Unvarnished truth in Classical Wu Style Tai Chi

                                                Good example of incorrect body structure/alignment

I get emails from students which for the most part I also cc to Master Hwa. This "answer" was also cc'd to Master Hwa:

Of late there has been quite a few that tell me of "previous experience" in Yang, Wu, Chen,  or other Wu styles,  or what is "seen on Youtube". I  also heard concerns of this ilk from many students who come to my studio. 

The unvarnished truth of this is: For a beginning student in this (regardless of previous experience in Yang, Wu, Chen, etc.)  there has to be concern over body structure or alignment so there is no point talking of what someone in another style or teacher does. There is no point in talking of what the intent or application is as well. 

In a proverbial sense one does not put the cart before the horse nor turn their head as if to dance with another teacher while learning Classical Wu Style Tai Chi.

See pp. i in the Introduction to Uncovering the Treasure by Stephen Hwa, PhD available on Amazon,  Create Space  for further information on body structure and alignment.

My concern is: If one admits being a beginning student then by default how can you not at least acknowledge that part of your attention will have to go to your correct/incorrect body structure or alignment? 

Inevitably, there will be incorrect body structure or alignment in learning this...

In light of this how do you propose to correct these Tai Chi postures coupled with thoughts of whether Young Wabu deviated from Wu Chien Chuan's teachings, or what was or was not emphasized with something else, or what intent/application is, or what is on youtube?

Concerns and questions of this ilk:

 "I watched youtube, I did Yang, Wu, Chen, this Wu teacher, that 

teacher is double weighted on Youtube, Young Wabu deviated from Wu Chien Chuan, 

What is the application of this because Yang does that, etc., etc".

Answer: I was not aware that youtube was the repository of what is correct in Tai Chi.

Answer: I was not aware that  other Wu Styles, Chen and Yang styles, etc.,  were a gold standard for this.

Classical Tai Chi and the reality of its application

Video Link to dialogue



In  "Pivot", (Qi Journal,  Autumn 2002) Y.L. Yip and Leroy Clark stated that Wu's Tai Chi was called "The Solar Plexus School" .  "Pivot" was a lengthy article in Qi Journal about the 1950's fight between Wu Kung-i and Ch'en K'e-fu.  In "Uncovering the Treasure", Stephen Hwa quotes Jou, Tsung Hwa.  From: "The Tao of  Tai Chi Chuan, The Second Stage".  "The hallmark of the second stage is the use of the torso method.  Torso method is characterized by use of the body, specifically the waist and spine, to initiate and empower the movements of the arms and legs...Only those who reach this stage can truly be said to be practicing Tai Chi, yet these are few indeed."

See the video link above:

Dialogue and notes from video

Master Hwa: Yesterday we talked about how to get out of the "grabbing". Now in that case you do talk about moves.  This is so important because people will grab you. There are quite a number of moves in the form where one can learn to get out of the grabbing. For example, this one where you punch, people grab you, you turn the arm to release the grab. The other hand slides up the arm like this to get their hand off you. Even this move right before diagonal brush knee, where you rotate the arm to get out of a grab could be useful.  

When you turn the arm in this manner as people grab you, you are turning on this axis.  Turning on that axis, you have an advantage in leverage.  This is because you are turning on this very short axis. So, even against a more powerful hand you can still turn. Then you get to the point where it opens and you can get out of the grab. Then you remember I talked about the rotation of the arm in other moves and you can get out of a grab there as well, this is so important. 

You know, you will encounter grabbing, and you need to counter it and you need to do it fast. You need to do it fast but properly before someone gets a solid grip on you. In order to get out of it you want to do something immediately.

Student:  "I thought I saw you press a point on his hand on your DVD"

Master Hwa:  Right, right, but that is kind of like this which comes from the move in the form when he grabs you. I press a little bit and then I am turning my arm to release it. Well, we practiced that with Pete who is a wrestler and he has a very strong grip. That is how we develop and put it to good use.  I find this with my nephew who is 22 years old, 6'4", a wrestler and very strong.  So he wants to get hold of my hand so he can get me on the ground.  So practicing with him, he just cannot get hold of my hand. So you know lots of people in martial arts also come from the weight lifting room.  They are very strong and they want to grab you. Actually, he is my grand-nephew.

Student:  "How does Tai Chi do against Brazilian Jiu Jitsu?"

