Biography
He was born into the famous Yang Taijiquan family, the son of Yang Chien-hou and grandson of Yang Lu-chan. With his older brother Yang Shao-hou (楊少侯) and colleagues Wu Jianquan (吳鑑泉) and Sun Lutang (孫錄堂), he was among the first teachers to offer T'ai chi ch'uan instruction to the general public at the Beijing Physical Culture Research Institute from 1914 until 1928. He moved to Shanghai in 1928.
Yang Chengfu is known for having "smoothed" out the somewhat more vigorous training routine he learned from his family as well as emphasising a "large frame" or "Da Jia (大架)" with expansive movements in stepping and using large circular motions with the arms. His smooth, evenly-paced large frame form and its hundreds of offshoots has been the standard for Yang-style t'ai chi ch'uan (and overwhelmingly in the public imagination for T'ai chi ch'uan in general) ever since.
Yang Chengfu is the official author of two books on the style, Application methods of Taijiquan, published in 1931, and Essence and Applications of Taijiquan (Taijiquan Tiyong Quanshu), published in 1934. His second book was translated into English in 2005.
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