Sifu Jim R. writes: Pictures show small and compact frames, so do not think large, very large and mid-frame were the only ones he knew. The last picture shows a young woman because of the torque in her right knee and foot making a very painful stance. Whereas Master Wu's very large stance seems excellent and very comfortable. As a metaphor, the world is vast but very small at times. If one has a narrow mind, it can look even smaller. Barbara R., a student asks questions of Master Hwa about Wu Chien Chuan's large stance and its usage in all situations.
From Classical Tai Chi Forum Volume 5 August 2003. https://www.classicaltaichi.com/forum/pdf/forum5a.pdf
Barbara, a student, writes: When watching a video of the 1995 International Wu Style Federation Convention and heard a speaker refer to "Lao Jia" and "Xin Jia" From the translation, it appeared these referred to the long-form as taught by Wu Chien Chuan and as taught by his son, Wu Gong Yi. The speaker said he had studied with both and set out to describe the differences, which seemed to be mainly differences in depth of stance—he kept using Drop Stance (Downward Posture, Snake Creeps Down) with a deep drop; as an illustration of "Lao Jia,"……… Master Young Wabu was a student of Wu Chien Chuan and Master Hwa was a student of both Master Sonia Young and her father Young Wabu. Master Sonia was a student of Grandmaster Wu Gong Yi and her father was Wu's colleague and also taught Wu's classes when Wu was not there. It seems very clear that Master Hwa is in about as good a position as the speaker (whose name I did not catch) to comment on this. The difference in "Lao" and "Xin" as I understood it is mainly a difference in how much external exercise you want to get along with the internal or whether you are looking for a practical fighting form or a showier one…………. Pictures of Wu Chien Chuan doing Tai Chi suggest that he did do Drop Stance with a reasonably deep drop, at least for the camera—but did he do it that way even in his last years? Would he have done it that way in free sparring? …………
Master Hwa's response: One listens to that "speaker" and cannot believe he said that. Just because he was taught "large frame" by Wu Chien Chuan when he was a teenager, he thought that was all Wu knew! If he thought that when he was a teenager, it is excusable. However, now at his old age, with all the published discussion about Wu's prowess at Compact Form, and still thinks that way. He is genuinely clueless. Unfortunately, this kind of person, who saw a master play one style, immediately assumed that it was that master's style, or that family's style, who has muddied the water about the history of tai chi. Prime examples are: Yang Ban-Hou had other teachers besides his father, Yang Lu-Chan, and therefore his style is different from his father. "Large frame" or "large circle" is the hallmark of Yang style, ignoring that several Yangs are known for their zeal for compact forms, such as Yang Shao-Hou, brother of Yang Cheng-Fu. He reminds one of a Chinese saying, "sitting in the bottom of a well trying to figure out how big is the sky."
It is correct that what they did for the camera was not representative of their style. During that era, printed pictures in the book have inferior quality (I have several such books), challenging to see any details. If a pose was in the compact form, it probably showed very little of what was going on. Master Wu's pictures are all in a substantial size frame style. As told by one of Wu Chien Chuan's students, an interesting story was that he asked Wu why one of his tai chi photos had the wrong posture. Wu said that the photographer told him to do it this way. The story shows that these masters did not give a hoot about their photographs. Master Young Wabu described how Grandmaster Wu, during sparring, could stick to the opponent, keeping the opponent constantly out of balance. (Master Young is the "opponent" describing what happened to him when meeting Master Wu) Master Young shows the epitome of tai chi martial art. It is formless; an abstract of all the training he had undergone- leg power from "large circle," internal power from "small circle," movements from form practice, sense and touch developed during push hand, sparring exercise, and more.
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