Posted by bruce ching on January 05, 1999 at 23:33:05:
In Reply to: Where to start... posted by Lee W. on January 01, 1999 at 23:15:01:
Hi, Lee,
Happy New Year to you, too. Thanks for your clarifications. I have a few comments/questions about some of them.
: [re. comments on Su style alignment of the back, pelvis, and rear leg]
Interesting. The Wu style that I’ve seen also has a forward tuck and folds into the front kua in the forward stance. BTW, Kumar Frantzis credits Wu style w/ healing his lower back injury, after Yang style healed his upper back but did not heal the lower back. It would indeed be helpful if someone who practices Wu style would comment here.
: The question about the spirit in the photograph is the next and possibly easiest one to tackle.
[re. comparison of photos of Fu Zhongwen and Fu Shengyuan forms]
:The overall impression is much less martial and not as spirited. This is one photo. The entire book is similar. The form is correct but lacks the same fire that FZW displayed even in his later years.
: In both FZW and FSY's pictures, the posture is "correct" but there is a certain "Something" in FZW's that is more martial and "spirited"
Your observations may well be correct, but I’m a bit wary of comparing photos for “spirit” unless each of the models asserts that he gave the postures his best (or at least representative) efforts; it may be, e.g., that someone just didn’t want to show much on a particular day. (Surely we’ve all seen teachers who weren’t inspired to show much whenever cameras were around.) Movement is more revealing, even if the model isn’t inspired to do his best. What is your impression of videotape of FZW and FSY? I think FSY seems spirited enough when he throws his son around. I do agree that there are differences in something about their forms; e.g., more of a sort of rolling at beginning of FZW’s, if I remember correctly.
: As to why the difference between FZW and his son, I think it has more to do with the times than anything else. Fu Shengyuan was born in 1931. By the time he was 20 (1951), he had lived through Japan's occupation of China, the attempt of Chiang Kaishek to set up the Nationalist government, the war between Chiang Kaishek and Mao Tsetung, the setting up of the New China communist government... Quite a lot to grow up through. This might very seriously impede the ability of a father to train a son to the level he wishes. Following 1950 you have the Great Leap forward, a lot of hard times and then in 1966 (FSY would have been 35) you have the beginning of the Cultural Revolution. Familys got moved around, people have lives and jobs. I would say that the difference is probably somewhere in this tumult. Another part is very probably not unlike a lot of us with our fathers. FZW may have indeed pointed out these things and FSY may have (as I have with my own father) thought that he was doing what he was being taught...but not really.
The events that you cited apply generally across the generations in the PRC, and I think that they had a lot to do with the decline of the state of the art. But the alignment of the back is such a fundamental part of a style that I’m skeptical of assertions that appear to mean something like “a master didn’t notice what he was doing with his back even though it’s plain enough to the rest of us that we all can easily see where he went wrong.” I realize that’s probably more strongly stated than what you’ve said about the comparisons; I’m just trying to convey in an obvious way the need to be careful when we draw certain types of conclusions from pictures. It may be that the dynamics of the use of the back are substantially similar in FZW’s and FSY’s forms even though the forward lean is more pronounced in FSY’s; I don’t know.
- bruce ching