The Yang style stayed the same until the beginning of this century, on down the bloodline of the Yang family through Yang Ban-hou (1837 -1892) and Chien-hou (1839 -1917), who were two of Yang Lu-chan's sons. But Pretty soon, things changed, because the art was no longer a secret, and many wanted to learn it who were not in the family.
In traditional gangster movie fashion, the heads of the leading families in Taiji met to discuss the future of the art. It seems that the Wu family were not the only ones to glean the secret meanings of the forms. Others were discerning the real applications a bit at a time. But that was dangerous, as at that time martial arts were guarded for a reason -people actually used them in self-defence. Their survival could depend on whether or not an opponent knew their secrets. So, at this meeting the families agreed to adopt the old closed door system, for the sake of the future of their arts.
What they agreed to do was, change the forms enough so that anyone and everyone could be taught, and they still would not discern the true applications. In this way, only students who the masters deemed worthy of such knowledge would be given the secret transmissions, and everyone else would simply never know that there was anything more. They planned to teach only the absolute basics, purely physical moves to those outside their inner circle.
Yang Cheng-fu (1883 -1936) changed his grandfather's art just enough that the secret applications were almost impossible to discover, but not enough to eliminate the internal qualities. HisTaiji form is still great for health but is virtually useless for self-defence without the fa-jing forms that go with it, like the Small San-sau form. Yang Cheng-fu must have had mixed feelings about the whole mess. He wanted to preserve the secrets of his art, but he still wanted others to gain something from it, something more than just a slow-motion dance. However, what he created was not real Taiji, because it does not conform to the Classics of Taiji, which state that we must have explosive movement to counter-balance the slow-motion moves. Even the Pauchui form of the Yang style, which has almost all fa-jing explosions in it, has a few slower moves. It's the exact opposite to the slow form.
Yang Cheng-fu's older brother, Yang Shao-hou (1862 -1929), did not agree with the council's decision, though. He decided to teach the real thing, but only to a few select students. He refused to change the original style, and one of the few who learned from him was a man called Chang Yiu-chun (1909 -?), who became a world renowned grandmaster. He taught Erle Montaigue this original Yang Style Taiji while living in Sydney, Australia. And I am learning it from Erle, who is the only non-Chinese person to be given the degree of master by the Chinese masters themselves.
