Complete Northern Wu Style 37 Taiji form

[@lynchh69]

Very very good. Excellent footwork. I have a freind in beijing who was a disciple of wang pei shengs for 20 years ( she helps me with my tai chi although is not my actual teacher) and i know this is a good student of that lineage just from seeing this form. Well done.

[@YamamotoKazuo]

This is Manchuria style tai chi. Not chinese

[@meyasalexandros]

駱寒刃 There is no Manchuria. Dongbei is part of China

[@rtt1961]

Very nicely done. The changing camera angles was a good idea.

[@hanbaars]

What a beautyful music. What is it?

[@danielsun5280]

I remember Xiao Zhu as an assistant to Master Wang Peisheng when I studied 37 forms from Master Wang at BFSU in Beijing. And I still remember how he came to our group when Master Wang was not able to come to us. Not sure when this video clip was taken, if in 2012, I am impressed that how he stays young. Master Wang began his teaching very early, since when he was just 18 years. So, many people have benefited from his teaching and I am just one of them. Paul, if you have a chance to meet Zhu, please say "hi" to him for me.

[@paulstorm2854]

can you send your Chinese pinyin name? zhu doesn't remember any one with the sur name of sun. Zhu says hi, I study with him now.

[@danielsun5280]

It doesn't matter if Zhu cannot remember me. Actually, I don't think Zhu can remember anyone of our group. Maybe he can remember the two Japanese girls in the Group? They look weird in down jackes in the winter cold. It was the autumn/winter semester of 1990 (or 1989?) and the teaching was conducted in open air at the Western Campus of Beijing Foreign Studies University (北京外国语学院）. Members of the Tai Chi Group include some faculty members and students of BFSU, including Wang Tianhong, who already passed away, Qiu Xuejun, now Ambassador to Eritrea. You are learning from Zhu? Good on you! The 37 form is a great form that guarantees good health and lays a solid foundation for further study of Tai Chi. Wang Peisheng had a unique teaching style. Thanks to that, I can still vividly recall most of his teachings. He always asked students to pay close more attention to what he said and refrain from copying the movements hastily. I still do the 37 form. Aside from that, I learned Chen style from the Tian Xiu Chen lineage. Cheers! Changqing S.

[@baiyuantongbei]

It's pretty. Too bad he didn't stick with Master Wang longer to remove all the errors. The music was very nice. I'm wondering all the comments saying "very very good" and so on. How would you know? No, I mean seriously, unless you're a serious student _from_ the ycgf lineage, how would you know what "very very good" was? Curious what spawns such statements.

[@weilian2178]

You must be frighteningly skilled. I've trained across China and Japan with most of the "names" out there from Feng Zhiqiang in China to Akuzawa in Japan and Dan Harden in the US (I had some disposable income for several years :) ). All fairly reputed in the internal arts community. That being said, I never felt anyone who was even close to Zhu's level of connection and that could generate the same results with as little effort. Wondering where are you teaching these days or who are you training with?

[@pingshi1954]

The best

[@lisabai8959]

Excellent done. Best I have ever seen performed by a non-Chinese. Who is his Shifu?

[@pingshi1954]

You are my wud Taiji model

[@ambulocetusnatans]

How are the movements counted? I lost count, but that seemed like more than 37.

[@zachary7897]

A posture in taichi is more like a segment that works on a specific skill rather than a single movement (confusing I know). The founder of the northern Wu style short form, Wang Peisheng, counted up each individual movement and put it in his book. I believe it was either 200 something or 400 something movements, but I could be wrong. One of Wang Peisheng’s students, Zhao Zeren, once said that instead of thinking of the form as a few hundred movements, think of it as 10,000 micro movements, which probably makes this more confusing.

[@VladtheEmailer]

There is no Bagua in it, if so kindly point it out. Also what do you mean Tai Ji is done all at one level???? What about moves like Needle at the sea bottom? Or, White Snake Creeps Down? What tai ji have YOU been learning?

[@bursuk]

3:09, hugging the body like at 2:42 & 3:21 (arms are collapsed against the body), the hands moving independently of the feet (as in, way before), standing straight up at 4:30 (doesn't look grounded), whatever the hell is going on at 4:39, standing up again at 4:44, looks like Shaolin at 4:48, reaching for the sky at 5:58 & 6:12 (snake creeps down, not up), crossing the forearms at 8:42, what looks like a bagua step at 8:56 (per my original comment), and so on. Maybe it's not all bagua, but it's not the tai chi I learned. Also, I've known tai chi to keep generally heavy elbows (Cheng Man Ching style, if you need an example), which is just good martial form, and also seen in wing chun and aikido. That's because when you float an elbow out there, it's easy to seize it and unbalance you. By its very nature, raising an elbow raises your weight a bit. I don't understand this hand-on-the-shoulder-or-face way of starting the punch in brush knee or repulse monkey (e.g., 1:55, 5:00), with the elbow floating out there, but I know some Wu styles do this. Is that helpful?

[@baiyuantongbei]

My my... as a long-time disciple of Master Wang's lineage, I must say, your critique is certainly without any mooring. What do you know about this form? Specifically Master Wang's 37 posture form? Your talk has nothing to do with what _we_ were taught. Yes, there are dozens of criticisms _I_ could levy against this practitioner (who knows why people put themselves into the public eye to be bashed?). His form is incorrect on many points, most specifically his weight transfers and his stance distance. These are specifically and measurably defined in Wu as taught by Wang Peisheng - it is not a matter of conjecture. Your comments on other aspects are specious - you are obviously not in our group or you wouldn't bother with assertions like, "(doesn't look grounded)". And indeed, in the form, while your initial comment can be considered true as a generalization about all taiji forms - they are performed at the same level... it is also untrue with specific exceptions that you don't appear to know: namely in cloud hands and other parts where the body is indeed elevated (physically) above the normal plane of the rest of practice. The "all at the same level" concept is applied in most of the rest of the form, but as a matter of observation, its most important characteristic is that it is a function of feeling and barely visible to any but the educated eye. This makes your comment on it seem pro forma - like the habit of Chen Man Ching's students who feel "force" and instantly say, "too much force" as if they _knew_ something. Please.

[@bursuk]

The kid is good, but I don't like the form. There is a lot of bagua in it. Wang Peisheng billed this form northern Wu style taijiquan wushu, but it seems to bear little resemblance to its southern counterpart. Some tai chi principles that seem to be violated are: The arms move independently of the legs (usually before, as in Grasp the Sparrow's Tail); the arms cross the centerline and hug the body to an extent only seen in bagua, not tai chi; and there are elevation changes throughout, or standing up (tai chi is usually performed all on one level). There is even bagua-style stepping, like at 8:56. All this is in the original form designed by Wang Peisheng, so this is a very faithful demonstration. His biography says bagua is the first martial art he studied at age 12. I guess I'm just a little disappointed because I was expecting something different from this Wu style tai chi form.

[@baiyuantongbei]

And as people in China well know - no great masters ever came from Southern China to the north - simple fact not contended. The southerners learned all their Taijiquan from Yang Cheng Fu - a largely disinterested practitioner whose family forced him to learn in order to make a living. He never "got it" and his large size enabled him to beat the small people of the south quite readily - but not with anything other than brute force. As opposed to Wang Peisheng - student of Yang Yuting, student of Wang Maozhai, student of Wu Jianquan, student of Yang Banhou - unbroken lineage of great masters who actually knew what Taijiquan was. Should anyone be interested in actual scholarship on the subject of Taijiquan (as opposed to "group-based fabrication") read this book: www.lulu.com/shop/yun-zhang/the-taijiquan-classics/hardcover/product-22654230.html?ppn=1

[@baiyuantongbei]

Oh and no, "the kid" isn't very good. He obviously didn't learn in our lineage or he wouldnt be making dozens of small but critical mistakes that ensure he'll never understand Taijiquan at all.

[@paulstorm2854]

the kid was mid 40's when he made this video.

[@Gieszkanne]

@@baiyuantongbei Yang Chengfu wasnt the best but that he had no internal skill is nonsence. Yang Banhou was famous for beeing very brutal and had only a view students while Chengfu had much more. And the "southern" Wu style is from Shanghai what isnt really southern China and has its roots directly in Wu Jianquan who lived in Shanghai!

[@baiyuantongbei]

Gieszkanne no one said Yang cheng fu had no internal ability. (Your reply however appears to indicate that you would have some idea if he did or didn’t - you knew him? I thought not). But having trained for more than 20 years in a lineage in direct line to the yang family, informed by people who _know_ rather than conjecture, know this: Yang Cheng fu’s photos are in direct contradiction to the very most basic gong fu as documented in his own book (no doubt handed down from his grandpa). It would be literally impossible for him to acquire the correct understanding of Taijiquan using his specific gestures (let alone in application). He started late in life and did not study for very long or seriously under his dad. And he even was a reluctant inheritor of the practice except that he needed to find gainful employment. Further he was fat and rather tall and could easily overpower the shorter-statured southern Chinese just with brute power. It is therefore quite a reasonable inference that he was very limited in his real understanding of Taijiquan or anything internal.

[@ИгорьЕвсеев-э7ъ]

очень плохо. нет наполненности!