Yang Family Tai Chi Ch uan Curriculum "The Tai Chi Chuan curriculum consists of hand forms first

(i.e., empty hand), s uch as Tai Chi Chuan and Tai Chi Long Boxing. Next comes One Hand Push Hands, Fi xed Position Push Hands, Push Hands with Active Steps, Ta Lu, and Free Sparring. Last comes weapons, such as Tai Chi Double-Edged Sword, Tai Chi Broadsword, Tai Chi Spear (Thirteen Spear). And so forth." - Yang Cheng-Fu Douglas Wile, Tai Chi Touchstones: Yang Family Transmissions, p. 7 When I was studying Tai Chi Chuan Yang Family Style in Manila's Chinatown in the late 1960's I saw only three "forms" - Solo Form which we later called the Long Form to distinguish it from the Short version; Sword Form; Push Hands (if we ca n call it a form). The master who taught Tai Chi Chuan at the school where I stu died, Hua Eng Athletic Club, in Manila, was Han Ching-Tang, the famous teacher f rom Taiwan. Master Han wasn't around when I started studying, but Chan Bun Te, a n impeccable stylist, who studied the form with him, was. Master Han apparently taught only these three Tai chi chuan forms - the Solo For m and Push Hands (both of which I studied) and the Sword Form (which I did not). There were students who were practicing the Sword form when I was at Hua-Eng. I learned a few movements but the man whose name I can't remember now and was pro bably called Mr. Sy was teaching it left and nobody took his place. My Shaolin m aster Johnny Chiuten gave me a video of this talented man performing several for ms Solo tai chi form, Sword form (Han's also), a type of Chen style Solo form, a nd Pa-Kua Chang - apparently most of them, if not all, learned from Han Ching-Ta ng. I understand that Master Han studied the Solo form from Yang Cheng-Fu in the Spo rts College in Nanjing in the early 30s. But Han had revised it in many ways. Th e opening, for instance, looked like the beginning of 5 Element Fist of Hsing-1. In other places, he had changed the movements too, but fortunately not the name s. I learned another version of the Yang Family Solo Form from Grandmaster Lieu/ Lao Yun Hsiao (also from Taiwan) later on, when the master was visiting the Phil ippines in 1970. He did not teach us any other Tai Chi Chuan form. At the time, like many people, I thought these three forms were what constituted the whole Ta i chi chuan curriculum of the Yang Family. When I moved to the United States in August 1970,1 saw a few teachers. Their curriculum covered the Solo Form plus Pu sh Hands. Sometimes they taught a Sword form; often no I observed Tai chi chuan masters on both East and West Coasts. From what I had seen at his school in New York City, the legendary Cheng Man-Chi ng taught his abbreviated 37-movement Solo form. Push hands/Sensing hands, and S word. I haven't found any other evidence that he taught any other form. It is po ssible that he also taught Ta-Lu (translated at the Gin SoonTai chi club as "gre at pulling"), which is really part of Push Hands, to a few students. In 1986, I was taken by Gunter Weil and Rylin Malone.two friends from the Healin g Tao, to the Gin SoonTai chi Club in Boston's Chinatown district. For the first time, I saw a more varied curriculum thai included not only Push Hands, Solo fo rm and Sword but also Staff-Spear and Chang-Chuan. It was quite a pleasant surpr ise not only to see a genuine master in Gin Soon Chu, the second disciple of Yan g Sau-Chung, but also to come upon forms I had not seen before, and he was teach ing them openly. There are two possible reasons why only one or two Tai chi chua n forms oftheYang Family became widely disseminated. One reason might be that th e Yang family did not teach the other forms - or taught them to only a few peopl e, mostly their close disciples or children. Another reason is that a majority o f students are inclined - for lack of time or motivation or opportunity - to stu dy only one or two forms.

