Sun Lutang and the Invention of the “Traditional” CMA

[GrahamB]

Sun Lutang and the Invention of the “Traditional” Chinese Martial Arts (Part I).

http://chinesemartialstudies.com/2013/0 ... ts-part-i/

Real in-depth article. Parts 2/3 linked at bottom.

[middleway]

cool! something to read while the misses is out at the cinema this evening.

[D_Glenn]

In the final installment of this series we will take a closer look at the origins and after life of some of Sun’s key ideas. Why did he believe that the Chinese martial arts were intrinsically linked to Daoism?

I think there's some interesting points. Although slightly skewed.

The Chinese Martial Arts had already fully incorporated Daoist, Buddhist, and Confucian philosophies well before Sun Lu Tang's time. Although he is probably the first to openly share the ideas with the public.

(If it's true that Cheng Tinghua told him to go study with some Daoists then that could explain some of the mistakes.)

Sun had essentially screwed-over the whole martial art scene when he published his books, especially in Beijing. Since the cat was already out of the bag, Men Baozhen (of Yin Fu style Baguazhang) started writing his book after Sun Lu Tang died because he didn't want Sun to get any benefits from reading it. It was published in 1935. In it he tried to correct some of Sun's mistakes and clear up some of his misunderstandings. It was a short print run and he gave the copies away to fellow martial artists in order to reel it back in to the Martial Art circles.

Older Martial Systems had incorporated the Health/ Medical philosophies into the actual work of practicing and learning the martial arts. The traditional (pre- SLT's time) method is a difficult, day to day progression of developing fighting abilities and one's personal health. 一箭雙鵰 Kill two birds with one stone.

If you look at the last 100 years of CMAs from the perspective of: The Chinese Martial Artists (of the 1800s) taught the Daoist practices back to the Daoists, then you'll have a better understanding of what happened. The popularity of "Internal Practices" (likely due to Sun Lu Tang's books) during the 1920s - 40s led to what was essentially taking brutally difficult martial practices and watering them down (losing all integrity and most of the benefits) for the masses. By the end of the 40s, early 1950s, because the 'watered down exercises' didn't impart the same benefits the "Qigong" were looked at as mere calisthenics/ juvenile phys-ed exercises, because essentially that's all they really were.


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[Tom]

Good find, Graham--and for much more than just the blog posts about the impact of Sun Lutang and his writings. Ben Judkins writes about other characters in the formation of the "modern" notion of gong fu and Chinese martial arts.

A friend of Judkins, Sascha Matuszak, is engaged in a project detailed at this site: http://www.thelastmasters.com. Matuszak writes:

For the next year, I will be travelling around China and meeting as many kung fu masters and practitioners as I can. This blog here will be a record of those travels and the conversations I have along the road. When I feel I have absorbed all that I can, I will turn the research into a book, with the working title “The Last Masters” – hopefully the people I meet on my travels are not the last of their kind, but the first of a new kind.

I will also be taking video footage and photographs along the way, and much of that I hope to post here as well. I have interest from a couple publishers for the book and for the video and photos … we’ll see where all of that ends up. I am dedicated to this project, I am excited about it, and I am open to any and all suggestions, advice, warnings and even insults.

If any RSF members are in a position to provide information or help, Matuszak can be contacted at sascha.matuszak@gmail.com .

[yeniseri]

Because Sun Lutang was far more literate than contemporaries, he was able to register his POV and as a result it gained primacy over others of the era.
I would not say he invented traditional CMA but he, being far more knowledgeable enough to grasp points of marketing. Many contemporaries were 'village people' (countryside inhabitants) so they only understood the "small pond view" of CMA. He taught for a living so that means only give enough information, shroud it in philosophy of local citizens and package it!

[chud]

So many inconsistencies in this thread I don't even know where to start.

[Robert Young]

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.

[Bao]

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.

At the time SLT wrote his book, chinese language was different from now. It has developed rapidly in the 20th century. It's not easy even for modern chinese people to read his books properly. He used old ways to describe things and wrote common conceptions and used a common understanding about the arts.

Not all martial artists or masters were literate in the old days or even in the days of SLT. I do think he did a great job just writing books, but also what he wrote was things which were verbally transmitted. Also, if he could enjoy all research made up until today, I am certain he would use it.

