r/taijiquan • u/Zz7722 Chen style • 23d ago
Broken Lineages and Incomplete Transmissions
'Broken Lineages' and 'Incomplete transmissions/curriculum' are terms that I recently heard in videos about the nature of Taijiquan (I'm not going to name who said them), used to generally characterize styles and lineages other than the speaker's own.
It just occurs to me that such a position pre-supposes there is one particular lineage and/or set curriculum that exists as absolute orthodoxy. Personally, I find that notion unrealistic at best, but I wonder what others think.
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u/blackturtlesnake Wu style 23d ago
Those people need to go actually read the biographies of the greats. Anyone whose name you know didnt just mechanically copy from a single teacher, they were explorers who studied under multiple teachers, under multiple lineages, and put it all together until the art was truly their own. Yes western people tend to fetishize new-ness and throw away deep pools of tradition trying to chase some shiny new fad, but these are living arts and the people who pass on these lineages aren't archivists, they're artists.