When Yang Cheng-Fu was alive, it appeared that only two or three forms were taug ht in public - the Solo form; Push Hands; and the first Sword form. The other fo rms - like the Chang-chuan (Long Fist), 2-man sparring set (San-sou), staff-spea r set, Knife/Broadsword, second Sword and perhaps others - were usually not taug ht. Which makes me wonder: What did the famous masters like Dong Ying Jie, Chen Weiming, Fu Xiaowen, Cheng Man-Ching learn from Yang Cheng-Fu? From the curriculum that he taught, Chen Weiming learned the Solo form, Sword, S pear, Push Hands, and Chang-chuan. What the others learned I wouldn't even bothe r to guess at. A sensitive subject this, and I don't like to step on anybody's t oes. If anybody reads this article, s/he can tell me if they are privy to reliab le information about what the masters learned. It is possible that these masters learned some or all of their forms from Yang C heng-fu's son Yang Sau-Chung, who from age 14 to 18 became his father's assistan t. I could be wrong because there are no eyewitnesses or films from that time. In t he Yang Family tradition, except for the times when Grandmaster Yang Cheng-fu ta ught in public, usually he taught only one, perhaps two students at a time. As a result, a student may not know what other students were studying unless s/he ta lked to them. Moreover, one student can claim to have learned a form or everythi ng from Yang Cheng-Fu himself and only Yang Cheng-Fu would know the truth, and h e is dead. With Grandmaster Yang Sau-Chung (1909-1985), many of the lessons were taught in a small apartment in Hong Kong. There was really no room for a big cl ass. Each student took private lessons. As far as I know, there were no public a nnouncements of workshops or classes, just private lessons. What Yang Cheng-Fu w as talking about in the epigraph above is that there is indeed an extended curri culum of fist and weapons forms. It is not just one or two forms, there are seve ral; apparently, some of them were secret forms taught only to a few disciples. In the list, Yang Cheng-Fu mentioned the Tai chi chuan form. This probably refer s to the Solo Form, the revised form - a large-frame, long, simplified form - th at was popularized in China in an attempt to help the people improve their healt h. I said "probably" because there are really different versions of it and I won 't presume to know what the great Yang was referring to. Master Yang also referred to Tai chi Long Boxing. Was he being redundant here, s ince Tai Chi Chuan also refers to Long Boxing, or was he referring to another en tirely different form? I conjecture that he was referring to another form, speci fically the Chang Chuan form, which is often considered the Long form in the Yan g Family Chang chuan is also sometimes referred to, rightly or wrongly, as the F ast Tai chi chuan form (because of its fast movements) or the Fa-jing form (beca use of its explosive techniques). I have not seen the Chang Chuan form mentioned in the literature. But, according to Vincent F. Chu, he heard that there are bo oks in China about it written by students of Chen Wei-ming. Chen Weiming himself listed the moves of Chang-Chuan m his book on the Tai chi Sword published in th e 30s. A translation of this book into English by Barbara Davis omits the list. Tai chi chuan Chang Chuan is a beautiful and rare form characterized by alternat ely slow and sudden, dynamic and explosive movements. The movements are actually similar in name to the Solo Form but there are variations in the sequence and i n the technique and execution. There is also a complete form called 2-Man Sparring Set (San-Sou). It is a form that enables the practitioner to learn the deeper applications of the different movements in the Solo and Chang Chuan forms. The student has to study both sides (A and B) to learn the form. Push Hands in the Yang Family tradition as transmitted by Yang Sau-chung is a co mplicated discipline. There are at least 7 different facets of it, some involvin g stationary postures with hand movements and positions that are intended to dev

elop internal structure, sensitivity, receiving and explosive energy, softness a nd dynamism; others involving manipulations of the chi; still others involving m ovement of the hands and feet (like Ta-Lu). Basically, it was a training that in corporated the 36 or so techniques of fa-jing. From the curriculum offered by Ma ster Gin Soon Chu, I learned there are indeed these fist and weapons forms hande d down in the Yang Family. There are even three versions of the Knife/Broadsword form (one of them, a vigorous and fast version known as Yang Sau-Chung's favour ite, another with a flying inside crescent kick like Shaolin) and two versions o f the Sword form (one of them called Yang Cheng-fu's form). Yang Cheng-Fu's "And so forth" in the quotation above leaves much to the imagina tion. He was obviously referring to other forms, but he did not elaborate. It Is possible he was referring to the halberd, advance spear form and others, which Master Gin Soon Chu knows, but I can only guess what these forms are. Rene J. Navarro, acupuncturist, poet herbalist and teacher, is s student of the masters Gin Soon Chu and Vincent F. Chu of Boston and H. Won Kim of New York Cit y since 1989. He has practiced Tai chi chuan for more than 3S years. He can be r eached at his e-mail: [email protected] Copyright (c) 2003 Rene J. Navarro