There are no Secrets

[East Winds]

I have often read on this board that Masters only teach so much of their art to students and keep back a portion of their teachings as some form of insurance. I used to believe this. In fact I believed it for the first 15 years of my Taiji studies. I continually searched for the “golden key” that would magically open the door to the real secret training contained in Yang style. I bought books. I bought video tapes and DVD’s. I attended seminars, but still couldn’t find the key. It took me another 2 years to realise that my teacher (a Yang lineage holder) was not holding anything back and that it was myself who was impeding my progress. He used to say “Do you know the meaning of the 10 essences?” and I would invariably say “Yes, now show me the good stuff, I’ve been doing this style for 15 years now and I’m ready for the good stuff”. My teacher would simply say, “How can I teach you advanced form when you are still not doing some of the basics. Do you know the meaning of the 10 essences?” It eventually dawned on me that Cheng-fu’s 10 essences were the only secret of Yang style. Cheng-fu said this many times. My teacher said it many times. Yes, I knew what the essences were. I could recite them without difficulty. It was only when I really started to look at my form that I realised I wasn’t doing them!!! Without the 10 essences you cannot develop or deliver Jin. If you do not have the 10 essences you cannot “have a needle wrapped in cotton”. Without the 10 essences you cannot apply applications. Without the 10 essences you cannot deliver the Fa Jin that is inherent in Yang style. Don’t be conned by teachers who profess to teach Snake style or Crane style or whatever other named style. These were unknown to Yang Cheng-fu. They are inventions. They are variations introduced by teachers for whatever purpose. Neither Fu Zhong Wen, Chen Wei Ming, Dong Ying Chieh, or Cheng Man-Ching knew of these “variations”. They merely taught strict adherence to Cheng-fu’s 10 essences. As Wolfe Lowenthal said in the title of his book “There are no Secrets”. They are all there out in the open in the writings of the above masters. We just need to open our eyes and ears and pay attention to them.

O.K. I’m off my soap box now and would welcome comments.

 

[Rabu]

Like the answer to the mystery of the purloined letter, often the greatest of insights into an art are openly shared, safe in that nobody sees them for what they are.

In that, I would agree.

 

[East Winds]

Rabu,

You've hit nail squarely on the head.:asian:

Very best wishes

 

[Userx100]

Hello, I am new to this fourm. And am so excited to read what you have written. I am franticly in search of a Real Tai Chi instructor. I have studied a couple different fighting techniques. And after all of the different training I have done. I find that there is just something missing. After doing some extensive research I find that tai Chi is going to be what I am looking for. I want something that is going to focus me. I believe that the human body is capable of some amazing things. And I think that tai chi would be a great way to focus this. Now the only hard part is to find someone that teaches tai chi thats not a crack pot who thinks they know it well... How will I know if the teacher I find isnt doing a watered down version of this awesome art??!?!? Please help me find the answer.

 

[Sunrise]

Neither Fu Zhong Wen, Chen Wei Ming, Dong Ying Chieh, or Cheng Man-Ching knew of these “variations”. They merely taught strict adherence to Cheng-fu’s 10 essences. As Wolfe Lowenthal said in the title of his book “There are no Secrets”. They are all there out in the open in the writings of the above masters. We just need to open our eyes and ears and pay attention to them.

Interesting. If it is all out there, and if they all adhered strict to the essences of YCF, how come that the forms and movements of Fu Zhong Wen, Chen Wei Ming, Dong Ying Chieh and Cheng Man-Ching are so vastly different, their angels and postures so not the same? Because they interpreted them differently, or lerned them differently.
Of course you are right, the 10 principles are the 10 principles (or in case of Sau Chung - 13), but the way they are interpreted by different teachers and masters show, that there is not "one for all" interpretation that guids us practitioners.
I have learned myself that the principles have been shot to pieces literaly by different masters, been put back together again in a slightly different way and made a whole new sense all of a sudden.

 

[bdparsons]

I have often read on this board that Masters only teach so much of their art to students and keep back a portion of their teachings as some form of insurance.

Taking this thought to it's logical conclusion... Eventually there will be nothing left to teach a student! Makes for a real boring training regiment.

Respects,
Bill Parsons
Triangle Kenpo Institute

 

[Sunrise]

Taking this thought to it's logical conclusion... Eventually there will be nothing left to teach a student! Makes for a real boring training regiment.

Hi Bill,
this is exactly why there are so many tai chi instructors who only teach empty forms, without any martial value to it. Nice and flowing moves, but nothing to it.

 

[East Winds]

Sunrise,

Actually, Fu Zhong Wen, Chen Wei Ming, and Tung Ying Chieh are all doing the same form and adhering strictly to Cheng Fu's essences. The "apparent" differences are accounted for by age, weight, physique and speed of movement. Cheng Man-ching however interpreted the form differently because he had a different agenda (health and brevity) in his form.

