YMAA Taiji Grandmaster Kao Tao (高濤) 1932 - 2024

[YMAA Cape Cod]

Dr. Yang, Jwing-Ming's first Taijiquan teacher at age 16 in Taiwan, Grandmaster Kao, Tao (高濤) passed away in January 2024. In this newly released video that I filmed back in 2008, he tells his life story and explains details about the YMAA Taijiquan lineage. [url]https://ymaa.com/news-events/2024/03/new-grandmaster-kao-tao-高濤-video[/url]

Master Kao was a really fun, passionate, and positive person and it was such a lucky event that Dr. Yang and he were reunited back in 2008. (EDIT: this Kudoboard is accumulating more stories and photos of GM Kao, who in his mid-80s still had his thighs parallel to the ground in ma bu! https://www.kudoboard.com/boards/VPeqUfML

GM Kao was a student of Yue, Huanzhi (樂奐之) who treated he and his brother like his own children. Mr. Huanzhi was a close friend of Dong, Yingjie (董英傑), who helped introduce him to become an indoor disciple of Yang, Chengfu (楊澄甫), studying the martial aspects of Yang Taijiquan in the early days of them being hidden during Communist occupation.

I have read all the threads in this forum about Dr. Yang. The point of this post is to pay respects to my grandmaster and share some insight about the YMAA lineage. Whether you care or believe in the "old" Yang form, it existed. When the YMAA team won gold in China in 1994, the elder judges rushed over afterward saying "We haven't seen that form for decades!" As a teenager, Dr. Yang did not care what style he was learning, in fact he didn't want to learn Taiji at all. But his crane master told him to find Taiji to heal a very bad ulcer Dr. Yang had since childhood from having no food during the occupation of Taiwan. In 1974 when Dr. Yang moved to America and began studying Taiji further, he realized he was lucky to have his hard training foundation of daily workouts with Grandmaster Kao. Dr. Yang continued to learn Taiji from other masters, especially Jou, Tsung-Hua who was his mentor, and Liang, Shou-Yu who challenged him to learn the Chen form Lao Jia, to deepen his understanding. Dr Yang trained for two years and then performed it at Taste of China to honor his commitment.

We believe all taiji forms are valid, and have utmost respect for the Yang family form, and compassion for those under the pressure within China during the 1900s to modify the form, under threat from the communists who outlawed the martial arts and tormented practitioners for decades. In Taiwan, that was not the case. After he treated one officer, our own great-Grandmaster Yue, Huanzhi (樂奐之) was murdered by the communist party for refusing to move to the city to heal many other sick officers. This was the environment in which the internal arts evolved in those years.

Dr Yang has continued to practice, research, study and teach taiji 364 days per year for decades. The art is alive. He is still teaching regularly at his home in CA, at seminars across the US, and online.

Thanks,
David Silver
YMAA Cape Cod
(not sure if my 1st link is posting correctly, maybe a mod can help?)

Q: How many Taiji teachers does it take to change a lightbulb?

A: 100. 1 to change the bulb and 99 to say "In MY school, we do it correctly THIS way."

[Steve James]

R.I.P. Sorry for your loss.

[Doc Stier]

May his memory be eternal.

[Trick]

im sure GM KaoTao was great and i would have loved to study and learn from the masters of that generation, may his soul live on for the future generations.

But, as for the downplaying of TJQ in China post 1949 in order to make anything else TJQ-wize look great is a cheap old trick by now.