What’s Wu ?

I shall never forget Billy Tse because he is the only person to have ever pinched my buttocks. We arrived for the ‘International Wu style Meeting’ and met the president, Delphine Bart, who introduced us to Billy. He asked if I’d brought our music with us and when I replied “no” he turned me by the shoulder and pinched my ass. What a naughty boy! Well I guess this sort of thing is OK in Hong Kong so fair enough – I will have to sort out some music one day since so many people seem to want it. With Billy was a gentleman from Hong Kong who, I was told, was a practitioner of Cheng Tin Hung style – ie. Wudang style, same as us. However, not all of the old man’s students want to go with that … which was why we got invited in the first place.

A curious event this Wu meeting – firstly to my mind because there was no-one from the Wu family styles present. It was more of a Ma style meeting, with a couple of honored guests. For those not aware of the history, Wu Quan Yu, a student of Yang Ban Hou, was responsible for creating what is now called the “Northern Wu” style, essentially based in Beijing and of which the late Wang Pei Sheng was probably the most famous exponent. One of Wu Quan Yu’s sons, Wu Jin Quan moved south to Shanghai, and taught generally in the South of China (including Hong Kong), from which we get the “Southern” Wu style. This is what most people think of as Wu style, and is still taught by the Wu family who have been based in Toronto now for quite a few years. I’ve had the pleasure of meeting and conversing with Gary Wragg, their representative in Europe, and have a good idea of what they do – it is quite similar to Wudang style – hand form, sabre form, sword form, 24 exercise neigong. Wu Jin Quan had 3 children – 2 boys and a girl – of which the elder boy naturally became the gatekeeper. The daughter married one of Wu Jin Quan’s students, Ma Yueh-Liang … and thus Ma style Wu was born. In the mid-80s they sent their second son, Ma Jiang Bao, to Europe to spread the style around. On a last historical point, it is worth pointing out that Eddie Wu (current Wu family gatekeeper) admitted in an interview recently that, for a brief period, Cheng Tin Hung had been the gatekeeper of Wu style Tai Chi. I forget the details as to why. It is worth noting that CTH was very famous in Hong Kong, not to say notorious, partly because of his “je t’aime moi non plus” relationship with the Wu family. To this day, people do refer to “Wudang” style as being “Wu style, Cheng fashion”.

At the meeting last Sunday, the Chinese lady from the states was clearly in the mainstream of Wu (family) style. The gentleman from Hong Kong was doing something that vaguely resembled what I’ve been taught: well it was Tai Chi at least, I think. But for the most part this was Ma style Tai Chi and Wu Shu (Shaolin quan), in roughly equal measures. Billy had told me earlier on the phone that there would be some “Kung Fu” demonstrations to keep the audience interested. I surmised that this meant that the “Tai Chi” side would be all forms. I was almost right – there was just one demonstration of Ma style push-hands (sorry, but if Wudang is not Wu, then neither is Ma) with Ma Jiang bao throwing students around in a pretty impressive way (but you can never really tell unless you’re on the receiving end). Ah, there was also one demo where the young “Kung Fu Man” showed some applications, very slowly.

I’m heartily sick of Tai Chi forms in demonstrations and competitions because it gives a false impression of the art (most people think Tai Chi = Form, unsurprisingly given the demos that they see). But at least comparing forms is a useful way of comparing evolutions in styles, and can, perhaps, give some indication of martial ability. In Sundays’ demonstrations, one young man got the end of his sabre cut off – maybe that’ll teach him not to use weapons made from tin foil. More generally with the forms, it seemed to me that the lady doing Wu style was far closer to what I’ve been taught than the gentleman from Hong Kong, who’s supposed to be doing the same style as me.

It reminds me of a story I once heard from Dan. Cheng Tin Hung was walking in a park in Hong Kong with a friend and saw some people practicing sword form. “Hmm” he said “that form looks familiar – almost like what I teach”. It turned out that the teacher in the park was a student of a student of Cheng Tin Hung. Thus change happens. We do not want to fanatically mimic what the grandmaster was doing half a century ago. Martial arts are living things which change with time (part of the reason I find the various “Original Yang Lu Chan” styles to be laughable, even if some their exponents are skilled martial artists). So, interestingly enough, it would seem Wudang style – as taught by Dan Docherty - is far closer to Wu family style than what the Ma’s are doing, and that Cheng Tin Hung’s teaching has evolved in various ways according to his students and to the way in which he taught different things to different people. So some parts of the Ma form appeared to me a little like Wu/Wudang square form … but then that’s the only form that Irving Leong ever learnt (Montreal, another CTH student), so maybe that’s the same with the Mas? On that note, I learnt on the forum that it is only since Eddie Wu has been gatekeeper that the Wu family have taught round form to anyone except a few family members.

It would appear then that a lot of people have not had a “complete transmission” and that very, very few people in the world of Tai Chi Chuan have any notion of martial application. The result is that in one style, with different students of a single teacher, you get a variety of results – one the one hand strongly focused forms full of applications and martial intent, and on the other softened out square form where the hands go left then right and it looks great.

My last demo of the three days was the advanced short form, which I’ve always enjoyed doing fast (or rather, with clear variations in speed). I made it clear that the applications were there, and even gave a Chen-like smack with the famous “bras d’honneur” movement. I ended up feeling like I was doing Kung Fu.