the rum soaked fist: internal martial arts forum

Posted: **Wed Feb 28, 2018 11:22 pm**

Steve James wrote:
Therefore, the Chen's maintain that their art is based on the usage of the Guandao.

Interesting. Care to explain or point to examples?

Unlike the spear's poking action, a Guandao use "rounded" action its heaviness combined with "swing momentum" does the work

Posted: **Thu Mar 01, 2018 1:00 am**

Bao wrote:
Where animal possession would comes into the picture concerning Chinese Martial arts I have a very hard time to understand. Never read or heard anything else that would suggest such a connection.

http://www.letmegooglethat.com/?q=anima ... rtial+arts

Posted: **Thu Mar 01, 2018 1:08 am**

If you cannot come up with some serious research, why don't you just put in a link to "garbage" instead?

Posted: **Thu Mar 01, 2018 2:13 am**

Bao wrote:
Where animal possession would comes into the picture concerning Chinese Martial arts I have a very hard time to understand. Never read or heard anything else that would suggest such a connection. Schamanism, or wujiao, in China was performed by certain magicians said to have certain powers, not by common people. They could be possessed by ghosts or gods, but I've never heard anything about animals. This Wu tradition has no rituals or dances where common people became possessed by anything. The communication with the spirits was something only for the gifted sorcerer.

I've been present at rituals/events conducted by some very well known CMA teachers, one centred around the "monkey king". Judging from this and other aspects of training in certain areas, the shamanism connection seems quite likely to me, in some schools at least

Posted: **Thu Mar 01, 2018 2:22 am**

Bao wrote:If you cannot come up with some serious research, why don't you just put in a link to "garbage" instead?

The first article listed in that simple Google search is by a noted academic. I think that qualifies as serious research. You can lead a horse to water but I can't make it drink!

Posted: **Thu Mar 01, 2018 2:23 am**

RobP3 wrote:
Bao wrote:
Where animal possession would comes into the picture concerning Chinese Martial arts I have a very hard time to understand. Never read or heard anything else that would suggest such a connection. Schamanism, or wujiao, in China was performed by certain magicians said to have certain powers, not by common people. They could be possessed by ghosts or gods, but I've never heard anything about animals. This Wu tradition has no rituals or dances where common people became possessed by anything. The communication with the spirits was something only for the gifted sorcerer.

I've been present at rituals/events conducted by some very well known CMA teachers, one centred around the "monkey king". Judging from this and other aspects of training in certain areas, the shamanism connection seems quite likely to me, in some schools at least

That's can't possibly have happened Rob - Bao says it's not possible. He's never heard of such a thing. Why are you lying to the forum???!!!!!

Posted: **Thu Mar 01, 2018 2:25 am**

In my so far very little research for an ide/project I just came up with a couple of days ago in which the concept of the "Huli jing"/Chinese fox-spirit plays a central part, there are in Chinese mythology animal-spirits/demons but in stead of humans being possessed the belief is rather that the spirit/demon itself create a human form(if so wish)......Related to the same project are the Viking Berserkers who according to some sources dressed themselves in Bear or Wolfe skins as a means to get into that special warriors fury......Sorry to get of topic, just find these things quite interesting....carry on:)

Posted: **Thu Mar 01, 2018 2:53 am**

GrahamB wrote:
Bao wrote:If you cannot come up with some serious research, why don't you just put in a link to "garbage" instead?

The first article listed in that simple Google search is by a noted academic. I think that qualifies as serious research

This is the first article that pops up: https://chinesemartialstudies.com/2015/ ... tial-arts/

I don’t doubt that the time of the Chinese Boxer Rebellion was a very superstitious and strange period. But this is another subject. The subject here was about the development of Chinese martial arts and the connection between long forms, dance and of course the “animal possession” that you brought up. It’s an interesting idea, but there’s nothing in Chinese history that suggest this link. You are obviously still welcome to prove me wrong.

Posted: **Thu Mar 01, 2018 3:52 am**

Bao "prove you wrong" - I think you are arguing from a strange position of ignorance. It's not up to me to prove you wrong. I'd suggest that you do a little more research, that's all. There are countless books on the subject if you are really interested (they tend to be of the academic study variety so hard going for the lay reader). Well, at least you can't say you haven't heard of the idea ever before now.

