Has anyone purchased the new Taiji Martial Applications DVD from YMAA?

Info and a preview clip on the website.
http://www.ymaa.com/publishing/internal/taijiquan/taiji_martial_applications_DVD

If it is like everything else he does, save your money.
Jake

ditto

Hi Jake,

So you do not like any of his publications? Is it content or his presentation/teaching style?

what am I, chopped liver?

the guy is cool, i like his chi gong stuff.

Richard,
Actually his books are okay translation wise, but they repeat over and over again in different formats.
My dislike comes from studying with him a couple times. Nothing more than a very average practitioner, with a PHD in selling his merchandise! I suppose homeboy does not become the first CMA millionaire on accident, but he was so blatantly obnoxious about selling his product that it was off putting. Not to mention I payed for a 3 hour long seminar, which was really a sales pitch no so quietly disguised! I told the promoter that it was BS and only because I knew him personally was the reason I was not requesting my money back.
He seems nice, but I am not confident it is genuine.
Hope that helps.
Cheers
Jake

I do like that he is getting lots of info out there for the general public however I am not particularly impressed with though.

Jason,

What do you think?

Hi Jake

Once on the board you said you had clips from seminariums with Tim doing taiji - stuff

Why donīt you put them together into a dvd?

Iīm sure they are better than anything thatīs out there

I am not technically advanced enough to be honest! We should all talk Tim into doing one of his pro DVD productions on Taiji.
Jake

I would be a customer for sure, and among many I'm willing to bet.

Craig

Sorry Jason. I would of course like to hear details on your opinion as well. I just saw Jake's response first.

I have mentioned many times that Tim should do a Taiji DVD. Actually, I think that Sun style might be the least represented, so a DVD on Sun Taiji and a DVD on Sun Bagua would both be awesome.

""Jason,

What do you think?""

that's very kind of you Tim. I was just lamenting that Jake and I both said don't bother, but then the response was "why not Jake"?

Jake's spot on though. Run of the mill sort of 'wu shu' IMA, repeated ad nauseum and sold ad infinitum.

I find Dr. Yang's stuff to be fairly good in most aspects. His material is definitely Taiwan flavored, probably why I like it.

His taiji qinna book and video are top notch as is his DVD on the taiji 88 sanshou form. I never fail to see something new when I watch those.

His push hands DVDs 1 and 2 are also good if you've never done push hands.

His qigong massage DVD and book are the best I've ever seen on the subject. They're a one-stop resource for the material and therefore a great bargain.

So I don't agree that his stuff is worthless or just repeated over and over.

Dr. Yang's material isn't wushu-ified in the least. When he was training here in Taiwan there was no influence from the mainland whatsoever because of martial law. This fact seems to escape most of his detractors.

I can't speak to his marketing during seminars and I've met him but never touched hands with him so I can't speak to his actual skill. But in the material I mentioned above, he comes across quite well.

I have some videos and books by Yang, and while I don't think them worthless, there are many reasons to be skeptical of his material.

He puts tremendous emphasis on standing chin na, especially wrist locks. He often teaches these applications with zero setup. Perhaps that's just for instructional purposes, but it can be misleading to those who don't have lots of experience with realistic sparring.

Nope. His seminars are the same. No setup. Silly/unrealistic transitions, and though he talks all day about not muscling his Chin Na, he man handles you like a slab of meat!
Jake

I like his stuff because I have my own setups and system of training already. All I need is new techniques to plug into my matrix. If you have that, then his weaknesses aren't so glaring I guess.

The taiji sanshou DVD has lots of good transitions because it's a two-man form. The whole thing is a transition back and forth.

I think Dr. Yang does separate things so you'll buy more of the DVDs but it's okay with me.

As far as seminars, I'll be attending his seminars here in Taiwan in October. Looking forward to it.

Dave
I would think with your experience and accesability to many other good teachers you would have better taste!
Cheers
Jake

I don't think that Dr. Yang is perfect by any means. But again, one of the main reasons I like him is that his stuff is Taiwan-flavored.

For example, I did the same style of long fist he does, so I bought a few of his DVDs to compare. I actually didn't care for his long fist but his DVD production values are good and it's nice to have a disk to review.

Good point.