Hello folks, I've been practicing taichi for a few months now, and I'm beginning to read about my art, style, and lineage. I've seen a lot of stuff about what constitutes a good teacher and a good school, and I think I'm happy with what I've got : my teacher looks (and feels when he demonstrates techniques) skilled, he teaches us the form and their martial applications, we do tuishou, etc. He's also planning to begin a wudang boxing class next month. Compared to what I've seen at other tai-chi classes, he's what I'm looking for (with my extremely limited experience) : he's the only teacher I've been able to meet that does tuishou and/or martial applications, even if he doesn't currently do any kind of sparring (for lack of interested students), and he hasn't told me once about mystically winning fights with my chi or told me that tai-chi was only for health and fitness - he's practicing with the idea that tai-chi is a real martial art. Now, here's my question: has anyone heard about his lineage, and if yes, what can you tell me about it? He's studied under master Wang Wei Guo, who studied under master Gu Lisheng, who was a disciple of Yang Shao Hou. I've been looking for information about Wang Wei Guo on the net, but without much success, except from some youtube videos done by his students (I guess). Is he known in the Tai-chi world? Respected? The form I'm learning looks like the Yang-style form, but is not exactly similar (to my still-untrained eye). Here's a video of the first part of the form : [ame="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cWPZIRc8_kw"]Tai Chi Chuan Yang Style (Scuola del M. Wang Wei Guo) - YouTube[/ame] (Note : this isn't my teacher, and I'm not saying it's a good exemple of the form.) I'm looking for anything, really. Opinions, ideas, things I haven't thought about... Anything you can tell me. (edit : if the "questions and answers" forum wasn't the best place for the thread, I'm sorry.)
Don't know Wang Wei Guo. do know of Gu Lisheng and he was a student of Yang Shaohou. Any Taiji that comes from Yang Shaohou will look different than most of what you see around today. Most of what you see today comes from Yang Chengfu who is the younger son of Yang Jianhou as well as a student of Yang Jianhou. Yang Jianhou changed the form a little bit and it is believed that Yang Chengfu changed it a lot. Yang Shaohou is the older son of Yang Jianhou but he learned Yang Taiji from his uncle Yang Banhou who was the older brother of Yang Jianhou. Both Banhou and Jianhou are sons of Yang Luchan. Also it is said the both Banhou and Shaohou were a bit more aggressive with their taijiquan than Jianhou and Chengfu. There is a historical rumor that Shaohou killed a student in a fajin demonstration. The student asked and he showed him...to death...allegedly. There are far fewer students in this line than what you see come from Yang Chengfu
Thanks a lot for that information - very interesting and gives me new things to research. Ned, I may have missed the part in the TOS that concerns my post. Could you point it out to me, please?
