I’ve been on the lookout for years for more info on Tu Zong-ren (涂宗仁), one of only four disciples of famous Taiwan Chen master Du Yu-ze (杜毓澤). The other three disciples were Wang Jia-xiang (王嘉祥), Li Hou-cheng (李後成), and Cao De-lin (曹德鄰).
I just recently found more info on Tu because his website, which was down for a long time, is now back up. One of the reasons that I’m more interested in him than in the other disciples of Du is that Tu lives here in Taipei. Du’s top disciple, Wang Jia-xiang, lives in Kaoshiung.
Here’s some basic info on Tu. He was born in 1944 and began studying martial arts at the age of 17. When he was 33, he meet Du and began practicing Chen style taiji. In 1992, Tu traveled to the mainland to research Chen style at Chen family village. He studied under Chen Xiao-xing at that time. Besides Chen style, Tu’s Yang style taiji is also considered quite good. So Tu has been doing Chen style for 30 years and has trained with Du and Chen Xiao-xing — making him one of the top Chen people in all of Taiwan.
Since Tu is Du’s disciple and he doesn’t do other arts, his version should be fairly close to what Du practiced. Here is Tu doing the laojia yilu:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=w0IUlyCSnac
I’ll post more info on Tu as it becomes available. I’m particularly interested in what he sees as the differences between Taiwan and village Chen style taiji.
8 responses so far ↓
1 Casey // Dec 4, 2006 at 5:02 am
Good energy. Just watching this video helps me see better the link between Chen village Chen and Taiwanese Chen. Though I’d say Tu’s form is closer to Zhou’s than to Chen village Laojia, I’d also say it is closer to Chen village Laojia than Zhou’s.
2 Casey // Dec 4, 2006 at 5:04 am
(I mean, his form is closer to Chen village Taiji than Zhou’s Laojia is to Chen village Taiji).
3 chessman71 // Dec 4, 2006 at 7:31 am
Thanks for the clarification. Haha. That was a little confusing at first but I see what you mean. As you know, Du’s material is pretty popular here in Taiwan. But it’s good to actually find one of the disciples. I was surprised that Du only had four.
I hope to post some about Wang, the senior disciple, a little later. His books are really good and he has the “kungfu look” with his beard and bald head. But I hear he has the skills to back it up as well. And with the high-speed rail coming on line, Kaoshiung will onl be an hour away!!
4 baichi // Dec 17, 2006 at 5:18 pm
That was really interesting, thanks a lot! I always wondered what Tu’s Taijiquan looks like. I know that he also has contact with Chen Xiaoxing, but if you compare his form with Du’s short video clip, you can see the connection. It’s also interesting to note that Tu’s fajin looks quite different from the village stuff, but it’s impressive in its own way. It might have been influenced by the small frame/huleijia method. The move two fists pierce the ears (or whatever it is called in english) can be found only in the small frame forms I think…
Information about Wang would be highly appreciated… don’t tell me you have a video clip of him performing as well? How a about a clip with a battle royale with all of Du’s disciples?
5 chessman71 // Dec 18, 2006 at 9:14 am
I wish I had a clip of Wang performing! I do have his books and some of his articles. He has researched taiji very deeply. I hope to get down to visit him in the next few years.
All of Du’s disciples are getting on in years so I would advise studying with them as soon as possible if people are interested.
Yes, I think Tu’s taiji has been influenced by huleijia. I would be surprised if it wasn’t. But I was surprised that he largely kept the flavor of Du’s taiji, even after he trained with Chen Xiaoxing. For some reason, I thought that he might have just picked up the village forms. The fact that he kept the traditional forms from Du show me once again that they have value even though most people frown on them because they don’t look just like the village forms.
6 baichi // Dec 18, 2006 at 5:19 pm
Yes I think the influence of Chen Xiaoxing is either very subtle or very limited. Maybe more obvious in pushhands practice or advanced concepts, not in the frame of practice.
I don’t think you can say Du’s frame per se has no value, there is defenitely a lot going on in Tu’s form, but the variation most people practice (like Wutan’s) shows more elements of Bajiquan and/or Changquan than Taijiquan. Not in this case though, which is why I find it absolutely interesting and worth to watch.
Of course there will still be people who value external form over content. They will argue that anything that doesn’t look like village style cannot be worthwile…
7 chessman71 // Dec 18, 2006 at 6:59 pm
Agree with your comments. I used to practice Du’s material and I like it very much. I will go back and study it in the future. I just got tired of explaining to people why it didn’t look exactly like what CXW does. Sigh.
8 Tu Zong-ren’s laojia // Dec 18, 2007 at 6:03 pm
[...] the old frame first road. Tu laoshi was the second disciple of Du Yu-ze and I wrote more about him here and here. He was prevented from showing his taiji for many years due to a promise to his teacher to [...]
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