I read an article on taichi-online.com, from which following exerpt comes:
“In any event his own teacher, Yang Cheng-fu was defeated in Peking in the mid-1930s by Wan Lai-sheng, a hard stylist. (Wan is listed in ‘Asian Fighting Arts’ by Draeger and Smith as practising Tzujan Men - Spontaneous Boxing). I should point out that, as soon as he heard of Yang’s defeat, Wu Jin-chuan of Wu style Tai Chi sought out and defeated Wan. At that time Yang was about 50 years of age while Wu was 13 years older! Funnily enough Wan still lives in Peking - teaching Tai Chi!”
Heh, heh. Actually Wan Lai Sheng taught his art of Ziranmen until he died. I’ve heard he fought many challenge matches and won most of them. Not sure about the specific ones mentioned.
Yeah, it’s pretty soft. You can buy a vcd from plumpub of people from Wan’s line doing Ziranmen (it includes footage of Wan as a very old man performing the forms too). The taiji defeat story sounds like BS as he doesn’t seem to have been too big in taiji, and ziranmen doesn’t look much more hard and “external” than taiji. He was an expert in a Shaolin six harmony boxing system too, though.
The story I heard, from a teacher who was a direct student of Wan I Sheng’s, says this is a true story and even though Yang lost the fight, his reputation gained as a result of fighting such a famous and successful fighter. He also told us it wasn’t much of a fight and only lasted a few seconds.
