Formosa Neijia

Consider the following excellent quote from Marnix Wells:
On the 1969 summer break…Marnix returned to Taipei, where Gan Xiàozhou took Marnix to the general push-hands Saturday morning meet in the government Legislative Yuàn. There leading luminaries, mostly followers of Zhèng Mànqing, Wáng Yánnián and others engaged in informal push-hands. A young man [...]

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This is the full version of Xiong Yang-he’s taiji form. A small clip was recently pasted on youtube, but this is the original. Xiong was one the main guys to bring old Yang style to Taiwan.

This is Wang Zi-he’s complete form. He was a disciple of a disciple of Yang Chen-fu. He was the main [...]

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So sorry about the server problems. Hopefully they are cleared up by now.
Here is the second part of the article about Ye Xiao-long and his ideas on being straight and stretching. Those of you involved with huleijia or Xiong Wei’s material should find this stuff invaluable. This article will greatly help you.
Ye’s ideas can lead [...]

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Below is part one of a great article written by George Xu on a stretching method from Yang stylist Ye Xiao-long. I remember reading this when it came out years ago. I cut it out of the magazine and threw the rest away because it was just that good. It makes even more sense to [...]

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http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dIYQqRHAPUc
This gives my last post some support. Here is a version of Han’s Yang style taiji. Right away, you’ll notice the very strong forward lean. And yes, the butt sticks out a bit because the torso is in a straight line with the back leg. I don’t much care for his hand methods in this [...]

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http://uk.youtube.com/watch?v=xhlVnlekTuk
This is Wang Yu-sheng 王玉升 doing the “fast” version of the Yang long form. He is another one of Li Ya-xuan’s excellent students. I’m just so impressed with all of Li’s students. I can’t watch enough of this stuff. Li obviously had some of the cleanest, clearest movement. You can see it in almost [...]

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So how many times have you heard “that goes against the taiji classics” or “that violates taiji principles.” I just cringe every time I hear something like that.
Let’s be honest — are those statements just snobbish attempts at one-up-manship?
Consider the following questions:
1. Do ALL taiji groups follow the same classics?
It’s obvious that they don’t. The [...]

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There’s a new online video service that I’ve been checking out and I think you should, too. It’s called Video Waza and it’s a subscription service (US$15.00 per month) that allows you download and view as many martial arts videos as you want for each month of your membership. The selection is decently varied, with [...]

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From some of the things I’ve heard over the years, I get the impression that Sun’s taiji and his other arts are very simplistic. But looking at some other recently released materials, I wonder if there isn’t more to the story. Consider this article by Bradford Tyrey that quotes a lecture by Sun Jian-yun:
Nurturing the [...]

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IMO the sword form is even harder than the hand form. It takes all the skills of the hand form to a higher level. You have to become much more refined when handling the jian. For example, the form has chansijing in it, but doing it with the jian can add a whole new dimension [...]

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