Sun Lutang and the Invention of the “Traditional” CMA

[GrahamB]

Yo!

Part 3 is up:

http://chinesemartialstudies.com/2013/0 ... -part-iii/

[Bob]

The Chinese Martial Arts had already fully incorporated Daoist, Buddhist, and Confucian philosophies well before Sun Lu Tang's time.

From a Chinese POV, It is Chinese culture already fully incorporated Daoist, Buddhist, and Confucian philosophies, And Chinese Martial Art was part of Chinese culture, so it had automatically incorporated those philosophies.

I don't know if much more can be said than what D_Glenn and Robert Young have posted--almost like beating a dead horse. LOL
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"From the Han dynasty (206 BCE -220 CE) through the Qing (1644 - 1912 CE), the Yijing remained a work of enormous and unchallenged scriptural authority; everyone in Chinese society esteemed it and employed it in some way, from emperors and officals to artisans and peasants. Commoners used pages from the book as a charm to ward off evil, and scholars gave it pride of place as "first among the [Confucian] classics.

Although the document contains few explicit references to supernatural beings or supernatural forces, it has always had a profoundly spiritual dimension. . . .

The central preoccupation of the Yijing throughout the imperial era (from the Han to the Qing) was how to understand the patterns and processes of nature and how to act in harmony with them.

To fathom the Dao was to understand the various types of change in the universe, from the cosmic to the mundane, from recurrent cycles of movement--ebb and flow, rise and decline, advance and retreat--to physical and metaphysical transformations.

From this sort of understanding came an appreciation of proper timing and positioning, essential in a culture where the ritual ideal had always been to do the right thing, at the right time, in the right place, facing the right direction." pp. 2-3

"Some schollars have suggested that as early as the 12th 11th BCE, Shang dynasty diviners may already have begun to analyze trigram and hexagram relationships in terms of techniques previously thought to date only from the final centuries of the zhou dynasty or later, while others have argued that at least some of the numercial hexagrams found on oracle boens and bronzes are not related to the conventional divinatory traditions of the Changes at all." p. 22.

The I Ching: A Biography, Richard J. Smith, Ph.D., Princeton University Press 2012.

Small great book--good explication on qi and yin and yang.
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I don't see how anything Chinese escapes these Yijing cultural roots, including Daoism--I don't think this takes anything away from the fighting potential of any of the traditional Chinese martial arts systems--its just another way of looking at the art.

[D_Glenn]

Part 3 is up:

http://chinesemartialstudies.com/2013/0 ... -part-iii/

I am disappoint.

***
苌乃周 Chang Naizhou (1724-1783) published a Martial Arts book in 1781.

"It contained two main parts: "On Nourishing Central Qi" (Peiyang Zhong Qi Lun) and "Martial References" (Wubei Cankao)." ~ http://www.chinafrominside.com/ma/otherstyles/CNZbook.html


孫祿堂 Sun Lutang wasn't born until 1860.


***

There's also Qi Jiguang's book published in 1552 that touched on some internal (soft overcoming hard) in empty hand arts. For anyone wanting to fill the academic void left by the Sun Lu Tang articles I recommend reading this translation of Chapter 14 from Qi Jiquang's book covering the empty hand methods; it's a good read, the translator brings up some interesting history and possible further discussion topics in his notes and introduction: http://www.dtic.mil/dtic/tr/fulltext/u2/a268051.pdf
(Although, I feel the correlation to Taijiquan postures in the appendix was a bit unnecessary.)


.

[Bob]

http://www.internalartsinternational.co ... ts-part-1/

A very nice blog post from Tom Bisio's site and relevant for the discussion here:

The Importance of Symbolism in the Chinese Internal Martial Arts – Part 1

Posted on December 21, 2012.



Contents [hide]
1 Symbolism in the Chinese Internal Martial Arts
2 Heaven and Earth & Yin and Yang
3 The Five Elements or Five Powers
4 The Dragon and The Tiger
5 Notes:
6 You might be interested in:

Overview: Symbolism is an important and often misunderstood aspect of the Chinese internal martial arts. This, the first installment of a three-part article, discusses the importance and relevance of the symbols of heaven and earth, yin and yang, the five elements, and the dragon and the tiger.

. . . As a result, many Western teachers and students attempt to update and transform traditional imagery, recasting the symbols to form scientific, bio-mechanical explanations with regard to training and application. Similarly, there is a tendency in the West to re-work the circular, more organic learning process and curriculum of Chinese internal martial arts into a logical, step-by-step process that smoothly carries one through a series of levels, from beginner to expert practitioner. This approach is characterized by attempting to parse out the movements, training methods and principles so they can be broken into their component parts.

