No Fa-Jing in Yang Tai Chi Form Practicing
Column by Grandmaster Doc-Fai Wong
INSIDE KUNG-FU MAGAZINE
July 2004 Issue
In the March 2004 issue, I talked about choy li fut?s jing or ging. I
mentioned that I learned my fa-jing from choy li ful kung-fu, not from tai
chi. Some people think that I put fa-jing into choy li fut, because most
other choy li fut practitioners don?t show jing when they do their forms.
When they see me using jing, they believe my tai chi training might have
become mixed with choy li fut and that now I am doing a chop suey kung-fu!
They wonder if my choy li fut style is still pure. I pointed out that Yang
tai chi players don?t do fa-jing. I wrote: ?As most tai chi practitioners
know, Yang tai chi does not practice fa-jing.? Right away a couple of
readers fired off e-mails, insisting that Yang tai chi does indeed use
fa-jing. They mentioned a tai chi instructor from Australia who wrote that
fa-jing is part of Yang tai chi. They were concerned that I had misled my
readers: therefore I want to clarify the issue here.
Yes, the Yang family has fa-jing training. When I wrote my last column
(entitled ?Jing in Choy Li Fut?) I was focused on choy li fut kung-fu. I
didn?t want to get side-tracked into a complete discussion of tai chi. What
I wanted to communicate is that most people who practice Yang tai chi are
not supposed to show any fa-jing in the form practice. This is because very
few Yang tai chi players practice the small circle form. This also holds
true for other styles of tai chi (with the notable exception of Chen style).
Let me explain. Fa-jing is for martial arts training. However, 95 percent of
those learning Yang tai chi do it for health and relaxation, not for
fighting. Today, a vast majority of Yang style instructors are not trained
for fa-jing. The fa-jing training of the Yang family is not taught using the
regular forms most people practice. The Yang family has another form the
fast form, also called the small circle form ? that is specifically for
fa-jing training. I teach that form to my students once they have mastered
the regular forms. But aside from the instructors I teach in the Plum
Blossom International Federation, few tai chi instructors learn the fast
form today.
In ancient times, fa-jing was not taught to outsiders of the Yang family.
Therefore, the teachers of today?s instructors had never learned fa-jing and
could not have taught it. If a modern-day instructor knows fa-jing, he
probably got it from other martial arts training. Besides the lineage of my
teacher, Dr. Hu Yuen Chou, other great teachers of tai chi such as Fu Zhong
Wen, Dong Ying Jie, Yang Zhen Duo, and Cheng Man Ching didn?t show fa-jing
in their forms. Has anyone seen the Chinese contemporary Yang 24 form, the
40 form and the 88 form with fa-jing? Please let me know (of course, not
counting the videos from the Australian instructor).
And, it?s not only the Yang tai chi style that doesn?t show fa-jing in the
form. The Guang Ping Yang style, Wu, and Sun styles of tai chi (as well as
some other branches) don?t show fa-jing. The Chen style is the exception.
That doesn?t mean those tai chi styles have no fa-jing teaching for their
closed- door disciples. When tai chi is taught for fighting then fa-jing
training is essential. I am sure that all advanced tai chi levels have
fa-jing training.
Forty-five years ago when I was a tai chi student, I saw no one from Chen or
Yang style that could show me fa-jing. That was what I meant to say in my
previous column. I wish that this Australian Yang tai chi instructor was
around when I was learning to show me his Yang fa-jing. I could have learned
it from him. I wish I had met him 45 years ago. Where was he at that time?
The point is, regular Yang forms, when practiced, should not be done with
fa-jing. That?s not the same as saying that the Yang family didn?t teach
fa-jing.
In the old days, no family names divided tai chi into different styles. From
Yang Lu Chan to Yang Cheng Fu, only one name was used: tai chi chuan. When
Yang Cheng Fu promoted tai chi and it became popular, Wu Jian Quan started
to call his style Wu tai chi. Now when we talk about Yang tai chi, we are
talking about Yang Cheng Fu?s teaching. The teaching style of Yang tai chi
in Australia might very well have come from the Yang family, but it is not
what most people practice in China. However, I am happy that in Australia
there is an instructor who is able to promote the real essence of tai chi
chuan (that is to say as a fighting martial art). I also want my readers to
understand I was not misleading them, because regular Yang tai chi forms
should be practiced without fa-jing.