http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_oOZKTynS5A
This is an excellent example of Yang style done by a disciple of Fu Zhong-yuan, Fu Zhong-wen’s brother. Lots of good movement in here.
One the things that struck me most was his stepping in lan qie wei (grasp the bird’s tail). In the CPL taiji form based on the old Yang style, we do grasp bird’s tail three ways: stationary, half-step, and moving step. I’ve only seen other Yang guys do stationary until I saw the clip above.
This type of movement can really open up opportunities for using wardoff, rollback, press, and the poorly mistranslated “push”. Each of those moves can be do both stationary and moving. This clip above gives you some ideas how to start doing them in a moving fashion.
You begin by stepping out into wardoff, withdrawing the front foot as you roll back, then step out as you press, come back on the back leg as you begin push and then step out into push, roll back again and then continue with wardoff, etc. If you try this out, you’ll find a nice little rhythm with roll back punctuating the other movements. This is the half-step version of moving grasp the bird’s tail.
Anyway, try it out and see if you like it.
5 responses so far ↓
1 wujimon // Jul 13, 2007 at 8:38 pm
Wow.. very different and something I had not thought about incorporating. However, all his stepping makes sense if we consider the full/empty leg stuff we’ve all heard so much about.
Reminded me a lot of Sun in regards to the stepping, but then again, I often hear that every step can be a kick and every weight shift can be a step, yet I rarely practice that!
2 chessman71 // Jul 13, 2007 at 8:57 pm
What I mapped out in the post above is the beginning of making taiji applicable while moving. This is THE missing key needed to start taiji for fighting. As I’ve said many times, taiji people need to learn to pick up their feet when doing their applications.
3 thomas // Jul 16, 2007 at 12:43 am
Dave,
What does Han Qingmin have to do with your post above, or with the video clip featuring Fu Zhong-yuan?
Also, are you sure Fu Zhong-yuan is Fu Zhongwen’s brother? He more resembles Fu Sheng-yuan, who is Fu Zhongwen’s son (appears to be more in that generation).
Just curious. I agree with your point about the stepping and moving frequently lacking in Yang style form and tuishou work.
4 chessman71 // Jul 16, 2007 at 9:38 am
Tom,
According to the clip, this is Han and he was a disciple of Zhong-yuan. I’m just going by what the clip says. I’m not familiar with any of these people. If you have more info, please let me know.
5 thomas // Jul 17, 2007 at 4:53 am
Dave,
My error . . . I read the text of your post too quickly. Where you wrote that the performance was “by a disciple of Fu Zhong-yuan,” I mistook it to read that the performance was by Fu Zhong-yuan himself. Sorry for the confusion.
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