Yang staff forms? modern only?

[Bao]

He seem to write a lot of “filler” writing unrelated to the book title.

He tries to add context and be academic. Sometimes he presents some interesting material.

[wayne hansen]

I still want to see his Tai Chi

[Trick]

I still want to see his Tai Chi

Yes , after reading that quoted text Ito posted and also often make reference to that author I too want to see if he really got something or if it’s all talk and no walk
But nope, it seem its all just about books sale

[origami_itto]

I still want to see his Tai Chi

Why? What does that have to do with historical fact?

[Bob]

He seem to write a lot of “filler” writing unrelated to the book title.

Trick
He tries to add context and be academic. Sometimes he presents some interesting

He is (or perhaps retired) an academic so it's no surprise his writing would reflect it

The question of concern is whether his work is academically sound and rigorous or poorly done with speculation dressed as fact

[Steve James]

The question of concern is whether his work is academically sound and rigorous or poorly done with speculation dressed as fact.

Naw, the issue is only peoples' opinions of his conclusions. Wile is a translator. His work is subject to peer review by other translators -who are professors of Chinese literature and culture. Like everyone else, he has to speculate about the reasons for the original texts. But, he doesn't have any reason to be dishonest.

[Bob]

The question of concern is whether his work is academically sound and rigorous or poorly done with speculation dressed as fact.

Naw, the issue is only peoples' opinions of his conclusions. Wile is a translator. His work is subject to peer review by other translators -who are professors of Chinese literature and culture. Like everyone else, he has to speculate about the reasons for the original texts. But, he doesn't have any reason to be dishonest.

Yes, but not all speculation is created equal - in that case speculation is along a range of likelihood anchored in a range of fact. LOL, learning from your uncles is more likely to be valid than learning from a dead grandfather although even this has its problems as we see in taijiquan and other martial arts systems.

[origami_itto]

I've always found him to be open about speculation and the sources of claims.

[Steve James]

but not all speculation is created equal

True. Since it's about a translation of something I can't translate, my speculation about his interpretation is worthless. I, and most of us, have always been reading translations.

At any rate, it's perfectly valid to accept other interpretations and speculations by other translators. I just don't speculate on their intentions, or suggest they weren't honest.

[wayne hansen]

but not all speculation is created equal

True. Since it's about a translation of something I can't translate, my speculation about his interpretation is worthless. I, and most of us, have always been reading translations.

At any rate, it's perfectly valid to accept other interpretations and speculations by other translators. I just don't speculate on their intentions, or suggest they weren't honest.

Having trained in both Taiwan and Malaysia where English is a spoken language along with Chinese I have had translations passed on as word of mouth
Some by a highly skilled tai chi practitioner who was a professor of eh
English at the university
So not everything comes down as a translation

I have told the story here before of discussing Wu,s Gold Book
My Wu Teacher said this is so hard to translate
He then said how his teacher wrote classical Chinese and still didn't understand it to the level my Yang teacher did
My Yang teacher was English a street fighter with little education he had learnt by word of
Mouth from those who spoke both languages and trained hard

So not all is translation


,s

[twocircles13]

I did this for myself. Between the OCR errors and Wade-Giles, I just wanted to read it in the same Pinyin as the other linked article. I also looked up most of the source material and included the links. A page search for “Luchan” will take you to most of the stories.

I started to comment on Wile and his conclusions, then decided it didn’t hold my interest. As the saying goes, “I have no dog in this fight.”

I’ll make one comment. There is a Confucian scholarly tradition that a person cannot make an innovation and claim credit for it. The idea being, “We stand on the shoulders of giants, how can we claim all the glory for ourselves?"

Over time, the practice became the more innovative something was the more ancient the idea and its roots had to be. In other words, all new things are a restoration or transmission of knowledge our ancestors had in the past.


The Founder: Yang Luchan 
There are two major versions of Yang Luchan's 
background one "official" and the other probably 
historical. The "official" version emanates from
colleagues and students who may have wished to 
conceal his humble origins.

