Evolution of Taiji Quan?

[Haoran]

Seems to me that through time, Taiji has become more "vertical". That is, Chen style has low/deep/wide stances, Yang less so but stil somewhat low, Wu and Sun seem nearly vertical.

One of the most recent famed Taiji Masters was Ma Yueh Liang (Wu style). So, what's up with this?

Comments? Ideals?

[oldtyger]

Since I practice Wu style I have heard this before. Not from my own teacher but several others( who do Wu style of course) often liken Wu style to be the result of refinement and development of taijiquan. I'm not certain that is the case but I find my current teacher, who happens to teach Wu style, to be the highest level teacher in taijiquan that I have ever met. (He also previously studied Chen and Yang styles.) I have also learned methods in push hands which are obviously superior to the Yang and Chen style methods I was previously exposed to--can't compare to all Yang and Chen style, only what I have experienced. The rooting methods I have learned also seem to be more sophisticated than the Yang and Chen styles I was exposed to. Standing upright using these methods one can be very rooted without needing to bend the knees and "sink" the body. It's all internalized in where you place the qi, yi, and how you use the dantien.

Can't comment on Sun style or Wu/Hao style--extremely limited to no experience with these respectively.

Rich

[Andy_S]

That is an interesting question, and facts seem to bear it out. It could well be that the higher styles are more sophisticated: On the whole, I find Wu style PH to be some of the most effective and sophisticated.

OTOH, it could also be that as Taijiquan evolved from the warrior's training ground to the literatis' boudoir, the art was raised to obviate all that unseemly sweat and thick leg muscleture that low stances tend to generate.

Meanwhile the PH methods moved from being a from of standing grappling, in which the aim was to drop the opponet on his head, to a rather gentler game in which person A "beat" person B by pushing him slightly off balance.

[Jonny]

Question for chen people: they train in low stances, but in a combat situation, would they be low as well?

[martialartist]

You train yourself in low stances to build strength. Yang family's martial art also has low stances, it is not at all Chen/Yang specific.

[ors]

"Lian da, yong xiao!" Train big, use small! That is what I hear from my techer all the time...
This kind of "which one is more sophisticated" question is so meaningless in my point of view. Every practioner have to first buid up his body, open up his joints, learn to open and close and so. For this work we have plenty kind pf practice. Low, high, small, big, slow, quick, all depends on the level of the student, the depthness of the practice and the purpose of the training. You can (more likely you have to) practice all kind of methods to develop every aspects of this art.
I think the different schools of tajiquan represent differnet kind of level of the practice and different kind of understanding of the man who developed them.
Unfortunatelly when someone speak about the different schools, they usually imagine the form, what they see from an avarage competition or an avarage demo. This kind of form is a representative of the style, so this kind of thinking is acceptable.
But! There are lots of methods to train a form, and you can't say that chenstyle is low, yangstyle is medium level and the wu styles are high, because there is medium or high practice in chenstyle as well, and low and high practice in yangstyle and so...
I would say that the development goes from big to small, and from small to unseen, but you can find that, in every kind of taijiquan not just one.

If you use small, which is not developed in big, than it will not work. If you try to use big only, it will not work again...

Örs

[johnwang]

Question for chen people: they train in low stances, but in a combat situation, would they be low as well?

If you are 5 feet and your opponent is 6 and 1/2, when you apply "twin peaks to the ear", do you use low stance or high stance? One girl changed her Taiji "twin peaks to the ear" into a low monkey stance and dropped her front knee on the ground. She was very short. When she did not, her intend must be trying to fight a 2 feet baby.

[ors]

Funy!

[Michael Dasargo]

I often place the variations of technique under the lens of principle:

Low/Wide base = stability
high/narrow base = agility/mobility

In my opinion, Tai Chi is 13 gates, and the 5 "variant styles" simply adapted the principles for the individuals circumstance.

dos centavos,
M.Dasargo

[Bao]

I don´t believe for one second that taiji has developed from low base to high base.

For example, let's accept for a short moment that Chen style is the "original taiji", or well at least the first of the modern styles. The original Chen form is the xiaojia, small frame. If you look at wu and sun forms you see that they are very similar to xiaojia and developed directly from this form. Deep stances/low base is a large frame phenomena, not small frame. The wide stances and large frame as you see in modern Chen style is a modern expression, developed by Chen Fake & c/o, developed in a time when Taiji started to get popular and the Chen guys wanted to distinguish their art from tthe rest of the styles. So, a generalisation with a whole lot of truth is that the development of low base/large frame has to do more with marketing than with martial art development. And that goes for the Yang style as well, as the Yang family sold it for the public as a set of large, beautiful movements.