Bill,

"Eventually there will be nothing left to teach a student..." How long do you think it would take to learn everything that someone like Yang Cheng-fu could teach you?:erg:. My teacher likes to say that if we were allocated a hundred years to learn Taiji, we would spend a year learning the sequence of movements and then 99 years refining them. I have now spent 19 years practising Traditional Yang Family taijiquan, and I have still only scratched the surface.

Very best wishes

 

[Nyarlathotep]

Hidden in plain sight... there's no safer hiding place.

 

[bdparsons]

"Eventually there will be nothing left to teach a student..." How long do you think it would take to learn everything that someone like Yang Cheng-fu could teach you?:erg:. My teacher likes to say that if we were allocated a hundred years to learn Taiji, we would spend a year learning the sequence of movements and then 99 years refining them. I have now spent 19 years practising Traditional Yang Family taijiquan, and I have still only scratched the surface.

I agree, hence the hyperbole. Bottom line, I think the whole "holding ssomething back" is a martial arts myth. I tease my students sometimes by saying "I've taught you everything you know, I haven't taught you everything I know." That is a true statement, but I should also follow that up with the word "yet". Course, that assumes I'm not learning anything new, and that's simply not the case.

Respects,
Bill Parsons
Triangle Kenpo Institute

 

[East Winds]

Bill,

Yes, very well put. I agree entirely.

Very best wishes

 

[grydth]

One cannot argue with the bedrock wisdom of East Winds' position on this... for today's practitioners the secrets indeed are laying in plain view, waiting to be discovered.... and there are no magic keys or short cuts.

Yet I do suspect in other places and times, as a means of preserving family supremacy for economic purposes, that many instructors in a variety of arts only passed certain forms/techniques on to one or only a few students.

 

[Sunrise]

One cannot argue with the bedrock wisdom of East Winds' position on this... for today's practitioners the secrets indeed are laying in plain view, waiting to be discovered.... and there are no magic keys or short cuts.

Yet I do suspect in other places and times, as a means of preserving family supremacy for economic purposes, that many instructors in a variety of arts only passed certain forms/techniques on to one or only a few students.

Hello grydth,
I agree completely on your thoughts. There are more and more teachers and finaly also masters who open up their teachings and teach all that they know with an open hand.
And then you start to notice that they do things different then other teachers of the same lineage, and you start to question things, to search for further knowledge and slowly get the bigger picture, that, even if the current teachers are open, they (or better say we) have not been taught everything from the beginning. Even after years of dedicated study one can´t even hold a small candle to the old masters, and most often gets the explanation "...your chi is not yet developed enough..." or something along the line.
Then the video camera commes along and with detail studies of the footage one notices quite minute movements of a superior master that are almost undiscernible with the normal eye, things that have not been explained in over 12 years of study. With todays knowledge on biomechanics and the physics of force dispersion one counts 1 and 1 together and tries the same small movements (of course clumsy at first) in a push hands session with an equally good tai chi friend that was allways a standoff. Whoo and behold, easy victory against the incoming push. Not enough developed chi? Probably not, but also not being taught everything is also a hindrance in developement...... just my two cents to this.

btw - I think it´s great that in all the tai chi forums I am in, including this, nobody starts flamewars on differing ideas and explanations, but discusses and lets a disput settle down if it´s to no avail. So much different from other MA forums with all the heated "...my wooden dummy is bigger then thyne..." flaming
Just want to say - I like it here

 

[Xue Sheng]

Many who study taiji are in too much of a hurry to actually wait for the training they want and it is much easier to call it secrets than admit they were not ready to learn.

My Sifu and I have had several discussions on this topic and he has students that show up and tell him what they want to learn when the truth is HE decides what they will learn and when they are ready to learn it.

And as Eastwinds has already said Fu Zhong Wen, Chen Wei Ming, Tung Ying Chieh and I will add Yang Shou Zhong are all doing the same form Cheng Manching is doing something different.

 

[East Winds]

Welcome back Xue Sheng:asian:. Your contributions are always welcome.

Very best wishes

 

[marlon]

reading CMC's books i find that he follows the ten essences and YCF's teachings quite strictly. His students do not all do this however. Their prominence and his abscence i think creates confusion about CMC style. He made sure to always teach the long form in the east along with his 37--which he created as Eastwinds said was more for brevity and health. t.t.liang continued to teach both forms while he lived. I believe that there is enough evidence to show that CMC at the very least tried to adhere to the teachings of his teacher.
That being said i figured i'd do what he did and learn the long form and learn the ten essences as best i can and then practice for the rest of my life

respectfully,
marlon

 

[TaiChiTJ]

I have a friend who attended the Snake style camp in Vermont this past summer. I emailed hiim the statement that started this post and asked him if he wanted to comment. This is his reply:

There is truth in what this person says. However, there are different
levels of understanding and realizing that truth.
Let us not presume to know all of what Yang Cheng Fu knew.
The Masters mentioned may do the essences to the best of their ability,
but their forms are not all the same even though sequences may be similar.
How can we profess to assume to know what "variations" they may have
known or practiced.

