Nov 09 Training with Ma Lee Yang and Ip Tai Tak…

This article was written in the year 2000…

Those of you that know me know that I have little love or respect for the oriental and occidental meglomaniacal Martial Art Mastersîthat litter our arts.  Those that charge extortionate fees for ìdiscipleshipsî and advertise with cheap fairground tricks and treat other human beings as chattels and bulls eye targets will get short shrift from me whatever their rank, title or nationality.  We all bleed.  So it takes someone special to get me into an aeroplane for fourteen hours to take me to a place I hate.

This time it was Virgin Atlantic.  Iíd already flown British Airways and Cathay Pacific, so this time it had to be Virgin and in my estimation they are the best because of their interior decor, food and in flight entertainment (when it works!).

A fourteen hour flight and shuttle bus ride later we are ensconced in our hotel and overcoming jet lag.  I won’t bore you all with the travel and tourist details because I hate Hong Kong, it’s hot, crowded and humid.  A shoppers and clubber’s paradise, both pastimes that I abhor, for me the attraction was Ma Lee Yang, the head of Yang Family Tai Chi.  I was there to train and had little energy or enthusiasm for anything else.

Ma Lee is opening the family vaults, for the sake of posterity she is teaching properly and methodically the proper Classical Yang Family Tai Chi.  There are allegedly nineteen million Yang style practitioners in the world and of all that I had seen, no one does it like it like Ma Lee. 

I have to thank Jim Uglow for opening the door for me, I have had private lessons with him for over three years and through him gained access to Ma Lee a year ago.  Jim has been Ma Lee’s private student for over three years and I have seen him, his senior students and of course myself.

Ma Leeæs father, the famous Yang Sau Chung took three disciples, Ip Tai Tak who is resident in Hong Kong, Chu Gin Soon who is resident in Boston in the United States and Chu King Hung who is resident in the UK.  We were lucky in that Jim had originally learned from Chu King Hung, then Chu Gin Soon, and then Ma Lee and under her direction was to learn the pushing and applications aspects from Ip Tai Tak!

Ma Lee is the titular head of the family and was making sure that we all had a proper understanding of her fathers Tai Chi by pulling all the right strings.  Most of Jim’s group have now trained under all 3 disciples and have their study directed personally by the family head.  It don’t get any better than that.

Every training session with Ma Lee begins with the ìfamily exercisesî working methodically through the body with loosening, stretching chi kung style movements preparing the body internally for the form.  With each visit these are altered to suit your progress.  In all my years in the Martial Arts I had never come across anything so simple and powerful as these exercises, to look at they appear to be nothing, yet when taught properly they effect powerful changes within the body.  Put together they teach the “essentials” of Yang Family Tai Chi.

You may have read the classics of Tai Chi and of the essential points, you may have understood them academically, you may have read others interpretations of them and even thought that you understood them physically..  With the family vaults open, your mind will be blown away.  No more secrets, just hard work and study, no short cuts, just methodical programming of mind and body understanding the essential points in a way that cannot be read but needs personal interpretation.

My first days training made my visit worth while, we covered Grasp Sparrows Tail in a way that gave me enough work to last until my next visit, the teaching related to the changes in the exercises that meant that I must have grasped the teachings from the previous visits.  So the rest of the week was a bonus including the pushing and wall work with her.

Ma Lee arranged our visits to the home of Ip Tai Tak, her fathers first disciple for an introduction and to arrange a permanent training schedule whenever we visit to learn his speciality of pushing and fighting applications.

When we arrived Master Ip had one of his longest serving students who also trained with Ma Leeís father present and proceeded to demonstrate application and grappling to the agony of those present!  At 71 years of age the power of his grip is still stunning!  He also got out his personal notebooks and allowed us to copy private information and diagrams from them.  He then went on to teach the Chi Kung exercises shown in the photo’s.

Jim went back on the Sunday for a class session on the roof of his block of flats (his Kwoon) and was welcomed by all of his students and taught their methods of pushing.  As I said earlier, his instruction in those areas is now a part of our program on each visit.

These teachings will reverberate around the world.  The Yang Family is uniting to ensure that the quality is there, this is not the ìusualî business strategy that we so often see, but a heartfelt decision to not let the quality of her fathers teaching be watered down. 

In England her representative is Jim Uglow, in America her representative is John Conroy.

Steve Rowe

Steve Rowe is a highly successful Martial Arts instructor - an International Neigong, Qigong and Tai Chi Teacher and an 8th Dan Karate with many other senior dan grades in other martial disciplines.

More Posts - Website

Follow Me: