Yang Style Tai Chi Chuan Twenty-Character Motto

“Extend the elbows outward; leave a hollow in the armpits. The elbows pull down the tops of the shoulders, connect the wrists and carry along the fingers”

Looking Ahead: Tai Chi Chuan In 2002 And Beyond

An Interview with Masters Yang Zhenduo and Yang Jun
Conducted, and translated, by Jeremy Blodgett

 

JB: At the Taiyuan competition this summer we got to see many Yang style practitioners, but some practiced quite differently than we do. Why are there so many different types of Yang style Taijiquan now?

Bow Steps: Two Important Points

In Yang Zhenduo’s book, Zhongguo Yang Shi Taiji, 1997, for each move there is a section called “Important Points”. The important points are combined for left and right ward off. Points three and four of this group are particularly eloquent, and we include a translation of them here.

Yang Style Tai Chi Saber (太极刀)

Traditional Yang Style Tai Chi saber belongs to the short weapon in the Yang Style Tradition. It came from Yang Style Tai Chi Chuan empty hand form. The requirements, the method, the style and the characteristics of Yang Style Tai Chi Saber are basically the same as the empty form. Even some of the postures are like the empty hand form. Plus, being equipped with the steel saber, the form is more powerful and with a higher spirit. It has a unique style of its own.

Palm Methods

Palm Methods (zhang fa)

The palm methods are a sub-category of the hand methods. The palm methods can be broadly divided into two classes, comprising approximately nine types.

The first class, “seated wrist upright palm” (zuo wan li zhang xing) contains five types of palm methods:

1. Standing palm (li zhang)
2. Square palm (zheng zhang)
3. Downward palm (fu zhang)
4. Outward turned palm (fan zhang)
5. Level palm (ping zhang)

The second class, “straight extended” (zhi shen xing), contains four types of palm methods:

1. Upward palm (yang zhang)
2. Inclined palm (ce zhang)
3. Downward hanging palm (chui zhang)
4. Straight palm (zhi zhang)