This more “modern” and “scientific” approach creates as many problems as it attempts to solve – ultimately diminishing these arts and leading students to look elsewhere to fill in perceived gaps. Because each aspect of an internal art interpenetrates with each other aspect, breaking things down into their component parts can actually make learning harder, or even impossible. The Chinese internal arts have an fractal-like nature. Each aspect, each part of an art like Ba Gua Zhang – from the most “basic” aspects to the most “advanced” – is a hologram that contains, interconnects and interacts with every other part of the system to form a complete, organic whole. This makes it impossible to isolate individual components without losing the essence of the internal arts.

The common argument put forward by the modernist camp goes something like: “the real fighters were not intellectuals; they did not know this stuff. They just trained hard and kicked ass.” Actually, they did know “this stuff.” Symbolism is so embedded in every aspect of Chinese life, culture and customs that they could not avoid knowing it. The Chinese written language itself is a collection of ideograms based on pictographs and symbols. The ”real fighters” not only knew the stories, metaphors and symbols, but for them, the mere mention of a story, metaphor or symbol triggered a cascade of other associated stories, metaphors and symbols. Even the most casual statements, by the most down-to-earth fighters that I have met in China are steeped in the language of the Yi Jing, traditional Chinese medicine, Daoist metaphysics, and classic books like the Romance of the Three Kingdoms and the Outlaws of the Marsh.

One necessary by-product of the “scientific” approach is the discarding of the rich symbolism inherent in the internal arts. This is the very aspect of these arts that expresses and communicates their holism to the practitioner. Symbols are the very tools necessary to express the highly complex organic entity, with its many manifold and culturally embedded layers of reality and understanding, that is Chinese internal martial arts. Symbols are like a code, a code that serves to express aspects of reality which are obscured by the limitations of language and other modes of expression. In this way, symbols communicate and crystallize an aspect of direct experience, or truth, that is beyond words – and beyond the symbol itself. Symbols in this context also provide a platform for self-discovery, experimentation and transcendence.

[D_Glenn]

http://www.internalartsinternational.com/free/the-importance-of-symbolism-in-the-chinese-internal-martial-arts-part-1/

Bob, Thanks for the link.

(There's also some interesting info in that link on how the 5 Element Symbol (with Earth in the center) relates to everything.)

***

Tom Bisio writes:

. . . As a result, many Western teachers and students attempt to update and transform traditional imagery, recasting the symbols to form scientific, bio-mechanical explanations with regard to training and application. Similarly, there is a tendency in the West to re-work the circular, more organic learning process and curriculum of Chinese internal martial arts into a logical, step-by-step process that smoothly carries one through a series of levels, from beginner to expert practitioner. This approach is characterized by attempting to parse out the movements, training methods and principles so they can be broken into their component parts.

This more “modern” and “scientific” approach creates as many problems as it attempts to solve – ultimately diminishing these arts and leading students to look elsewhere to fill in perceived gaps. Because each aspect of an internal art interpenetrates with each other aspect, breaking things down into their component parts can actually make learning harder, or even impossible. The Chinese internal arts have an fractal-like nature. Each aspect, each part of an art like Ba Gua Zhang – from the most “basic” aspects to the most “advanced” – is a hologram that contains, interconnects and interacts with every other part of the system to form a complete, organic whole. This makes it impossible to isolate individual components without losing the essence of the internal arts.

He brings up an important aspect of Baguazhang, which is that the circular nature of it is also found in the way it's structured as a whole Martial System.
Dong Haichuan had studied many martial arts in his lifetime. Many of those arts were arranged in stages or levels that were structured in a military fashion for training large groups of students.

So in Baguazhang the whole structure is designed with the individual student in mind. Where the student's natural attributes are taken into account and then after learning and training the student can choose which tactics he uses based on his own style of fighting, experience level, and his preferences for the way he likes to fight.

The arrangement is kind of like this:



The Dragon and it's representative Standing and Circle Turning posture actually embodies the Tactic of 'Ping Tuo Zhang' (Propping and Lifting Upward) and it's goal is to get the opponent to essentially bring his own weight upward to make him easier to throw so one isn't just using brute force to lift and throw the opponent. But it's also borrowing the Tactics of the other Trigrams's Tactic: like using 'Lianhuan Zhang' (essentially 'running down' the opponent), or if that isn't working one can 'change' to using 'Shun Shi Zhang' / ( where one is 'Moving With' the opponent's momentum or attacks), or any other of 7 Tactics but in no particular order and any combination or just stick to using 1 or 2.