Master Hwa: You know...this is all individual. It is individual because when we practice the form we can reach a certain stage where this is called "mastery". In other words, with such "mastery", you can do the form, where every move is internal.  You can do the movements and you don't have to think. So, at that stage, you have "mastery" of the form. 

But with martial arts applications there really is no such "mastery".  I mean to say that it is endless. Martial art applications are endless. So it is hard to compare when it is so together.

Except at a time when the first Tai Chi master went to Beijing. He went to Beijing and he liked to challenge people. It is said that he beat up everybody. He even makes insistence that other masters fight with him so he can prove it.  He just wanted to try it out on other martial arts. So in that sense, and at that time, he did win.

The other thing to consider at that time is that people did not know about Tai Chi. You see that is another thing, people may not have developed a way to counteract the Tai Chi.

Now if you know Tai Chi like in the fight between Wu Gong Yee and the other guy (White Crane's Chan Hak Fu).  Now, both sides know each other's art very well. So, I'm sure they developed  a strategy to counteract the opponent's strength. Now the other guy, if you watch the video, and you Jim, you watch it many times. 

Student: "Yes, that is right".

So the guy changed the way of his external martial art. He did not use momentum, he did not use body momentum at all. He knew if he used body momentum, the Tai Chi was very good at counteracting  body momentum. So you see when you watch the video, he is just chopping with his arms, there is no body momentum, isn't that right?

Student:  "Yes, that is right".

So there is just flurry of arms without any body momentm, keeping the body momentum to a minimum or none at all. Certainly in that way he cannot develop all the power and so forth. So at least he tried to avoid being put on the ground by Wu Gong Yee. 

So you hear many people nowdays they don't think Wu is using Tai Chi or that the fight was bad, or they don't know what they are doing. So you cannot blame him, for in that case, he cannot be using Tai Chi.  Once again you see the guy is not using body momentum so how should Wu use Tai Chi, OK? 

 People watch that tape, and they say, how come, and Wu should have used Tai Chi.

So there is no momentum on the part of the guy, just flurry of arms and so with every chop Wu has to block. So also notice Wu is using the edge of his hand to block.  He is hitting the guy on his inside forearms and after awhile the guys arms  get tired...his arms are being hit on inside forearm muscle right there. 

Note: Little known details after the fight as revealed in the "Pivot" article show some interesting things.  Chan Hak Fu had actual arm injury which he showed the artist Lo Pak.  He had multiple bruises.  Chan told him:  "Don't think that I can not beat an old man but this Mr. Wu is a different matter and not such a simple matter". "His light chops like a "baby's fist" caused all these bruises".

Wu Gong Yee on the other hand was to show his disciples his dentures and say: "I wore these dentures into the ring, had I been hit, the dentures would have fallen out".  Wu was asked what he used and he said "ban lan chui" (deflect, parry and punch) which has many variations, but everything depends on how the opponent is moving in determining how you should move".

It has been explained in "pivot" that in later interview Chan Hak Fu stated the newspapers of the time wrote such controversy that stirred the fires for the fight in the first place. 

As Master Hwa states and shows, the fight probably looks very dry to the lay person.  We are raised on a diet of the spectacular in movies and TV so that fight looked "unappetizing". As Master Hwa shows with his own chops, the two palms of Wu would go from out to in, from low to upward to intercept Chan Hak Fu's fists.

It is also interesting that people find the fight boring in light of today's movies and TV.  Students of the time reported being terrified at the sounds of the fight.  One could hear the cracking sound of the hits.  People passed out in the audience, blood was flowing so much from Chan Hak Fu's nose that it could not be stopped.  For those that doubt the efficacy of Tai Chi or the "boring" fight, it would seem that it still and perhaps even moreso bears out the adage "there are no winning moves, there are only winning executions of those moves".