[ors]

I am sorry Bao, but I have to disagree in some of your points.
The difference between xiaojia and dajia is certanly not in the shape or size of the movements. You can play dajia with small and high postures as well, and naturally xiaojia with big postures if you would like to.
The difference between them is the number (or position) of the centers of the movements. In dajia there is one fixed center (usually somewhere around the dantian area) while in xiaojia there are lots of possibly centers, or (if you want) a continously changing center.
The other big difference between them is that they emphasize the opening or the closing of the body to develop open-close phenomena. Dajia emphasizes opening, while xiaojia closing. (And this is so not just in chenstyle)
If you take a look to photoes of Chen Zimming's book, which is about xiaojia, you can see lots of deep postures.
Chen Fake hasn't developed dajia at all. Usually it is said, that he developed xinjia, but lots of chentaiji practioners (inluding Chen Yu, his grandson) says that he hasn't developed any new substyle. He has "just" developed chenstyle to a very (how to say?) sophisticated level...

Of course, theese are just my opinion (OK not just mine...) not the TRUTH...

Örs

[Bao]

The difference between xiaojia and dajia is certanly not in the shape or size of the movements.

Then we disagree to a point where I don't believe there is a very good chance to have a rewarding conversation.
... But let's have a try anyway.

You can play dajia with small and high postures as well, and naturally xiaojia with big postures if you would like to.

Well, you can play with any kind of form however you want I guess... But the question is about what purpose a form has and what kind of exercise it developed from. I am not a Chen player, so maybe you know this better than me.

[quote ]... while in xiaojia there are lots of possibly centers, or (if you want) a continously changing center.[/quote] Well, that was certainly an interesting thought, something I haven't heard about before. Is it about the three different Dan Tian, shoulder/scapula movement or something else? Maybe you could develop it?

The other big difference between them is that they emphasize the opening or the closing of the body to develop open-close phenomena. Dajia emphasizes opening, while xiaojia closing. (And this is so not just in chenstyle)

I don't understand your thinking here. Having closing without opening is not possible. "Kai" (open) means to open up the body (joints and channels) so the qi and blood can circulate. "He" (close/connect) means to connect the structure so you can control and steer the circulation in movement. The small frame of Xiaojia/Wu(/Hao) and Sun styles should teach this basic idea in a strict manner. And Hao style has kept and refined the basic concept of Kai/He to a greater extent than any other style. The Wu/Hao form is virtually the same form as Xiaojia. Therefore I can not believe that this very strict Kai/He practice was developed by Wu Yuxiang. It must be older, possibly older than Chen style. However, there is a very, very clear and strict practice concerning the wu/hao style regarding angles, positioning etc. So I believe that the same practice much have been there, both in Chen and Yang styles. The Hao stylists were the best to preserve this practice. (Also only a few Sun stylists have preserved what Sun Lutang left. If you look at master Sun's "kai/he shou" posture, it looks completely different than Sun Jianyuns posture and also much closer to Wu/hao than hers) And other forms created by other stylists, with other "frames", had different purpose.
But personally, I wouldn't call the xiaojia or Wu/Hao frame "small". I would call it "middle". And personally I believe it is the most important one - the first and foremost frame any taiji stylist should learn and be comfortable with regardless style.

If you take a look to photoes of Chen Zimming's book, which is about xiaojia, you can see lots of deep postures.
Chen Fake hasn't developed dajia at all.. He has "just" developed chenstyle to a very (how to say?) sophisticated level..."

Sophisticated? If you call commercialising sophisticated that is... That is almost everything the Taiji stylists was doing by that time, Chen or Yang, -they were trying to make business out of their art and put their own name into the CMA history.

[cdobe]

The Wu/Hao form is virtually the same form as Xiaojia.

I'm confused. Can you point to any examples that would support this statement ? I have seen both forms and I don't think they're similar at all.

[Bao]

I have looked through them again. And well, they are maybe not as similar as I remembered. There are some differencies, but if you look at the Hao form, you can see most of it comes from the Xiaojia.

[Jonny]

Question for chen people: they train in low stances, but in a combat situation, would they be low as well?

If you are 5 feet and your opponent is 6 and 1/2, when you apply "twin peaks to the ear", do you use low stance or high stance? One girl changed her Taiji "twin peaks to the ear" into a low monkey stance and dropped her front knee on the ground. She was very short. When she did not, her intend must be trying to fight a 2 feet baby.

This makes sense. Thank you for your reply