gt3
09-Jul-2004, 10:49 AM
Why do all the 'masters' do the same form differently?! Specifically the yang cheng-fu long form.
In the book 'Mastering Yang Style Taijiquan" by Fu Zhongwen (a student of YCF), it has drawings taken of YCF performing "brush the left knee" aka "left brush knee, twist step" and not only shows YCF's right palm facing upward and winding back (like a baseball pitcher throwing an overhand pitch) and lookin at his palm but it even says thats what you're supposed to do, BUT in my video tapes of Yang Jwing Ming he doesn't look at his hand, and in my video of erle montaigue teaching the YCF long form he specifically says NOT to wind the hand back or have the palm facing upward because its incorrect! How can he say that if YCF himself did it? My other videos show them winding back but not looking at the hand. The only one who seems to do it the way YCF did it is Daniel Lee in his video series on the form.
Another thing I see everyoing doing differently is the "white crane spreads its wings" some people have their right arm way up in the air with the elbow higher than the shoulder (including yang jwing ming and erle montaigue), arent the elbows always supposed to be lower than the shoulders? Daniel lee's video also seems to do this with his elbow lower than his shoulder.
Is daniel lee the only one doing it correctly? Or are they all correct or what. This is very confusing to me because I want to practice this form right and i have no idea which teacher is doing it right. There are other moves in the form that are also done totally differently. Why can't everyone agree on this? And why isn't there some standard of how to do these moves. It seems rediculous that we have all these supposed masters teaching the same form totally differently, how is the beginning student supposed to know which path to follow, just pick one at random? and 10 years of practicing it find out it was wrong the whole time?? It only seems logical that if yang cheng-fu's version of this form was carefully documented that EVERYONE who claims to teach the form would do it exactly like him.
In the book 'Mastering Yang Style Taijiquan" by Fu Zhongwen (a student of YCF), it has drawings taken of YCF performing "brush the left knee" aka "left brush knee, twist step" and not only shows YCF's right palm facing upward and winding back (like a baseball pitcher throwing an overhand pitch) and lookin at his palm but it even says thats what you're supposed to do, BUT in my video tapes of Yang Jwing Ming he doesn't look at his hand, and in my video of erle montaigue teaching the YCF long form he specifically says NOT to wind the hand back or have the palm facing upward because its incorrect! How can he say that if YCF himself did it? My other videos show them winding back but not looking at the hand. The only one who seems to do it the way YCF did it is Daniel Lee in his video series on the form.
Another thing I see everyoing doing differently is the "white crane spreads its wings" some people have their right arm way up in the air with the elbow higher than the shoulder (including yang jwing ming and erle montaigue), arent the elbows always supposed to be lower than the shoulders? Daniel lee's video also seems to do this with his elbow lower than his shoulder.
Is daniel lee the only one doing it correctly? Or are they all correct or what. This is very confusing to me because I want to practice this form right and i have no idea which teacher is doing it right. There are other moves in the form that are also done totally differently. Why can't everyone agree on this? And why isn't there some standard of how to do these moves. It seems rediculous that we have all these supposed masters teaching the same form totally differently, how is the beginning student supposed to know which path to follow, just pick one at random? and 10 years of practicing it find out it was wrong the whole time?? It only seems logical that if yang cheng-fu's version of this form was carefully documented that EVERYONE who claims to teach the form would do it exactly like him.