Form and Martial Intent "Golden Rooster Stands on One Leg"

Master Stephen Hwa speaking of the Form and Martial Intent of "Golden Rooster..." movement/posture 76 and 77 (Round Form) of Classical Wu Style at a workshop 2011, Buffalo, NY. One should keep a desire to deliver the internal power externally through the hands, arm and feet here, whatever the movent is.  I contrast Master Hwa's instruction of the Round Form with his "description" of the Square Form below. The Round Form video link is below where I also annotate  the instruction:

Video Form and Martial Intent "Golden Rooster Stands on One Leg"

Description of movements (Square Form) 76. Left Golden Rooster on One Leg 左金雞獨立
Posture 76 - Left Golden Rooster on One Leg 
 As the weight is transferred to the left leg, the left hand rises
to face-position, fingers pointing forward
 Right side of body turns left, rotating on the right heel, right
arm straightens to mid-position
 Right heel rises and right palm rotates to face up
 While right leg moves forward and left, the left hand lowers to

77. Right Golden Rooster on One Leg 右金雞獨立
Posture 77 - Right Golden Rooster on One Leg
 Right foot moves to empty step position and right hand moves to
mid-position while left palm rotates up
 Right toes push to the ground
 As the weight is transferred to the right leg, the right forearm
draws the right wrist under the left elbow
 The upper body rotates left and becomes centered
 The left foot moves forward in a kicking motion, while the right
forearm positions the right hand at face-position, palm facing
front
 As the right forearm draws the right wrist under the left elbow,
the left hip lifts the left leg

The "Tai Chi Classics" have some glaring mistakes

Video excerpted from "Tao of Martial Applications DVD series Volume III"

Recently a question arose in the Yahoo Email Group of Classical Tai Chi regarding the statement:  "Every movement in Tai Chi Form has to have 2 complementary sides of the body, a moving part Yang and a stationary part Yin. When the yin-yang junction is located in the torso of the body, it is an internal move.  When it is outside of the torso, it is an external move." This statement has we have said before was the most important statement made by Wu Chien Chuan to his student Young Wabu. You can find this statement on p. 2 of the book "Uncovering the Treasure" by Stephen Hwa Ph.D. and it is available at Amazon.

The statement was challenged by someone who asked: "Can someone please explain to me how this conforms to the classics of "when moving, there is no place that does not move". "When still, there is no place that is not still".  He continued by saying "The statement about 2 complementary sides, moving Yang and stationary Yin sounds like a broken posture as how a force can pass through the body, if it is not working together as a unit, moving as one".

Master Stephen Hwa has written the following response on October 6, 2011 to the question and challenge, the video above provides an illustration  of his major points about holding the body still while executing a movement that sweeps the leg of the opponent. The video very graphically shows how the movement only works if the nonmoving side of the body is held very still.  Further information about the "Sweeping Movement" is contained in the topic  "The Concept of Yin (nonmoving) and Yang (moving)" on pp. 50 - 51, "Uncovering the Treasure" by Stephen Hwa, Ph.D.

Tai Chi Classics

These Classics started became known in the 1930-40s when book about Tai Chi started to be published in China. These writings reported in those books are a collection of short works attributed to different authors from Chang San-Feng to anonymous authors. Even though their authorship cannot be verified, they are considered to be the holy writ on Tai Chi. They do contain some insights and principles of Tai Chi; but also some glaring mistakes.

How is that possible that both good and bad could be contained in one work. My suspicion is that there is more than one person involved in the writing as we see now. One of my ancestors in the fifteen century wrote a collection of short poems. We have the original hand written manuscript which we published three years ago. During research, we discovered that these poems have been published six times over the years. Many of the published poems are identical to the manuscript; but some have been altered – the later version has more alteration than the earlier version. Apparently, these publishers exercised their poetic license trying to add what they thought a better wording. This kind of alteration is very common in old writings in China and also in the west, such as the bible. The church has devoted inordinate effort to select an acceptable version of the bible.

Two major mistakes in the Classics are: "when one part moves everything moves" and "The jin should be generated from the legs". The later was discussed in Forum 11.

During our last work shop in Buffalo, I warned everyone that you would be challenged by "when one part moves everything moves" when you talk about Classical Tai Chi in public Tai Chi gathering. So you better be prepared. First of all, any martial art move depends upon rooting, there will be a nonmoving part of the body attached to the ground to provide the rooting. Only external martial art which uses push off to generate momentum to attack can qualify "everything moves". In addition, some of these rooted moves, the requirement of nonmoving is very dramatic. During one of the Jou Tsung Hwa Birthday Celebration Gathering ( David Brown was there), I demonstrate this point by asking audience to do a leg sweeping move by standing on one foot and sweep the other leg and move their body with it just slightly. I heard many "ouch" sound from the audience. Then they do the same move while keeping the side of the body above the standing foot still. There was no pain in the knee and delivered a much more powerful sweep.

I think you all need to keep this demonstration in your pocket. Because, you will need it in the future.

Stephen Hwa, Ph.D.