Home - Guang Ping Yang Tai Chi Ch'uan
Guang Ping Yang Tai Chi Chuan, as taught at Rubbo Art of Energy, is a powerful, effective system of self-defense. Master Donald Rubbo is one of the few Masters who will share the secret inner teachings of Tai Chi Chuan, and will guide you as you develop internal power and cultivate an effortless and tireless aspect to your practice.
In the 1960’s, when Tai Chi Chuan was brought to the West, it was taught as a system of exercise for health, and has often been described as “moving meditation.” Practiced slowly, it increases strength, balance and coordination. However, Tai Chi Chuan is a powerful, effective martial art, and one should approach one’s study with the proper respect and understanding of this ancient fighting art.
Basic Tai Chi Principles
History of Tai Chi Ch'uan
The art of Tai Chi Ch'uan was created by Chang San Feng in approximately 1270 A.D. Legend has it that Chang San Feng was inspired by watching combat between a snake and a crane, observing the grace and flow of these creatures. When the snake would strike, the crane would gracefully retreat. When the crane attacked, the snake would coil. In this contest the principles of yin and yang, where the soft overcomes the hard, became evident.
The forms and postures as they were originally performed are no longer seen today, but the 'operating principles' were codified in the writing of Chang San Feng and are enacted today in modern forms.
The form of Tai Chi Chuan is based on the ideas from Taoism, a philosophy or world view derived from the I Ching (Book of Changes) and from the writings of Lao Tzu. The I Ching, which embodies the idea of yin and yang and their opposition, alternation and interaction, originated and was developed in the 2nd and 3rd centuries, B.C.E. Lao Tzu wrote the Tao Te Ching sometime during the 5th century, B.C.E. One of the most common images in this book is water, which is soft and yielding but which can overcome the hardest of substances. So too is Tai Chi Chuan, seemingly soft and yielding, but holding the capacity for great power.
Tai Chi Ch’uan translates as “Supreme Ultimate Boxing"
The Supreme Ultimate refers to the Tao (Dao), the framework within which Yin and Yang manifest in nature. Tao is the Path or the Way. Yin and Yang represent opposite aspects of the universe. One cannot exist without the other, one contains the seeds of the other, and each is opposite in relation to the other. Examples of Yin and Yang are day and night, light and dark, empty and full, male and female.
Tai Chi Chuan therefore indicates that the art contains within itself (in the movements, shapes and patterns of breathing) all that is necessary for these dynamic forces to interact and be reconciled. The character Ch'uan refers to a school or method of boxing or combat. Tai Chi Chuan, as it was originally conceived, is a sophisticated method of self-defense based on the reconciliation of dynamically interacting forces. The Tai Chi Chuan practitioner seeks to neutralize the opponent's use of force before applying a countering force. In this give and take, this interplay of energies, Tai Chi Chuan finds its highest expression as a form of self-defense
A Brief History of Guang Ping Yang Tai Chi
The Guang Ping form is traced back to the great Tai Chi Master Yang Lu-Chan (1799-1872), who had been adopted by the Chen family and had learned the Chen style Tai Chi Chuan from them. Yang Lu-Chan moved his family from the Chen village to the town of Guang Ping, and modified the Chen form. The stances of this modified form were not as low as the Chen form, with a combination of hard and soft styles, long and small circles and incorporated double jump kicks, and other wide sweeping kicks. The movements were long and deep, more energetic, with more apparent martial combat character. This modified Chen style became known as Guang Ping Yang Tai Chi Chuan.
Yang Lu-chan taught his son, Yang Pan-Hou, the Guang Ping Yang Tai Chi Chuan. Yang Pan-Hou subsequently became the official teacher for the Imperial court of the Manchus. The indigenous Chinese, known as the Han, had been subjugated by the Manchus and therefore Yang Pan-Hou did not want to pass down the family's true art. Also, the Manchurians were aristocrats and were not inclined to the more strenuous exercises, so Yang Pan-Hou adapted the his father’s Guang Ping form to be more delicate and less martial, and taught them a very elegant, middle-to-small frame form. This is the Yang Tai Chi Chuan style that has come to be known as the Beijing Yang style. Yang Pan-Hou secretly taught the real art (the Guang Ping style) only to select students who were not his family, who then taught it to only a few of their students and the art was subsequently lost to the Yang family.
Yang Pan-Hou's main student was Wang Jiao-Yu, a native Chinese and stableman for the Imperial family. Wang Jiao-Yu had been secretly watching Yang Pan-Hou teach the Manchus, and was caught by Yang Pan-Yu late one night practicing the form. Yang Pan-Hou then taught Wang Jiao-Yu the Guang Ping Yang Tai Chi Chuan form.
Grandmaster Kuo Lien Ying, one of the most distinguished and revered martial artists of the twentieth century, learned Guang Ping Yang Tai Chi Chuan from Wang Jiao-Yu. Wang Jiao-Yu, 112 years of age at the time, accepted Kuo as one of very few disciples, and Kuo studied with him in the Taoist temple until the his teacher died at 121 years of age. From Wang's teaching, Kuo learned all the true skill and essence of Guang Ping Yang Tai Chi, and later became the primary teacher of this particular form of Tai Chi Chuan.
Grandmaster Kuo Lien Ying moved to San Francisco in the early 1960’s and opened one of the first martial arts studios in America. One of his most devoted students was Bing Gong, who learned the Guang Ping Tai Chi Chuan, Shao Lin Chuan, and Hsing-I from him. Donald and Cheryl Lynne studied Shao Lin Ch'uan with Grandmaster Kuo Lien Ying and Guang Ping Yang Tai Chi Chuan with Bing Gong.