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Jane Yao, teacher of Ts’ui Chen-Tung’s Pa Kua Chang
By Ken Fish
Jane Yao (Yao P’ei-Ching), a recent immigrant from China, looks more likely to be comfortable tending to a classroom of elementary school children then nonchalantly tossing large American weight lifters across the room and bouncing them off plasterboard. All of about five foot four, she has a sweet demeanor with the underlying strength of a school teacher, but Ms.Yao is one of the most powerful martial artists I’ve met, bar none.
I first met Ms. Yao at the judges’ meeting for Tat Mau Wong’s June 1991 tournament in San Francisco. One of her students mentioned to me that he was studying Hao family tai chi ch’uan with her, and this aroused my interest.
I had not seen this style of t’ai chi for many years. My former teachers in Taiwan, Chang Chun-Feng and his wife had tried to interest me in learning this system, but I was more interested in mastering hsing-I and learning what pa kua I could. I have since come to regret my stubbornness. Chang was very fond of Hao style tai chi ch’uan, and went to great lengths to emphasize that this was a more martial form of tai chi than the popular yang style. In addition, he said that it was a powerful chi exercise and could accelerate my progress in that direction. No matter. I was more interested in what I saw as the practical side of martial arts, and the physical power I was developing form Nei Kung exercises.
I followed Ms. Yao’s student over to where she sat, in the back of the auditorium. We exchanged introductions for a few minutes, and then I came straight to the point. Did she really teach this rare form of tai chi, I asked, and could she possibly demonstrate a few movements. Ms. Yao gave me a bemused look and there ran through the opening movements of the form. “Did you see what you were looking for?” she asked? Indeed I had. Despite the draping of the formal gown she had on, I could see very clearly by these few movements that this was a martial artist with impressive skill, and that her hao style Tai Chi was the genuine article.
Over the next couple of days I got to speak with Ms. Yao at some length. The more I learned of her, the more deeply she impressed me. Not only was she a direct pupil of the last member of the Hao family, she was also skilled in a rare branch of Pa Kua. To look at her, one would not think she is capable of generating much force, or fending of an attack. Yet in private, when she corrected some of my hsing-I, she showed that her light touch could carry the force of a hammer. Moreover, she easily deflected, parried and even (somehow) absorbed whatever force I could muster. She could do all this, and her stance would appear unchanged, her movements almost nonchalant. Even more uncanny was that she seemed to be able to do all of this without visible muscle contraction! She allowed me to palpate several large muscle groups on her back and sides which my physiology training told me should be contracting as she exerted force, and I felt nothing. No contraction. Not even intermediary muscle groups.
Ms. Yao was a pa kua chang student of the late Chi Chin-Shin, famous for both his shao lin boxing and the pa kua chang he had learned from Ts’ui Chen-Tung. Chi Chin-Shan was born in 1907 in Chia Hsing, in Chechiang province. His family was originally from Chi Nan in Shan Tung Province. When he was 13 he began studying the wu chi system from the renowned Hsueh Tze-Tung. Later he began studying Pa Kua chang from Ts’ui Chen-Tung at the age of 23. Thus Jane Yao’s Pa Kua Lineage is:
Tung Hai Ch’uan—Liu Feng Chun—Tsui Chen-Tung—Chi Chin shan—Jane Yao
Jane Yao studied Pa Kua chang from Chi Chin-Shan in Shanghai during the 1970’s. Prior to this, she already had advanced training in both martial arts and chi kung. She began her training at the age of 7 learning Buddhist meditation and chi kung from a Buddhist abbot. She practiced mostly chi kung until she was in her early thirties, when she met an elder who taught her some martial arts. From this point on her interest in martial arts grew. She learned Wu Jien Quan tai chi and pushing hands from Ma Yueh-Lian and Wu Chian Chuan’s third daughter, Wu Ying Hua. Later she met the third generation heir of Hao family tai chi, Hao Shao-Ju, and learned all that he had to teach, inheriting the system from him.
In speaking of Hao Shao-Ju, Jane said that not only was he extremely skilled in the Hao Style Tai chi, he was also well versed in Hsing-I and Pa kua. Hao Shao Ju was born in 1908 in Heibei, Yung Nein county. His grandfather Hao Wei Chun was the founder of the Hao style tai chi and was Sun Lu Tang’s tai chi teacher. Hao shao-ju began learning from his grandfather and father as a child. By the time he was in his early twenties, he was already a well-known and accomplished martial artist and taught in Nanjing at the Central University. He later moved to Shanghai with his father where he continued teaching. He was especially well known for his extraordinary push hands ability. As soon as an opponent touched hands with him, Hao Shao-ju was in control of his opponent’s root.
After studying tai chi with Ma Yeuh-Lian and Wu Ying Hua for many years, Jane Yao met Hao Shao Ju and became his close disciple. Hao Shao Ju himself complemented her on her pushing hands skill and said that her form was a perfect standard for Hao Style Tai chi. Her skill exceeded that of most of her senior classmates, some of whom approached her later to asked her to help them polish their own skills.