The Tactics (Zhang) themselves are just various ways to 'Change' where one is in relation to the opponent and the stepping and placement of feet that entails. These different Tactics can all be established with just 3 movements, or rather 3 steps combined with the usage of the hands. So it's not difficult to learn a Tactic and is designed so one can abruptly 'change' from one Tactic into another depending on where one wants to be in relation to the opponent and how that opponent is reacting and countering.

Represented in the arms of the Posture are the Dragon's 'Eight Capabilities' ('Ba Neng'; The back arm contains: Pushing, Lifting, Carrying, and Leading; while the front arm contains: Moving, Capturing, Chopping, and Entering), the first six of it's Capabilities are really designed to prop up the opponent into moving his momentum upward as it's primary goal is to throw the opponent down hard onto the ground but it can also use Chopping Strike, Entering Strikes to 'Finish' or set up a throw, or any other myriad combinations. So it is complete in that it has methods to kick (Bai and Kou/ Swinging kick and Hooking-in kick), Strike, Lock (capturing), and Throw.
The order of Capabilities is again not in a linear fashion but similar to the idea of a 3-Dimensional sphere (or as Bisio wrote a "hologram") as you can start with Chopping, change to Pushing, change to Leading, then to Lifting, then change to Chopping strikes to 'Finish', or any other myriad combination.

The beginner first just needs learns a few 'Capabilities' (Neng) and maybe 1 to 3 Tactics. As each 'Capability' can also be comprised of only 3 movements or techniques rather and those 3 techniques can be strung together in any number of combinations. Add in 1 more 'Capability' and one now has 6 techniques to change to, and so on.
This is all the material one really needs to become successful at using Baguazhang. After one finds and refines their own Core Abilities, the ones they use to defend Life, Family, and Home, then all the rest of the material in Baguazhang is to really just relieve the boredom in the training, to turn it into a lifelong endeavor, and to challenge one's self to learn more and more intricate techniques then go out and test them with fellow martial artists, all the while continuing to build-up the strength-in, and further refine one's 'Core' abilities they need for self defense.

To further go down the path: If you look at the 7 Tactics as the Stepping and the 8 Capabilities as the Hand techniques then you need to combine the 8 hands with the 7 steps making 56 short 3 movement forms. (Or sometimes 3 combos + 3 more combos of similar variety = 6 + 1 closing move =7 (in order to be going in the different direction on the Circle); or 3+3+3= 9 movements in a short form.) Or at first, one could just specialize in certain things - like 1 Capability using all 7 Tactics or all 8 Capabilities but using only 1 Tactic.

The Dragon's Representative Posture:




.

[yeniseri]

Part 3 is up:

http://chinesemartialstudies.com/2013/0 ... -part-iii/

I am disappoint.

***
苌乃周 Chang Naizhou (1724-1783) published a Martial Arts book in 1781.

"It contained two main parts: "On Nourishing Central Qi" (Peiyang Zhong Qi Lun) and "Martial References" (Wubei Cankao)." ~ http://www.chinafrominside.com/ma/otherstyles/CNZbook.html

孫祿堂 Sun Lutang wasn't born until 1860.
There's also Qi Jiguang's book published in 1552 that touched on some internal (soft overcoming hard) in empty hand arts. For anyone wanting to fill the academic void left by the Sun Lu Tang articles I recommend reading this translation of Chapter 14 from Qi Jiquang's book covering the empty hand methods; it's a good read, the translator brings up some interesting history and possible further discussion topics in his notes and introduction: http://www.dtic.mil/dtic/tr/fulltext/u2/a268051.pdf
(Although, I feel the correlation to Taijiquan postures in the appendix was a bit unnecessary.)
.

Scholars, regardless of the era, did have a propensity for memorization of texts of yore based on their own background and inclination. Someone who is martially inclined cansurely re-invent a tradition while others not so inclined can foregt and say it is superstition. Selective memory can work both ways. e.g. some teachers studying with Yang Luchan and or Chen Changxing then still claiming that Zhang Laotztu was the Originator of taijiquan. Purposeful lack of historicty is still igorance but its insistant propaganda tends to separate the kooks from the real teachers in the long run. I realize the kooks (refusal to acknowledge the historical record) sometime have a willingness to forego reality for basking in illusion. My freind Nietzche would agree on this.

Sun Lututang did a modernist compilation taken from the past and added the enthusiastic committment to the New Patriotism,I guess.

[Tom]

I realize the kooks (refusal to acknowledge the historical record) sometime have a willingness to forego reality for basking in illusion. My freind Nietzche would agree on this.

You've got some cool friends.

[kshurika]

Yes, but even the coolest of friends can get pissed when you misspell their names and my friend, Friedrich Nietzsche, happens to be one of them.