My friend and I are continuing to dialogue about it.

 

[charyuop]

The secret? The secret is the same for every Martial Art: train your eyes!
I start now seeing things that my Senpai does (I am taling about Aikido since in the Tai Chi I do I have no MA involved) different from me. I can barely frame things that my Sensei does, far away from picking the details. I can't see anything that my Sensei's Sensei does, it all seems magic to me.
I cannot expect to learn what my Sensei's Sensei does (the big secrets) if I cannot see it and that is not because I do not pay attention, but because my eyes are not trained yet to see the details in what I am doing, so I can't expect to see such a higher level.
Aikido is always compared to a sphere because of its movements and I like to think also the learning part of the Art is like sphere. At the beginning you are on the outside part. Movement are very stressed and not smooth. The more you learn the more you move towards the center of the sphere. The movement become smaller and smoother, your eyes see things that couldn't before and the awareness of your body (positioning and movements) becomes always sharper.
I would love to become like my Sensei's Sensei and use those secret magical techniques where I he can put someone to his knees with almost no movement. Can I learn those secrets? Well, maybe...when I can actually start seeing what he does.

 

[East Winds]

TaiChiTJ,

Many thanks for your input. My own particular level of understanding comes from studying with a Yang lineage holder who has not only worked with Yang Zhen Ji, and Yang Zhen Duo but Fu Zhong Wen as well whilst my realization of the truth comes from 19 years of study. No one should ever presume to know what Yang Cheng Fu knew, however we can make a fair assumption that what he transmitted (particularly to his indoor students) Tung Ying Chieh, Fu Zhong Wen and Chen Wei Ming, did not contain anything about different “styles” of Yang. What he did acknowledge was that there was Large Frame, Medium Frame and Small Frame forms. I’m afraid your friend has a lack of understanding of “Traditional Yang” if he really believes that the Masters mentioned (with the exception of Cheng Man-Ching) are not doing the same form. We can again assume that what they are transmitting is what they were taught by Cheng-fu. It is interesting that the so called “variations” all originate from the Shou Zhong (Hong Kong) line.

Just out of interest, who conducted the "Snake" Seminar your friend attended?

Very best wishes

 

[Xue Sheng]

I have a friend who attended the Snake style camp in Vermont this past summer. I emailed hiim the statement that started this post and asked him if he wanted to comment. This is his reply:

There is truth in what this person says. However, there are different
levels of understanding and realizing that truth.
Let us not presume to know all of what Yang Cheng Fu knew.
The Masters mentioned may do the essences to the best of their ability,
but their forms are not all the same even though sequences may be similar.
How can we profess to assume to know what "variations" they may have
known or practiced.

My friend and I are continuing to dialogue about it.

Not trying to force this down anyone’s throat but please read this

http://www.martialtalk.com/forum/showthread.php?t=55950

I have also discussed this with my Sifu at great length since I first saw "Snake Style" on the web a few months back. I also showed him the videos that I first saw of it and we agree on this. There is no "Other" style of Yang style as it comes from Yang Chengfu or Yang Shou Zhong. Also as a note my Sifu was there in Hong Kong at the time and was a student of Tung Ying Jie and knew Yang Shou Zhong (not as a friend but as a friend of his Sifu) as well as Gin Soon Chu and Ip Tak Tai.

TaiChiTJ,

Many thanks for your input. My own particular level of understanding comes from studying with a Yang lineage holder who has not only worked with Yang Zhen Ji, and Yang Zhen Duo but Fu Zhong Wen as well whilst my realization of the truth comes from 19 years of study. No one should ever presume to know what Yang Cheng Fu knew, however we can make a fair assumption that what he transmitted (particularly to his indoor students) Tung Ying Chieh, Fu Zhong Wen and Chen Wei Ming, did not contain anything about different “styles” of Yang. What he did acknowledge was that there was Large Frame, Medium Frame and Small Frame forms. I’m afraid your friend has a lack of understanding of “Traditional Yang” if he really believes that the Masters mentioned (with the exception of Cheng Man-Ching) are not doing the same form. We can again assume that what they are transmitting is what they were taught by Cheng-fu. It is interesting that the so called “variations” all originate from the Shou Zhong (Hong Kong) line.

Just out of interest, who conducted the "Snake" Seminar your friend attended?

Very best wishes

Agreed - based on 13 years of Traditional Yang Taijiquan study