Hao style differs from Yang and Wu Chien Chuan Tai Chi. It is a synthesis of the old chen family style and the Chao Pao system. Although it’s movements appear quite different, it is the epitome of the physical principles of the chen family tai chi. It is said that the founder of the system distilled the essence of the chen family tai chi and combined this with his own discoveries and skills to create a system of great power and subtlety. Training in this system encompasses all of the principles found in Hsing-I and Pa kua and quickly develops proper internal and external coordination as well as chi skill.
It was while Jane Yao was studying with Hao Shao-ju that chi-chin shan saw her practicing, and was so impressed with her skills that he approached Hao and asked if he too could teach her. Ms Yao said that she was not interested in learning basic Shaolin, so she asked straight away that Chi Chin Shan teach her Pa kua chang, and he agreed.
Chi Chin Chan dispensed with teaching Ms. Yao much of the basic foundation work, as her own level was already quite good. He began her course of instruction with the “entering the forest” exercises (chuan lin Kung), in which he would lead her through a series of motions between and around trees or stakes set into the ground. They would deliberately scrape the trees with their forearms, until their forearms were raw. This training continued until Jane’s legwork and lower body strength were ready for the next level of training. At this point Chi Chin-Shan taught her how to employ the changes as they went through the chuan lin exercises, and finally taught her the pa kua chang form.
In discussing pa kua stepping, Jane emphasizes that footwork must be light, yet powerful. She says that “Tang ni pu” is generally misinterpreted, that although each footstep should leave an imprint in the ground if one practices in a dirt field, each step should be light and able to change immediately to a scoop or a kick. The forward foot should be placed down as if shoveling under and opponent’s foot, but the entire sole should contact the ground at the same time, not toe first. She said that there should also not be any sliding of the foot. When the front foot hits the ground, the weight and balance are still with the back foot so you can lift up and scoop or kick with the front foot. Ms Yao says unless the feet are planted correctly, it is very hard to develop the power associated with pakua chang.
I questioned why she wanted to study with Chi Chin-Shan, having already achieved a high level of skill under several famous tai chi instructors. She replied that studying under a teacher like Chi Chin Shan or Hao Shao Ju was like putting money in the bank -- If the teacher was both a skilled martial artist and a talented instructor then one always left with mire than one came with, and the skills learned from one teacher or art carried over to whatever one did. In addition to the teachers mentioned above, Ms. Yao also studied Wu Tang tai chi with her good friend Pei His-Jung.
Jane Yao spent several days in Washington DC area recently as a guest of the Shaolin Kung fu center. She gave several seminars on chi Kung and tai chi, consistently emphasizing structure, alignment and proper intent. She believes it is wrong to lay too much emphasis on the latter, that to do so creates tension and impedes chi development. She is a stickler for proper mechanics and goes to great lengths to insure that the students understand which muscles should come into play in each movement, where the weight and balance should be, how the joints should articulate, and so on. She demonstrated all of this by easily moving about several large muscular students, lifting them off their feet and throwing them back against the plasterboard with no apparent effort, using only the raise hands movement from the tai chi opening. As she did this, several other students kept their hands on her back, attempting to feel which muscle groups came into play. To their astonishment, no contraction was felt. This, Jane said, was real internal skill -- the opponent should heave no idea of where the force is coming from, whether in push hands or in combat.
Jane Yao’s husband, Albert Liu, is also a highly skilled mart artist in his own right. After my first meeting with Jane in San Francisco, a local Chinese martial artist took me aside and said, “don’t ignore her husband. His skill is nearly as high as hers!” Albert, a retiring, scholarly individual on the wrong side of fifty, hand once been coaxed into demonstrating his Pa Kua Tai Chi, a very rare form taught only in the Nanking area. When I asked Albert about this, he just smiled. I asked him if he had learned this in Nanking, and his eyes lit up. “How did you know?” he asked. I told him that I had seen the form in Nanking in the early 80’s, and that the only teachers had been Wu Chun-Shan and Wu’s students. Albert asked me several questions about what I had seen, before agreeing that indeed this was the system that he practiced, and telling me that he had learned from a student of Wu’s. I will write more about Albert’s unusual form in a future issue.
Jane Yao has been been teaching in the San Francisco area for several years now. A strict teacher, she insists that her students develop firm foundation before they even begin to think about paired exercises and push hands. She notes that many Americans complain about finding a good teacher is difficult, but she feels that finding a dedicated student who is willing to put in the work is at least as difficult. Her sentiments have been echoed by several other Chinese teachers I have known. I enquired about the status of martial arts in china. I feel that the real arts have been diluted, and in some cases supplanted by the s0-called “new Wushu”, and that few members of the younger generation are sufficiently disciplined or enthusiastic about training in traditional martial arts. She said this is a grave concern, but that most teachers worth their salt are finding ways to pass on their skills privately, outside of the officially approved rout.
Jane Yao currently teaches class in golden gate park.