What interested me especially about the video below is how close it is to the style and movements that my teacher Andy Cullen at the Seven Stars Internal Arts School in Portsmouth, UK, teaches us. The form that is usually taught by Yang Family practitioners (including the Yang Family Taiji Association) is often quite different. Where as this, especially in the first section is almost identical to Andy’s teaching.
“Possibly the only known film of Yang Sau Chung (1910~1985) demonstrating the traditional Yang Family Tai Chi Chuan form. In this video you can see more clearly the movements of Yang Sau Chung as he performs the postures of his family’s Tai Chi style. Yang Sau Chung was a 4th generation Yang Family Tai Chi Chuan master, and the eldest son of the famous Yang Cheng Fu which is where we get our Yang style from”.
This would support the theory I have that Andy Cullen teaches a much earlier form of Yang Style than most in the UK I have come across. He clearly has impeccable lineage even though by his own account he learnt from three different Chinese masters in the East End of London. Actually I am not one to harp on about purity of lineage but from a historical point of view its useful to know where your form comes from and gets ‘taiji-archeologists’ like me excited.
China Tai Chi Guide
Five Elements Academy
Long Tou Shan Tai Chi School
Seven Stars Internal Arts
Traditional Tai Chi School
Wandering Dao, China
