This is the story of how three men from the US became seventh-generation disciples of Yang Lu Chan, the creator of Imperial Yang style of tai chi.
On the 25th April and until to the 5 of May, Ray Abeyta and Wolf Carter from the Texas School of Tai Chi in El Paso and Michael Paler from Colorado Springs will on the invitation of Dr. John Fung, officially a sixth-generation disciple of Imperial Yang Style will visit Beijing, to spend 10 days learning from his kung fu sister Wei XiLan the daughter of the late GM Wei Shuren. These three men will become the first Americans to be included in this particular linage of tai chi.
The story began when on the request of Ray Abeyta, Dr John Fung a 6th generation lineage holder of Imperial Yang living in Sydney Australia visited El Paso to teach a number of seminars. On seeing the dedication, skills, plus attitudes and personalities of Ray, Wolf and Michael as well as with much reflection Dr Fung decided to ask them if they would like to become disciples and join the Imperial tai chi family.
Dr John Fung’s lineage:
Wei Shuren – Wang Yongquan – Yang Jianhou – Yang Luchan.
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Yang Lu Chan
This in itself is a huge deal for the tai chi community in the United States as Ray and his fellow tai chi brothers are all keen to return and share their knowledge with those who attend their classes as well as further afield.
Ray said. “There are other Yang family organizations, but this is the only one considered Imperial Yang style. You have to remember originally, Yang Lu Chan was hired by the emperor to teach his guards how to fight. He was the best fighter in the land back then. That continued in Beijing, where he continued to teach people. We are going to become official disciples of this linage. Very few people are picked. I don’t deserve it, but I’ll take it. I’ve going to do my best to honour the art.”
Knowing what I do of Ray I know this to be true as he is already sharing the information he’s learned from Dr. John Fung not only to the people in his existing classes in El Paso, but also to students in Santa Fe where he teaches every three months, and also with some people up in Colorado Springs. Anywhere people want to learn, Ray will share with them.
Catching up with the group on my return to Beijing from Cebu I enjoyed listening to their stories and the whole groups enthusiasm for this rare art which is effectively what Bruce Frantzis calls Old Yang Style Taichi. An art that comes directly from Yang Lu Chan who was said to have only taught the emperor’s guard, the aristocracy and a select few disciples to a high level of excellence. The best of these students were his sons Yang Chien Hou, and Yang Pan Hou and Wu Chuan Yu from which Wu Style Taichi originates and which then subsequently led to the development of Sun Style Taichi.
Over some delicious Yunnan food we discussed taichi and martial arts related topics. Listening to John Fung and Ray I was struck by their genuine openness, kindness, knowledge and of course passion to share this fascinating art.
If you are ever in Sydney, Australia or Texas, USA and would like to learn more about Imperial Style Taichi. Check out the following links:
Sydney: with Dr John Fung – www.imperialtaichi.com
Texas: Ray Abyeta – Www.TexasSchoolTaiChi.com
Colorado Springs: Michael Paler – www.taichicoloradosprings.com
At http://www.studymartialarts.org we are keen to support those on their various epic martial arts journeys so please let us know if you have anything you would like to share.
He was a shooting star – brilliant, breathtaking, rare, and gone too soon. But in his 32 years, Bruce Lee practiced what he preached, reaching a near-perfect physical and mental state few can even fathom. Obviously this took him his entire life to reach; there are ways that we can learn from Bruce’s lessons and mishaps so that we can reach our own self-perfection.
From that point onward, Bruce upped his conditioning routines and the results can be readily seen in any of his movies (notice, too, that his physique improves from one movie to the next, until you see his ultimate physical perfection in Enter the Dragon). Bruce was meticulous in recording his routines, so we are lucky to have many of them still. One will notice while looking through them, though, that his routines evolved over time. The being said, he always had a few exercises he stuck with until his death in 1973, the main one being running (usually with his dog, Bobo). Bruce ran not just for conditioning, but for mental clarity, which was needed more and more as he approached the end of his life. The point here is three-fold: 1. Jeet Kune Do has a focus on conditioning, 2. conditioning is important for both mental clarity and fighting ability, and 3. the forms of conditioning evolved over time.
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