windwalker wrote:Appledog wrote:...from the bio of Yang Lu-Chan...
"very clear" really
What is clear is that "Yang's" method from what has been passed down, and recorded historically.
Was quite different based on a different idea...
Isn't it though? It's public information put out by the Yang family. You will also find in such biographies that Yang Lu-Chan was not the only person to come to the same discoveries through very similar process.
"...The Chen style does- n't adhere to these principles. ... If the Chen family invented taijl, why don't they have the Taiji Classics?"
Well, they do, and they do. History is a difficult thing to unravel. One could easily say the taiji classics were appropriated from Chang Naizhou's writings, or the taoists, or other locations, by Yang, in order to mask where his kungfu came from. Maybe ask Yang Lu-Chan's classmates? At any rate, there is a direct link between Chang and the Chens too, as there is with (I believe, Ji JiKe and a few others). As you say yourself, reading about something and practicing it are two different things. If the Chens didn't have the "tai chi classics" in writing, they certainly had them in practice.
So did "Shaolin". Grasp Bird's Tail/Lazily Arrange/etc. is from Shaolin forms. As would be, the logical conclusion, that they had all of the related training methods which went along with them. Unless you are saying Shaolin didn't have rou quan as well as many other similar internal arts. Is this really controversial?
"The idea that YLC made it easier, in general, a perception by those in the west maybe not understanding the guiding principles of whats called taiji.."
I didn't say he made it easier, I said he removed some movements. It happens quite frequently. Learning from the people he did, he was probably shown eclectic versions of the art that changed over time. And he saw what others were doing in the village. Yang Lu-Chan would have known very well from his experience that it is not the movements that matter but the principles behind them. As such, and being a master of those principles, he would have been free to change his art however he wanted. There's absolutely nothing wrong with that.
As I have learned in my research he also added some others from his plum flower training ( such as raise hands/play the pipa ). All the movements in Yang's which are not in Chen's are from Plum Flower. He had to get them from somewhere.
Notably such as hold the ball exist not in Chen style but in some Shaolin styles like the quite famous so-called "southern dragon" form.