Saturday, May 30, 2009

This upbeat, albeit French song bearing clip is almost 10 minutes of a workshop by Wang Yen-Nien, pupil of Zhang Qin-Lin. Wang Yen-Nien was behind many of the Michuan transmissions and thanks to him and those who sought him out and worked with him the Michuan taijiquan tradition will endure.

The michuan tradition apparently originates with Yang Luchan who in the employment of the Manchu Rulers of the late Qing chose to keep some of his teaching secret from his employers and thus creates and passed along to his sons a secret style of taijiquan, while he created another form for his employers which in modified version is the Yang long form that passed through Cheng-fu, who it would appear never received the Michuan teachings from his father.
Instead his father chose to impart their knowledge to pupil of Cheng-fu whom he approved of greatly, this mans name was Zhang Qin-lin and he won an 0pen fighting tournament in which life was lost, using taijiquan. He retired as a taoist and Wang Yen-Nien met him when Yen-Nien was still a child.