I have heard many youse guys bandying about lineage but I rarely see the result in those claiming /upholding the stele. Exception is Maynard, of course,

I just need a clarification.
1. If I look at your styles lineage chart, will you be on there (the family heirloom)? If you are not there, what makes you a lineage student!
2. Are you lineage because you studied over a weekend course with a famous teacher?

Zheng Manqing was one person responsible for spreading taijiquan but he was never a lineage student of anyone. He did study with Chengfu for 3-4 years? if that much? (maybe 2-3 years) but he grasped concepts that few of his contemporaries never imagined!

I study Sun Ba Gua under Tim.

That's good enough for me- I never cared for heirlooms or charts to prove anything to myself or anyone.

I easily lose respect for folks who do.

Shane

Stan,
Good point about Zhen Manqinq. I am not a lineage student from my teacher, but I grasped many things from "my secret" technique, and that technique was listening. Alot of people asked me why I understood something and I said, because I am listening, not just hearing.

I am not claiming to know all about Tai Chi or Hsing I, but I think I have grasped the obvious, which is the part many miss by looking for the mystical.

lineage maybe socially important to some but is rather useless window dressing and gives no indication of skill or ability to teach. The best people i spar with are seldom people who claim some grand lineage and the peole i have met that do are usally too wrapped up in the "purity" of their art to adapt. As a result, they fall down go boom.

these are general observations, I have met and sparred with lineage people who were great, but few of them.

Having a good teacher and becoming "good" yourself are important; who taught your immediate teacher can be important; who taught who 20 or 50 or 100 years ago is much less important.

Common-sense should tell you that someone doesn't automatically inherit ability or develop it just because their father or teacher was a martial (or any other kind of) genius,
Although you wouldn't know that from the large numbers of modern teachers that you meet who cover their walls with certificates and flow charts of who taught who.

It's good for marketing and fooling the average modern internal arts beginner though...

Who cares about lineage!

It can be an indicator of how you train and/or fight . However it may not be for instance students of Dong hai chun or Yip Man all practice their arts differently. So at the end of the day lineage can mean somthing or nothing.