History & styles

Kuang Ping (Guang Ping) Yang style

Among the many branches of Yang-style t'ai chi, Kuang Ping stands out for its name, its history and its look. It is named after a place rather than a person, and it is often described as preserving an earlier, more compact and more martial flavour than the large-frame form familiar from parks around the world.

A name from a place

Kuang Ping (in pinyin, Guang Ping) refers to Guangping, the prefecture from which the Yang family came. Wikipedia's article on Yang Luchan places his family in Yongnian County in Hebei's Guangping Prefecture, and Wikipedia's article on Kuo Lien-ying describes Guang Ping Yang tai chi as the form that has become known by that name, tracing it through Yang Banhou, the son of Yang Luchan.

Kuo Lien-ying

The teacher most closely associated with the branch in North America is Kuo Lien-ying. The Wikipedia article describes him as one of the most distinguished martial artists of the twentieth century and outlines a wide training. As a boy he studied Northern Shaolin, and later he became one of four inner-door disciples of Wang Jiao-yu, himself described as a student of Yang Banhou; it was from Wang Jiao-yu, the article says, that Kuo learned the Guang Ping form. He also studied xingyiquan. After leaving for Taiwan, where the article names Tchoung Ta-tchen as his pushing-hands training partner, he settled in San Francisco's Chinatown. The article credits him with bringing Guang Ping Yang tai chi to the United States, while flagging that statement as needing a citation. Wikipedia gives the year of his death as 1984.

Some parts of Kuo's biography, including tales of guarding gold caravans and challenging a world boxing champion, are told with words such as "reportedly" and "allegedly". They belong to the colourful tradition of martial biography and are best enjoyed as such.

What distinguishes it

Descriptions vary between teachers, and branches of Kuang Ping differ from one another, so the points below are general tendencies rather than rules.

• A more compact, lively feel. Many players describe the form as brisker and more obviously martial than the large-frame form, with more visible application in each posture.
• Stances and footwork. The stances are often firm and the steps decisive, with clear changes of weight.
• Power in the form. Some movements keep releases of power, jumps or stamps that the large-frame form smoothed away.
• A different posture count and order. The sequence resembles the familiar Yang form but has its own arrangement, and many teachers teach it in sections.

Compared with the large-frame form

Wikipedia's Yang-style article describes how Yang Chengfu removed the most vigorous releases of power, jumps and stamps from the solo form to emphasise the large frame, while keeping them in the weapons forms, and developed a shortened version easier to teach to busy modern students. That large-frame form is the Yang style most people meet first: even-paced, open, extended and calm.

Kuang Ping players often describe their form as descending from an earlier stage of the family's teaching, through Yang Banhou rather than through Yang Chengfu. Whether every detail of that claim holds, the practical difference is easy to see: the large-frame form invites students to relax and expand, while Kuang Ping tends to ask them to stay compact and ready. Neither is better. They train different emphases within the same family of principles, and the page on comparing t'ai chi styles explains why such comparisons are harder than they look.

What a beginning course usually covers

A beginning Kuang Ping course in most schools looks much like any traditional t'ai chi course, with its own form at the centre:

1. Warm-ups and loosening for the waist, hips, shoulders and knees.
2. Stances and stepping, practised slowly and repeatedly before the form.
3. The first section of the form, taught a few postures at a time.
4. Simple applications, shown with a partner to explain what a posture does.
5. Standing and breathing exercises of the kind described on the qigong page.

Later courses complete the form and add partner work and weapons. As with any class, start at a comfortable height, keep your knees in line with your toes and speak to a teacher about any joint that complains; the page on what to expect as a new student has more on the first few weeks.

The wider family

Kuang Ping is one of several threads through which the Yang family's teaching reached North America. The page on Tchoung Ta-tchen follows another, and the history of t'ai chi places both in the larger story.