengfu and Tung Ying Chieh. Yang Chengfu wanted a Yang fast form and he and his student Tung discussed it a great length. However before it was finished Yang Chengfu died and Tung finished the form based on the wishes of his teacher. As far as my teacher knows Chengfu's oldest son never learned it nor did any other of his childern

The 2nd fast form from Tung is very different from and this form is called Tung because it comes from Tung Ying Chieh without any input from Chengfu. And there is only 1, what I saw were 2 different sections of the same form.

Tung Ying Chieh was an inside student and an older classmate of Yang's oldest son. As well as my teacher’s teacher.

 

[East Winds]

Xue Sheng,

What you say about the Yang Fast Form maskes a good deal of sense and I think was probably the case. Again, the fact that Yang Shou Zhong did not learn the fast form is probably refelcted by the fact the the current Yang family do not teach a fast form. Simply they do not know one!

As always an insightful observation. (Hopefully to be included in the book?)

Very best wishes

 

[Xue Sheng]

Sorry, can't help with the video but for whatever reason it reminds me of a Sun style demo I watched a few years ago.

My Sifu once told me that there is no "fast" form but to work through the long form 3 times each time I train, the first at whatever speed, the second time quickly and the third as slow as possible with attention to breath control, visualisation of martial applications and stepping. My target time for the long form was 5 minutes which was a Chinese competition target time. He said not to worry about doing it with the short form as the long one was more important. Anyone else get taught that?

Traditionally depending on style and lineage there are a couple of fast forms. Chen has at least one fast weapons (dao) form, as taught by the Chen family and by comparison to the traditional Yang there is also a fast form in Zhaobao or at least faster than Yang, but a Zhaobao person would not agree (it is not fast like Chen or Tung) and then there is Tung's fast forms as well. There are also forms, particularly in Chen that go both fast and slow as well. However I do not know where Vincent Chu’s comes from.

The long form IS important and it is recommended to work on the long form 3 times a day. However per Tung Ying Chieh the first one should be a bit faster as a warm up and the next 2 should be slower. But then he taught 2 fast forms besides the traditional long form.

But this does not mean you sifu is incorrect, I am finding that the fast forms are not common nor taught often, So he may honestly not know of the existence of a fast form. Or as Esatwind said the Yang family does not teach one therefore you could say there is not one however the fast form I do was designed by Yang CHengfu and that is why Tung called it the Yang style fast form.

 

[themadbuddha]

Entirely possibly right Xue Sheng. My sifu is very good at what he does but there are huge gaps in the knowledge that he's passed on and shares with us and what he keeps to himself for whatever reason.

Every now and then he throws in things that we don't understand where it's come from but he does it and tells us it will help us. Once I found out that a warm up exercise I thought was taichi was actually taken from Liuhebafa. Shocked to the core.

We see the children's classes doing things like the extrememly acrobatic double dagger wushu form, but none of the adult students have learned it. He also threw me into a taichi sword form and called it Green Dragon Tai Chi Sword. I can't find any verification of it but he said it was very old. I found out by accident that his teacher for taichi was Fu Zhongwen when I brought in the book and said it was almost exactly the same as what he taught me. Really wouldn't surprise me if he knows the Yang fast form or even the 2 man form. I know we were waiting for another Hsing-I student so I could start the 2 man form for that...

 

[Xue Sheng]

To be honest I wouldn't be surprised if he didn't know the fast form from Chengfu and Tung.

Fu Zhongwen is younger than Tung Ying Chieh but I do not think he would have gone to train with Tung when Chengfu died in 1936. It would be likely that Fu would have been teaching his own students by that time.

The students of Yang Chengfu's oldest son Yang Sau-Chung did not learn it, and he was 26 when his father died and I believe Fu was 33. Sau-Chung had a school in Kowloon at that time very close to Tung's school in Hong Kong and none of Sau-Chung's students know the fast form, unless they learned it from Tung.