Xu Yusheng, student of Luchan's son, Jianhou (1839-1917),
and author of Illustrated Manual of Taijiquan (Tàijí quán shì
tújiě) published in 1921, says that Luchan 
along with fellow Yongnian villager, Li Baikui, on 
hearing of Chen Changxing' s fame as a martial 
artist, made haste to Chen Village to study with him. 
Initially regarded as outsiders, they won over the master 
by sheer determination and finally gained the complete 
transmission, whereupon they returned to Yongnian. 
Luchan later traveled to Peking, where he became 
martial arts tutor to the Manchu nobility.3

https://brennantranslation.wordpress.com/2012/08/27/the-taiji-manual-of-xu-yusheng/

Chen Weiming, student of Luchan's grandson, Chengfu,
in his 1925 Art of Taijiquan (Taijiquan shu) closely 
follows Xu's account, adding a few embellishments. 
Chen tells us that after arriving in Chen Village, 
Yang heard loud sounds issuing from a nearby building.
Climbing a wall, he poked a hole in a window 
and spied Changxing giving instruction in uprooting.
By nightly surveillance he learned all the secrets,
and when the master finally consented to accept him 
as a student, he made such rapid progress that he soon 
surpassed even the Chen family favorites.4

https://brennantranslation.wordpress.com/2012/10/27/answering-questions-about-taiji-taiji-da-wen/

Thus, Yang Chengfu' s preface to his 1934 Complete
Principles and Applications of Taijiquan (Taijiquan ti yung 
Quanshu), probably ghostwritten by Cheng Manqing,5

contains biographical information about the 
Yang family, that not only respectfully glosses over 
Luchan's background, but puts in the illiterate 19th 
century Luchan's mouth the world view and political 
agenda of the early 20th century conservative intelligentsia,
even fabricating an anachronistic dialogue 
between Chengfu and his grandfather, Luchan, 
who actually died eleven years before his grandson's 
birth. Chengfu's account here, or more likely that of 
his ghost-writer, has Luchan traveling to Chen Village 
as a adult on the strength of Changxing's reputation, 
and remaining for ten years before being accepted as 
a student.6

Chen Kung's 1943 Taiji Hand Form, Broadsword,
Two-Edged Sword, Spear and Sparring (T' ai
chiquan tao chien kan sanshou hobian) is a remake 
of Chen Weiming's account, except that he has
Luchan going to Chen Village as a young boy and 
making a hole in the wall, that he claims could still be 
seen in the 1940's. 7 a. k.a., Yearning K. Chen and Chen Yanlin

https://brennantranslation.wordpress.com/2011/11/24/methods-of-applying-taiji-boxing-taiji-quan-shiyong-fa/

Even the great martial arts scholar, Xu Zhen, fell 
under the spell of Yang family well-wishers in his 
1930 Summary of Chinese Martial Arts (Kuochi lunyueh), 
uncritically reproducing Xu Yusheng's account.8 

However, just six years later in his A Study of the Truth 
of Taijiquan (Taijiquan kaoxin lu) Xu Zhen finally breaks
the taboo. It was Xu whose teacher, 
Hao Yuexu, first showed him Li Yiyu's handwritten 
copies of Wu Yuxiang's manuscripts. Noting that 
Li's "Short Preface to Taijiquan" (Taijiquan 
Xiaoxu) referred to Yang Luchan as "a certain 
Yang of Nankuan," Xu resolved to examine the reason 
for this circumlocution.

https://brennantranslation.wordpress.com/2011/11/24/methods-of-applying-taiji-boxing-taiji-quan-shiyong-fa/

After interviewing the older generation of martial arts
enthusiasts in Yongnian, Chen Village, and Beijing,
he discovered that the Chen family owned a pharmacy in
Yongnian, the Hall of Great Harmony (Taihe tang). The proprietor 
of the pharmacy, Chen Dehu, was one of the richest 
men in Chen Village and he hired one of his clans-
men, Chen Changxing, to teach his sons the martial 
arts. After many years of waiting on Changxing, 
Luchan absorbed much of the art, and when he 
began to prompt Changxing' s students, the master 
was so impressed that he not only transmitted the art 
to him but bought his freedom for fifty ounces of silver
and returned him to Yongnian.

Back in Yongnian, Luchan stayed in the Chen family Hall
of Harmony  Pharmacy, whose local landlord was Wu Yuxiang 
and his two brothers. The Wu brothers were a prominent 
gentry family in Yongnian, and keenly interested in 
the martial arts. Breaking class barriers, Yuxiang 
studied with Luchan, which whetted his appetite to 
seek out Luchan's teacher, Chen Changxing.

On his way to Chen Village, Yuxiang passed through 
nearby Zhaobao Village, where the local innkeeper, 
who coveted Yuxiang's room and board, told him 
that Chen Qingping was superior to Changxing 
and persuaded him to stay in Zhaobao. Xu concludes
that Li Yiyu in his "Short Preface" attempted
to protect the reputation of the Wu family by not revealing
the fact that his uncle, Yuxiang, was initiated into Taiji 
by a man so poor he had been sold as a bond servant.