Here's is a link to a thread I posted recently on the forum showing video of the Tiger Stick Society from the 1920s and the growing number of modern day people who are reigniting these Chinese cultural practices on pilgrimages to sacred sites:

viewtopic.php?f=3&p=454103

Or try my interview with author Scott P. Phillips

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_2Go0b8ggrg&t=813s

He talks about this exact subject around 14.00

Posted: **Thu Mar 01, 2018 5:24 am**

I actually enjoyed Scotts book possible origins a lot more than I had expected to, there is good research in it and a lot that makes sense. But I think Scott and anyone else has to be careful about how far one draws conclusions from it. We're after all talking about a huge land, a long period of history and a large and diverse magnitude of people involved. To be honest I don't think there are any reliable conclusions. Lot's happened, and some of it sheds light on what remains, I think that in itself is enough.

The ritual dance/ spiritual aspect being the origin of form itself, it might be the forerunner in some senses or the inspiration in some cases. And it might have been kept going. It seems to me though that dance, ritualistic or otherwise has always had it's place in human experience and expression and that place is multi faceted not one dimensional. At some point people realized a form or a dance could be a container for whatever they happened to preserve or practice at a given time or place. It probably was not a single point of origin in time but many spread across space and time. Cross culturally too probably.

Posted: **Thu Mar 01, 2018 5:33 am**

George,

Yes I agree - I think we all always run into our own confirmation bias. If we have a theory then we tend to see it everywhere in everything. It’s just human nature, but as Freud famously said (maybe) “sometimes a cigar is just a cigar”.

Either way it’s a very entertaining read, like you say. And at the very least opens us up to a world we know very little about in the West.

Posted: **Thu Mar 01, 2018 6:37 am**

Trick wrote:
Steve James wrote:
Therefore, the Chen's maintain that their art is based on the usage of the Guandao.

Interesting. Care to explain or point to examples?

Unlike the spear's poking action, a Guandao use "rounded" action its heaviness combined with "swing momentum" does the work

Well, that's an observation, but not close to an answer or explanation of how that weapon relates to tcc --of any style. They all have "pointing" and "swinging."

The relationship I've traditionally heard of is that xingyi was related to spear, bagua to dao, and tcc to jian. The Yang family, for some reason, focused a bit more on staff.

Afa the guandao, the issue is its relation to a form. It's easy to see its relation to a traditional Shaolin or longfist form. In fact, I think some would argue that Longfist would be the place to start looking anyway --from the perspective of hand or weapon forms.

Posted: **Thu Mar 01, 2018 6:53 am**

Steve James wrote:
The relationship I've traditionally heard of is that xingyi was related to spear, bagua to dao, and tcc to jian. The Yang family, for some reason, focused a bit more on staff.

Afa the guandao, the issue is its relation to a form. It's easy to see its relation to a traditional Shaolin or longfist form. In fact, I think some would argue that Longfist would be the place to start looking anyway --from the perspective of hand or weapon forms.

I was told that YLC's main weapon was the spear, though maybe the spear blade was removed after that accident. There's at least one Yang line that still has the halberd

Posted: **Thu Mar 01, 2018 7:15 am**

I was told that YLC's main weapon was the spear, though maybe the spear blade was removed after that accident. There's at least one Yang line that still has the halberd

That's the story. But, the pole exercises --ime-- are about body method and aren't connected to the organization of the form.

It's possible to incorporate almost any weapon into a hand form; and weapons can be created to optimize hand techniques. It's like which came first, the deerhorn knife or bagua?

I think the question centers around the use of weapons in military formations aopt any other usage. I'm not convinced that the way we do tcc forms now has anything to do with military function or formation.

Posted: **Thu Mar 01, 2018 12:23 pm**

RobP3 wrote:I was told that YLC's main weapon was the spear, though maybe the spear blade was removed after that accident. There's at least one Yang line that still has the halberd

I guess you mean kwandao and not halberd? Halberd is not the same as the kwan dao/guandao. What is usually referred to as halberd is "ji" type of pole weapons. This is the most common one:

I actually do have a book on Tai Chi weapons that have a chapter on the halberd with both solo and partner exercises. But it's not a traditional Tai Chi weapon.

YLC's favourite weapon was indeed the spear. Why people say that Yang Tai Chi focus on staff is because staff and spear is the same thing. It's the same use but the spear is limited to one side. I don't believe he learned the spear in the Chen village, but probably earlier as a part of his Shaolin training and then integrated it into his Tai Chi.

The Guandao is said to have been Chen Wangting's favourite weapon, but the common claim that his art was based on this weapon is a bit far stretched as he studied and collected many different things. Also, the original small frame doesn't have the large movements from the large fram that people claim symbolising the use of the kwan dao, so from this perspective, it has very little use for the kwandao.

the rum soaked fist: internal martial arts forum

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