However Vincent Chu is teaching a fast form and I do not know where it comes from. Vincent is the son of Gin Soon
Chu who was a student of Yang Sau-Chung (aka Yang, Zhen-Ming). Nothing against Vincent Chu or his father I have
great respect for both and they are highly skilled. It is just that Vincent does not do the fast form, that I do, as it comes
from Chengfu and Tung

Yang Chengfu 1883-1936
Tung Ying Chieh (aka Dong Yingjie) 1898-1961
Yang Sau-Chung (aka Yang, Zhen-Ming) 1910 -1985
Fu Zhongwen 1903-1994

 

[themadbuddha]

I can't say for sure who else my Sifu trained with. He doesn't talk about his past much except that he spent the better part of his early years fighting, demonstrating and teaching and at one time was coaching at the Beijing school of Phys Ed. Language barrier, his English was quite bad and my Mandarin was only good enough to get me past a polite greeting.

Made learning interesting.

Is there a discussion thread about the various histories involved with the different Yang styles? You've given me back the history bug I thought I lost a while ago. Much appreciated.

Hey if you're ever in NZ, look me up for a coffee or lunch or something

 

[Xue Sheng]

I can't say for sure who else my Sifu trained with. He doesn't talk about his past much except that he spent the better part of his early years fighting, demonstrating and teaching and at one time was coaching at the Beijing school of Phys Ed. Language barrier, his English was quite bad and my Mandarin was only good enough to get me past a polite greeting.

Made learning interesting.

Is there a discussion thread about the various histories involved with the different Yang styles? You've given me back the history bug I thought I lost a while ago. Much appreciated.

Hey if you're ever in NZ, look me up for a coffee or lunch or something

Thanks

As to the history of the various Yang styles. It is really had to trace them all, Chengfu had A LOT of students. But there was a Yang style before him and it was different. A discussion of the history would be interesting and in a few years I plan on researching it in depth but right now I know little outside the immediate Yang family and Tung Ying Chieh and his family.

There is not a whole lot of Yang history discussion going on right now but it would be interesting. I have posted some of what I know in other posts but I do not know which ones any longer.

 

[themadbuddha]

I blew out my knee about a year ago and had to "retire" and recover. haven't been back and I've just started arnis. As a filipino born in NZ it really got to me that I couldn't learn my own cultural martial art without leaving home. I haven't been back to my sifu since but i think my knee is strong enough now to allow the stances involved. I'll definetely be asking a lot more historical questions and less 'how do I use this'

Maybe an open historical discussion starting with what school, who their teacher is and a brief history of what each student knows about their lineage would be a good start. I'm immersing myself in filipino martial history at the moment, but i'm hoping to return and cross train with chinese internal arts by june/july this year. I'll give it a go then by starting a thread.

cheers

 

[Xue Sheng]

I have learned the hard way that you really need to take the time to recover so taking a year off was a good thing.

And you may be right that would likely be a good starting point. But I would also add what style and what forms.

There are 6 recognized family styles, not all would be Yang but the majority would likely be Yang. And even in Yang do they study traditional or non-traditional (Beijing form aka 24 form).

There are a lot of people out there saying they do Yang style when in fact they do competition forms. Nothing wrong with competition forms just they may not know a lineage beyond the wushu academy they or their teacher graduated from.

I am currently researching what exactly my Xingyi lineage is, I know my teacher and I know who his teacher was but that is it.

Take the time to recover, don’t force it.
XS

 

[themadbuddha]

the year off was nice in some respects but made me apparently really really grumpy a lot of the time. no more pain but my strength there is failing me, no decent kicks and nothing too low, but time and physio will help.

setting up a guide sheet might be the way with standard questions. you think i can run it past you in a few months?

 

[Xue Sheng]

the year off was nice in some respects but made me apparently really really grumpy a lot of the time. no more pain but my strength there is failing me, no decent kicks and nothing too low, but time and physio will help.

setting up a guide sheet might be the way with standard questions. you think i can run it past you in a few months?

Sure, just send me a PM

 

[themadbuddha]

thanks