Finally, a translation of the Gu Ruzhang (Ku Yu Chang) Tai Chi book, Taiji Boxing, by Brennan Translation. This is the style (a version of it, in the same lineage) of Tai Chi that I personally practice. The form in the book is the long form that he learned from Yang Jian Hou, and you should recognise the postures from other Yang forms. It’s not just a book on form movements, there’s a lot of theory here, much of it from the Tai Chi classics, so it’s worth a read for practitioners of any style.
Master Gu Ru Zhang was also known as “King of Iron Palm”, mainly for doing things like this:
His approach to martial arts was to take both Internet and External as a whole. He was most known for his Northern Shaolin, but as his Tai Chi book demonstrates, he practiced soft style martial arts as well, including XingYi and Tai Chi. He was an early proponent of the idea of cross training (mixing martial arts). He obviously saw this as beneficial, and trained in many arts, and enjoyed exchanges with different masters.
Hi, here’s somebody doing the form – starts at 2.10:
Reblogged this on Gathering of Wisdom.
Do you have a video of the Gu Style Yang Long Form?
Yes Victor, I agree – if you’re doing your “internals” like Tai Chi correctly then there is not really much cardio vascular exercise (weapons forms and more vigorous internals like XingYi and Bagua are an exception here). Your heart needs to be exercised like any other muscle for health. Adding an “external” form to your daily routine can give you what you might not be getting from your usual “internal” workout.
Seems to me that if one only practices external MA or internal MA then one is only working one side of the Tao symbol of Yin/Yang.
Victor Amenta