Yang taiji low basin

Quick background here, the popular yang style that is widely known and taught by us is from Yang Chengfu. Here is a clip of a practitioner doing Yang taiji as taught by Chengfu's brother Yang Banhou. Apparently Chengfu didn't endure much of the more rigorous training of the Yang family art. As you will see the stances here are extremely low. I actually advocate training the yang style as low as possible as it is the way we were taught. Doing longfist helps with this a bit, but it is a gradual process either way. This is more like the Chen taiji stances.

Man those stances are low, great for leg conditioning. One thing I love about Taijiquan (specifically Yang oriented Taiji) is its focus on slow movement and the ability to adjust the height of the stances accordingly. Its one of the best exercises for building connective tissue strength and leg strength. The two closest things I can think of that build those facilities in a similar manner are certain styles of Yoga and some of the slow moving sets of Pencak Silat. Yet Taiji, to me, seems to have a more systematic and possibly more comprehensive way of approaching that specific training. I also like that it builds intense strength in the legs without damaging the knee or ankle joints; it actually helps lubricate and strengthen joints because of the low impact nature of the movements. This is a good example of harder Taiji training, while keeping the therapeutic effects of the core practice. Good stuff.