IMA masters pre 1700

[AllanF]

I have been doing a tiny bit of digging of neijiaquan over the last couple of weeks and a couple of name keep poping up that i am not too familiar with, so if anyone had any information or sources of information that help me find out a bit more then i would be very grateful.

The names in question are

Chang Naizhou - i have Marnix Wells' book, but would like to find other sources.

Wang Zhangnan who has been mentioned in books about Songxi neijia quan but only in passing and is also mentioned here: http://brennantranslation.wordpress.com ... a-quan-fa/

Zhang Songxi, who may be a legendary figure and student of Zhang Sanfeng.

I find it interesting that Zhejiang province seems to have connection to all of them one way or another.

Anyway...any info much appreciated.

Thanks in advance.

[yeniseri]

There have been at least 3??? Zhang Sanfengs and there is a mythical one having no relationship to anything but his name being similar leads to people not knowing any better by being taught by someone who never existed. XIngyi seems to be most intact along with Shaolin systems, though lost, were re-engineered to be as we see today.
Sal and a few others have document Tai Zhu Changquan (my names are probably off but!!!} with Shaolin as being the origin of what we call taijiquan so my assumptions are that other arts came into being the same way over time.

[AllanF]

HI yeniseri

To clarify i was not looking for info on Zhang Sanfeng, but the other 3 people i mentioned. I should have been more clear.

I have just bought Sal's book about the Hidden roots of Taijiquan...(i can't remember the exact title of the book off the top of my head), anyway i am waiting for its delivery.

[zrm]

I have seen the original Chang Naizhou book reprinted in China but very little else on him. His art is still around though and there are quite a few videos of it on youtube posted by "Tea Serpent". He/she might be decent lead to follow up on.




https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=P ... 938659EA1D

[nicklinjm]

Thought I'd chip in with some details on Wang Zhengnan (not Zhangnan) and Zhang Songxi as there seems to be less info in English about them.

Zhang Songxi: Famous martial artist who lived in Yin county (now part of Ningbo city in Zhejiang) during the reign of Jiajing during the Ming dynasty, which would place him as living in the early 1500s. Almost certainly real and not legendary, as he is mentioned by non-martial arts sources (e.g. Ningbo city gazetteer) of the time. His teacher's name was Sun Shisan ('13 Sun'), and he claimed that his art came from 'Zhang Sanfeng of the Song dynasty'. Recorded that he only taught 3-4 disciples, of whom the best was Ye Jinquan (aka Ye Jimei). Wang Zhengnan was a grandstudent of Ye Jimei through one of Ye's students called Shan Sinan. You have to be very careful with 'historical' info about Zhang Songxi, as he was later written into a popular Wuxia novel by Jin Yong, with lots of made up exploits and claims that he was a direct student of ZSF.

Wang Zhengnan: Again, almost definitely a real person. Not as much historical info available, but we can be pretty sure he lived in Ningbo, birth and death dates are 1617 - 1669. Wang Zhengnan was actually his zi (courtesy name), his original name was Wang Laixian (王来咸). Known for his skill at both barehanded combat and archery.

If you need any more info I can try and do some more digging.

Cheers,

[AllanF]

zrm: Many thanks for the video clips, i have been reading through Marnix Wells' book but it is hard going as a) it is a very academic read and b) he uses terms "sunny" and "shady" for yin and yang. I find i have to reread passages over and over again, it also suffers from a lot of assumptions.

nicklinjm: My apologies on the misspelling of Wang Zhengnan's name twas a typo due to incredibly fat fingers!
Many thanks for the info about both Zhang Songxi and Wang Zhengnan. I had surmised that the latter was a real person, which intrigued me even more not to mention that all of this seems to have happen in or around the time of Qi Jiguang and his fighting of the pirates (I'm not going to say Japanese pirates as it is easy to establish that they are a real mix of ethnic groups), this may just be coincidence.

I remember seeing a book on Chang Naizhou in Shenyang when i lived there but i never bought it as my reading of Chinese isn't so good and my wife isn't interested in translating stuff for her stupid husband, i regret not buying it now. I have also a couple of books on Zhang Songxi martial art or to be accurate Songxi neijiaquan 松溪内家拳. A clip of which is posted below. If you dig up any more info i would be very grateful.

Songxi neijiaquan

http://www.56.com/u88/v_NDk5NzQ4Mzc.html

best
Allan

[Martin2]

Hey Allan,

may be this about Chang Naizhou

http://www.chinafrominside.com/ma/other ... Zbook.html

and of course Douglas Wile:

http://www.amazon.com/TAi-Chis-Ancestor ... 912059044/

110 pages about Chang Naizhou

All the best

Martin

[AllanF]

Many thanks Martin.

Jarek's translation is far better (IMHO) than that of Marnix Wells as he includes pinyin and doesn't translate the names of martial arts.
It is a shame it is so short, had his translation been available to buy then i would have bought it over Wells'.