The interview with Faye Yip was led by Nils Klug in the context of a Workshop on Ba duan jin given by Faye in the Tai Chi Studio, Hannover, in Summer 2016.
The way towards her own school and the repertoire
When did you meet Tary?
Nearly towards the end of my study. I met him through a friend and we got talking, because we all went out as a group – this is how it usually is. You go and have lots of friends and I did too, so I met him and we just like talk, talk, talk… I think it is the martial interest in common so that we discovered extra things to talk about, when we found out I have been practicing Kungfu and he did as well. He did praying mantis, which is a southern style of martial arts, and he had some family lineage as well – his grandfather also practiced. So we strengthened this and we compared notes how we trained, the characters and his style and my style. And he was interested in Tai Chi as well – so he kind of learned Tai Chi from me… He was attracted to Tai Chi, so we kind of just got together to focus, to share common interests… and the rest is history… [laughs]
We are not going to go into that now… [laughs]
No… [laughs]
… but you are married now for a long time, you got three kids, two daughters and one boy.
Time flies fast…
So did you open a school then or when was that?
About 96 we decided to start a school. We have been teaching classes without a school, just been teaching for gyms, for various different people and we thought: “Why not? It is about time”. So we started our own school and tried to have a regular place where we hold our classes rather than traveling out too much. So it gradually, little bit by little bit, grows. Now, we have our own school, we have our own permanent school. Now we have our own centre, training centre which is great. It is like a home – with space, with potentials. All my seminars, workshops, educational courses, grading assessments – all in my own centre, which is a wonderful feeling. It is like the traveller finally got a space… So we are really happy about that.
What do you teach in your school?
We teach a full syllabus in everything my family tradition taught me. That includes Tai Chi, Qigong, Xing Yi and Bagua. Xing Yi and Bagua are lesser known and we only teach on a private basis, very small scale. The full repertoire is Yang style Tai Chi and Sun style Tai Chi which my family has a close lineage to. As far as Sun style is concerned, we have my great-grandfather, that is my father’s grandfather, who was a close disciple to the founder of Sun style, Great-grandmaster Sun Lutang. He was my great-grandfather’s master and they were in a traditional way very close. Also with Yang style, again my great-grandfather started the family tradition. I am now in the 4th generation from that. He also studied closely with Yang Chengfu, the lineage of Yang style, so we have a very close family lineage from the traditional families in two styles…
…that means we are kind of family member’s, too… ? (laughs)
Yes, yes, you also, yes… Cheng Man Ching is another disciple of Yang family, so actually we are not far off in Yang style, although some details will be different. – We promote all of that as well as Qigong.
Images: Faye Yip and Taiji Forum
The interview with Faye Yip part 2 – competition landscape in Tai Chi
The interview with Faye Yip part 3 – Moving to the UK and beginning to teach