"I am trying to get insight into the development of Yang Tai Chi Chuan at the Yang Lu Chan period.
There may be an article that addresses this but I haven't discovered it yet.
He is brought to the attention of the Palace, is asked to come and teach the Royal Family as well as the guards. I would think he was 50 by this time; [he left Chen village at age 40]. Sons would be 13 and 11; it is mentioned that they also teach so it must be a few years later maybe 5-10 more years making it around 1855-1860.
That would give credence to the story that Yang Lu Chan taught his sons so hard that they ran away and tried to kill themselves; teenagers are like that. By 1860 they would be in their 20’s with great skills. Some mention he did let up on them a bit.
A question I have is how did the guards train? I assume they were similar to bodyguards [Swiss Guards of the Pope]. They had to do internal security in the Forbidden City; but since they were a military unit maybe they went out in the city also. These would be elite troops known for their martial abilities.
Of course, they would know various weapons, and police techniques to disarm and subdue. I am sure they wrestled for sport and fitness. They had to be ready NOW to fight. So what was their training schedule and how did Yang Lu Chan fit into it. Did he only add more expertise to what they knew or was he teaching all the skills needed to fullfil their mission? We know he took three into the stables to teach more detailed and advanced information; the sons were also given advance lessons.
What did the Taijiquan techniques look like and were they more into getting in close with striking and chin-na than qi flow and energy releasing? Health came because they worked hard. Did they even think of Taiji being for health in the military environment? If I get these answered I will feel that I know Taijiquan better than I did before. Thank you if you have answers?"
Yang Lu-Chan, 1799-1872
Founder of Yang Style Taijiquan
Grandfather of Yang Cheng-Fu
I a quite sure nobody really has some answers to John's questions. Earle Montaigue (you will ind plenty on Google) seems to know quite a lot about Yang Luchan form, which is longer than Yang ChengFu, contains lots of jumps, fa-jins, ... He however admits he is not 100% sure the forms he has learnt is the original one.
ReplyDeleteSome people say the Yangjia Michuan Taiji Quan is Yang Luchan one (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Yangjia_Michuan_Taiji_Quan). Checked some of the videos on youtube, I must admit I was disappointed....
Regarding question about bodyguards, I am sure they took whatever works, Shaolin, Wudang or whatever and if they learned something somewhere could help out, they would take classes. If you look into Pakua Chang for instance, you will see it is made of course of dragon stuff and circle walking, but the fists, throwing, kicking techniques are common to many martial arts.
Don't take that for granted. I am just guessing. Maybe it will open the discusson.