My style stresses striking, throwing, and takedowns from the clinch. Long range strikes are adequately represented, kicks are conservative.
Since these are the best uses of my style, that’s how I use my style. My flavor of it is different than some, usually more because of differing body type than “their style” being different.
Know your style if that is your goal. Knowing your style is different than using a smattering of moves from it: if the style has validity, then there should be a body of moves that support each other, play off of each other’s strengths, and offset weaknesses. Thus, if one piecemeal uses snippets of the style, one who knows the style should be aware of what must be made up for in order to maintain function in fighting.
Also, my style is not what someone told anyone my style is, it is what I made my own by testing it against as many people as reasonably possible. What I was told my style was was sometimes right and sometimes wrong: what is refined to work makes obvious what the style really is.
Since my style is not solitary, and is, like all martial arts, based on what I and another might do, then it cannot be adequately refined on my own. Martial technique, like discussion, only exists in the context of two or more people. To refine fighting technique, you must have the will to study and perform the technique until you get it right, paired with someone who, by the very nature of not wanting to be on the wrong end of the technique, has the will (and preferably, the qualifications) to try to stop you.
Since my style is not about fighting others with the same style, or others with similar styles, then how I engage in training with others must be inclusive. Provided I don’t think a person is merely worthless to train with or out for trouble, I should strive to train ting jing against any reasonable stylist. To do so, I should seek to be flexible in how I train ting jing, so that the game does not favor me, but reasonably allows all an equal chance. Conversely, I should play others’ games regardless of whether they have an edge at that game, so that my kung fu is about responses to any method, not just kung fu methods.
If a yang stylist wants to play push hands, I’ll not do head manipulations that might be out of their rule set, I’ll refrain from other techniques that are outside the purview of that drill, and I’ll try to analyze actively.
If a bjj guy wants to roll, then I should roll.
If a SC guy wants to play their game, I should do that.