[D_Glenn]

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.

Sorry. I should have written that clearer.

I'd kind of assumed it was general knowledge that the Quanzhen School of Daoism was itself a combination of Daoist, Buddhist, and Confucian philosophies and Internal Cultivation, i.e. - the stuff that requires years of practice so it's not really known to the average person.

Chinese martial arts merged with the Quanzhen school at numerous different times since the 1200s and because of their involvement in numerous uprisings had to harbor one another and eventually merge societies.

Around 1816 a young Dong Haichuan started studying Liu He Men (Six-Harmony System) under Li Guanming, a master of martial arts and internal and external cultivation skills. The reason Dong Haichuan later told Cheng Tinghua and his students to continue to study with 刘德宽 Liu Dekuan (1826-1911) was because Liu had been a student of DHC's gongfu Brother- Li Fenggang, under Li Guanming.

Dong Haichuan would go on to study a number of other martial styles that all had their variations of internal and external cultivation skills. But the biggest influence on his formulation of Baguazhang is really probably Er Lang Quan.


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[Ralteria]

Hey D,

Quanzhen = Total/complete reality school?

[D_Glenn]

Quanzhen = Total/complete reality school?

Yep.

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[D_Glenn]

Because Sun Lutang was far more literate than contemporaries, he was able to register his POV and as a result it gained primacy over others of the era.

His teachers and all his contemporaries were all well-to-do business men, government officials, aristocrats, teachers to other officials, imperial soldiers etc. all well-educated people. Men Baozhen (same generation as Sun Lu Tang in Baguazhang) was born into a wealthy Manchurian family. He was educated and groomed from a young age to be involved in the inner workings of the aristocracy and high society. Everyone at that time used Classical Chinese. As that article points out - it's the sheer volume of his books that were mass-produced and sold all over China that made him well known.

***

Some of the mistakes in his Baguazhang books are ones that occur when transcribing Spoken Instructions. Instructions that are already encoded and shortened (into 口诀 kǒu​jué) become near gibberish when the wrong character is used for identical sounding words (same sound, same tone). Has nothing to do with literacy just knowledge of the material being transcribed.


***

On the literate / illiterate fallacy of Chinese martial artists - why? We all know everyone involved in the Chinese Martial Arts going back the last 150 odd years. In most cases we know their whole life stories. We know they had jobs. Not too many of them were illiterate country-bumpkins. Not to even mention that to be considered literate in Chinese requires a knowledge of between three and four thousand characters. So someone who, say could only read and write 1000 characters, would've been considered illiterate.


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[yeniseri]

Because Sun Lutang was far more literate than contemporaries, he was able to register his POV and as a result it gained primacy over others of the era.

On the literate / illiterate fallacy of Chinese martial artists - why? We all know everyone involved in the Chinese Martial Arts going back the last 150 odd years. In most cases we know their whole life stories. We know they had jobs. Not too many of them were illiterate country-bumpkins. Not to even mention that to be considered literate in Chinese requires a knowledge of between three and four thousand characters. So someone who, say could only read and write 1000 characters, would've been considered illiterate.
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I think too much is made of the literate/illiterate fallacy of CMA adepts but we cannot look at it from today and know the era. If we are objective enough but we will be able to ascertain the social distance between a Wu, who is the province governor or magistrate judge, or the local Chen, in jail requiring the help of said provincial governor. Or the Confucian scholar being guarded by the local CMA adept, taking into consideration the style of the clothes, the cleanliness, and location.

[D_Glenn]

Fwiw - I don't know about the interactions that went on between schools in the past and I'm not quite sure who had said it but either Men Baozhen, Ma Gui, or both had said that SLT was an exceptional fighter.

Better at fighting than writing.

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[Doc Stier]

I'll bet that very few practitioners of this current generation will acquire and retain such a great reputation as a fighter or influence as many people through their writing as Sun Lu-tang has. The mere fact that his reputation and his writings are still being discussed 80+ years after his death is pretty incredible, regardless of what anyone's personal opinion of Master Sun may be.

We all need to debate less and train more, just like Sun did!