A theory, and a little supposition…
Tsui,
Don’t even bother trying to argue Chang San-feng’s existence with GLW. I’ve tried it. You’d get better results trying to drill a hole in a brick wall with your forehead.
And don’t bother to compare him to any biblical figures. And don’t for Pete’s sake make correspondences between the Classics and religious texts. They hate that.
There are probably 1000 stories, all of them similar, but partly contradictory. There are pieces, however, that fit together with a little imagination and reading between the lines, and of course, you might have to take as a given what most everyone else says is a lie.
Many people when they consider Chang as having invented Taiji, picture him as having come up with something similar to the modern styles, but it’s a pretty big leap between nothing at all, or even Shaolin martial arts to modern Taiji. One theory I have heard recently was that Chang wanted reflexive techniques, and invented 10 very simple short fa-jing forms, which do indeed give reflexive technique (I have known them for years, but never thought about Chang inventing them until I was discussing the creation of Taiji with friends in New Jersey a few months ago). These 10 forms build your energy tremendously, something that was probably a side effect at first. I learned them as basic point striking techniques, but they go beyond just technique into reflex actions. Also, every time I practice one at a fa-jing pace a few times, I become extremely yang and aggressive for a while.
Anyway, those forms have little resemblance to Taiji in its modern form. The theory goes that Chang experimented some more and came up with devastating combo strikes instead of simple set-ups and main strikes. So his art evolved a little bit. Probably through some acupuncture knowledge, meditation, and qigong and energetic knowledge he picked up at Shaolin, he developed 12 more sets of movements, some of which bear a striking resemblance to to the supposed earlier forms he invented. Each one of these movements supposedly works upon an individual meridian at a healing level when done with fa-jing, has a secondary qigong effect when done slowly, and also does specific energetic damage through combinations of points struck. Some of them are said to do the exact reverse of the healing effect when used in a fight. Anyway, here we see a few similarities between these short forms and modern Taiji, as some of the postures are very similar to modern Taiji postures. For instance, the ones that heal the heart and the small intestine end in postures strikingly similar to Brush Knee Twist Step and Fan Through Back, which are said to heal those same organs respectively.
Up until now, the forms have been very short, all fa-jing, and are translated easily into sparring and San Sau training. The next step in the evolution of Taiji, according to this theory, is where Chang tries to create longer forms, each focusing on a particular meridian. I’m not quite sure what happened at this stage, if the theory holds true, as some of the meridians have two forms for them, while others are lumped together all in one form. However, we really start to see similarities to modern Taiji at this stage. Not only are postures the same as in modern Taiji, but in the final several forms, there is a balance between slow and explosive, as in the “older” forms of modern Taiji. The first 6 of these forms are all fa-jing, while the last 6 contain slow qigong movements in between explosive movements. It was also at this stage that Push Hands came into being. The forms were no longer easily translated into simple fighting methods, but the core methods of each form were taken and used to create push hands like exercises. They are actually somewhere between push hands and San Sau training, technically.
There’s really too much to discuss about this stuff in just one post. But if I may make some speculations of my own, considering that I have put forth this theory of Taiji’s evolution now.
Supposedly, Yang Lu-chan learned through a hole in the wall. He heard fa-jing training while passing by and caught a glimpse of either Chang’s first 10 forms or the next 12 in the evolutionary chain here. I really don’t see how he could have learned Chen style forms at this stage without actual instruction, but these are pretty easy to pick up, and easy to conceal as they are only a second or two long each. When the challenger came to fight the Chen master and he was away, Yang accepted and beat him, using the reflex action non-techniques he had gleaned through the crack in the wall. Chen’s top students recognised this, and informed the master, who tested Yang and decided to accept him as a disciple. And history pretty much picks it up from there.
This is all supposition of course. I think it would be really interesting if these 10 or 12 forms were released by the Chen family, providing a link between the styles I practice and their own art better than the one history provides. However, it was around this time that many of the old forms and training methods were abandoned, so we may never know. And also, about Yang’s learning through a crack in the wall: The Chinese say that there are “large” people in the world, those who already have the internal and quickly learn this kind of stuff. Maybe Yang was one of them. Maybe all it took was a nudge in the right direction.
Anyway, it’s just one theory.
“I put forth my power and he was broken.
I withdrew my power and he was ground into fine dust.”
-Aleister Crowley, The Vision and the Voice
