afterwards. I became rather annoyed with myself as Erle was almost 20 years older and I was disgusted with the fact that I had begun to tire while he appeared all fresh! Upon sensing my annoyance, he simply put his arm around my shoulders and told me that I had given him a serious workout and that he had had to use his experience to hold me at bay and that I had improved vastly over the years. Happy as I was at hearing this, it still wasn’t enough to placate me. Later, he would go on to explain and show me the how? It was simple. I had to shake my head in disbelief. Why hadn’t I seen it or worked it out? The proverbial “not seeing the wood for the trees” I guess! Anyhow, the point of telling you about the above is, to show that Cheng could not have had such a relationship with Yang. If, and virtually almost all the evidence points to that, he was only a periphery student in his public class then he would not have had the privilege to join hands with Yang! By approaching Yang directly, not only was he in breach of protocol but was declaring that he was worthy of joining hands with him. Of course, the truth of the matter is that we will really never know for certain — the only thing we know for sure is Yang’s response! So, why didn’t Cheng learn from this? Why did he “face” Yang a second time? I will answer these questions in the concluding remarks later. Taijiquan tiyong quanshu - Essence and Applications of Taijiquan and Other Publications We now need to deal with the publications of the various books on the subject of Taijiquan with reference to Yang’s 1934 book - Taijiquan tiyong quanshu - Essence and Applications of Taijiquan. Chen Wei-ming’s first book, Taiji Quan Shu - The Art of Taiji Boxing - was published in 1925, followed by Taiji Da Wen - Answering Questions About Taiji - in 1929. Taiji Quan Shiyong Fa - Methods of Applying Taiji Boxing - appeared in 1931, co-authored by Yang Cheng-fu and Dong Yingjie. In the preface to the 1934 book credited to Yang Cheng-fu, we are told by the ‘author’: Later I asked my student, Chen Weiming, to publish a book based on my oral instruction… Thinking now about Mr. Chen Weiming’s book, it only explains the process of training the solo form. Moreover, in reviewing my form postures from ten years ago, they are not as good as today’s. Today, at the request of my students, I am following through by compiling the complete methodology of form and function into a complete volume, including the fundamental training method, plus tuishou and dalu, and I’ve added the most recent photographs. I am committing this to printing order to make it available to the public.48
At a first glance there is absolutely nothing wrong with the above statement. We are simply being told that Yang Cheng-fu wished to update, both, the content and photographs of the original publication he had authorized ten years earlier, authored by his student Chen Weiming. However, upon closer scrutiny and in light of other historical information, the text begins to fall apart! Yang says that he was not happy with the photograph’s from 10 years ago! Since his preface is dated 1933, we can assume that the photographs appearing in Chen Weiming’s book were taken around 1923. The book itself, as we can see from above, was published in 1925. Therefore, the preface is suggesting that the 1934 book is the update of the 1925 book, which includes the now familiar images of Yang Cheng-fu practicing his form. However, we have a problem… Taiji Quan Shiyong Fa had already been published in 1931, co-authored by Yang and Dong. All the updated images appearing in the 1934 publication had already been printed in the 1931 collaboration, along with a lot of the content! In fact, upon close inspection, it becomes clearly apparent that the 1934 publication is actually a revision of the 1931 written by Dong! So, why edit a book which has only been in print for a mere 2-3 years? Well, usually, a book is edited when new information is being added to the original content or perhaps an argument or thought is being expanded upon , etc. However, when the 1931 book is compared to the 1934, we find that the latter has less of the original content!
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