Formosa Neijia had a post the other day about Yang Taiji training: http://formosaneijia.com/2007/wang-zi-hes-yang-style-taiji/. I was happy to see the good-looking Yang style of Master Wang Zi-he. To me, there are pretty much two kinds of Yang style: good looking, and not good. This is not based on any professional assessment from me; just one man’s opinion. It’s not altogether a good gauge of taijiquan quality (even assuming my taste and opinions have merit). But looks do matter at some point. If the artistically pleasing surface reflects real quality underneath, that’s all to the good.
Calligraphy demonstrates that our lives do not have to be simply utilitarian. What the words say is one aspect. But it was found that the form of the writing could be made an art in and of itself. More beauty was brought forth into the world. Initially, perhaps only a handful of rich powerful men benefitted from this. But lo, the beauty survived, and now anyone who cares to enjoy calligraphy has a chance to do so.
So I enjoyed the fine-looking and powerful Yang style in the video clip. Formosa Neijia draws our attention to “the fajing in Ward-Off and Crane Flashes Wings; not something you see everyday”. These demonstrations occur within the opening moments of the video clip and sure enough, I could see what he was talking about and it made an impression.
So considering my current form practice and what I’m calling “Throwing Stars” which is supposed to be a ward-off move and which I have somewhat questioned, could this really be used to ward off, or is it more of just a good exercise, moving meditation, hippie-greets-his-neighbor kind of move? (I had a big, longtime dalliance with Hippiedom in my younger days, so don’t take me wrong here.)
I consider the move as my class does it. It’s a nice-looking move and I’m doing it better now that i have some simple Intention to work off of. Yes, my class calls it “Petting a Bird’s Tail”. Once a student came out and asked the teacher what kind of bird exactly, and I thought, yes! great question, now we’re going to get to the heart of this. And Teacher answered, “Well, personally I like to think of the bird as a phoenix”. Man, he got me there! I don’t know what a phoenix looks like and I’ve got a pretty good idea that I wouldn’t try to pet its tail anyway. Thinking about this weeks later I decided to get better acquainted with sparrows, and now a tiny, nervous sparrow sits at the top of this page. That bird thinks he can confound me but I’m going to try to surprise him some day.
By the way, I was dipping into Taijiquan Theory of Dr. Yang, Jwing-Ming yesterday and towards the end of the book is the very fascinating Part IX, About Sparring. Section 9 discusses Sun Zi, the “Art of War” man. I’ve never read The Art of War… some vestige of martial arts common sense all these years told me NOT to even touch this legendary book until I’m ready to understand it on some sort of intuitive level. But in Dr. Yang’s commentary are some super points about Shape and also about Shen, and victory… the text got me thing about the relationship between Sung and Shen, and I jotted a few notes… this will need a lot of time to become clearer.
But the point I wanted to make just now is the one that really grabbed me. “Regularity (Zheng) is Yang. Surprise, or change (Qi) is Yin.” This is tremendously deep and good to ponder. I’ve taken a liberty by quoting from YJM’s book in this way so all I can do is say, buy the good doctor’s books when you can, and prepare to learn a lot.
Can “Throwing Stars” movement be effective? I consider what I saw in the Wang Ze-he video clip. Now THAT’S ward-off! How excellent. Looks pretty internal too, as does the Crane fajing. My wardoff could probably send away a young child… that’s not too impressive, especially if I ended up using Li more than Yi. As an external move, Throwing Stars could be used as a Reverse Knife-Hand strike, might do some good against floating rib, or kidney, but it wouldn’t be my first choice as a blow. All this could be a little depressing or better yet, simply a reminder to work on uprightness, centeredness, connectedness, sung, breathing, weight shifting, and all the rest, before I worry about adding an opponent’s mass/energy to the equation.
But oddly, this analysis gives me hope for the present. My intention of moving my body/arm in a certain way, is incomplete; because it does not imagine an opponent flying off. As I said already: THAT’S ward-off. 
So which comes first, the intention or the peng, the wave or the fajing? Now that I’ve added these additional considerations to my simple step-and-reach-out, I can either have a mess on my hands, or I can try to assemble myself some Zheng.
This business of arranging all the elements of success, rather than just hoping to dominate, is what attracts me about taiji. As I must have mentioned somewhere, I don’t enjoy gambling. But being human, we have a need to venture. So I seek the middle path to success, which is paved with perseverance. Here’s more words for the idea-pot: http://www.fengshuiarticles.com/articles/ShuoGuaZhuan.htm
August 19, 2007 at 5:23 pm
I would guess the movement you’re practicing is grasp the bird’s tail form Yang style. It is the key movement of Yang style and a bit of an improvement over the same sequence in Chen style IMO — lazy about tying coat and liu feng si bi.
The wardoff (first move of grasp bird’s tail) isn’t usually done with fajing as in the vid. So if you can’t do it, I wouldn’t worry about it too much. Actually, at that point, the wardoff looks a lot like part the wild horse’s mane. They are quite similar in some applications.
My style actually uses wardoff as an opening or bridging movement. We rarely use it to attack. Your style may be similar. So if you can’t do wardoff with lots of power yet, it may be okay.
Formosa Neijia
August 19, 2007 at 7:32 pm
I seem to remember Wujimon saying the same thing about preferring the Yang form of these movements. I was skeptical at the time because the Chen seemed considerably more “martial” on the surface; more like good kungfu. But my eyes are being opened a bit…
The apparent similarity of numerous Yang forms; and the Yang way of issuing power, are things I’m interested in… but they’re deep topics of course.
I’ve read about Bridging, that’s a fascinating subject but I’ve never had any specific instruction on it. But what you said here is very good info for me, and certainly more fundamental than worrying about fajing at my stage of learning. Thanks Chessman for these comments, it’s quite helpful to me.
August 20, 2007 at 6:21 am
Personally, for me, I feel the energy contained a bit more when I do the yang execution vs the chen execution. Again, it could be due to my lack of skill in chen, but that’s just how I feel
In regards to bridging, the Yang Jun video shows how the first ward off can be used as a transition into an arm qinna. This could also be considered as bridging as it’s not focusing on the single movement application but tying multiple movements together.
Note, I believe this type of bridging is different than the wing chun definition of bridging, tho somewhat similar..
August 20, 2007 at 1:01 pm
Thanks, WM. Overall my impression is that the more convoluted, twisty movements of Chen were opened up and rounded out, for Yang style. (That may be a big oversimplification but I’m just trying to see through to fundamental aspects.) So the body & intent is allowed to quiet down a bit and focus more on the energic aspects, right?
I’m a bit fascinated by the bridging concept because I take it to mean the method by which I come into contact with the opponent. To consider that as a bridge, rather than just one person made a move and the other tried to respond. It puts a whole new layer of sophistication on a physical encounter. Which is what Asian MA tends to be about. But to have this neat symbolic concept, “bridging”, makes for a key to open the doors of study. Or so I suppose. Got to learn my forms first…