The 1929 Hangzhou Leitai Tournament

[DaDa]

In the first picture, as best as I can read it; it says.

" In the year 1933, Oct 20-30, ZhongYang Martial Arts School in "Nanjing Public Martial Arts Stadium", held the second national martial arts test (competition). ZhongYang MA School and 21 other schools, with a total of 438 people participated. This time, the competition classes added boxing.

This time, 43 names entered the competition. 13 names for San Da, 3 names for long weapons, 6 names for short weapons, Shuai Jiao 3 names.
Boxing was split into three weight classes, heavy, medium and light. There were a total of 9 competitors.
Of the competition, 9 girls participated. <Last line not sure> (C)"

What's interesting for me is that the picture to the top right. The caption says that they competed on a bagua shaped platform. Octogon yeah?

Middle picture caption says judges.

And the bottom is the trophy.

I apologize for the crappy translation. I can barely make out simplified. So feel free to correct, change the translation.

[cerebus]

Cool! Anyone else have more to add on this?

[lazyboxer]

Lazyboxer thanks for the excellent article, a couple of points -

1. Why no Southern systems mentioned ? Hangzhou is not so far....
2. Great that it records one Xingyiquan man as using two of the animal methods when under pressure.
3. Where are all the photos supposedly taken by Americans?
4. What an incredible gathering of Masters! Du Xing Wu, Lio Bai Chuan, Sun Lutang and Zhang Zao Dong all sitting together....
5. Equally interesting who didnt turn up, and in that lies other deep lessons about levels and reasons of practice.
6. And no Baguazhang!

thanks again

Alex

1. I suppose because the initiative for these huge public events initially came from the Guomindang when they established the Zhongyang Guoshuguan in 1928 at their new HQ in Nanjing. The previous year they had bloodily suppressed huge peasant and worker revolts against the landlord class in Guangdong and Shanghai, and weren't too popular there at the time. Wan Laisheng was sent to help set up the Guoshu movement in the South a little later.

2. Yes, fascinating - and against the great Han Qingtang, at that.

3. I wish I knew! They'll be out there somewhere, possibly in some decaying photo album in a Minnesota attic.

4. Gadzooks indeed! Here they all are:



Seated front row from left to right: Yang Chengfu, Sun Lutang, Liu Baichuan, Li Jinglin, Du Xinwu, Zheng Zuoping, and Tian Zhaolin. Back row from left to right: Su Jingyou, Qian Xijiao, Gao Zhendong, Chu Guiting, Huang Wenshu (aka Huang Yuanxiu) and Shen Erqiao.

5.That's too deep for me

6. Yue Xia (bagua under Zhao Weixian) came 12th.

Who is Liu Gao Sheng? The article said he was an iron palm and natural style master but internet search has no mention of him.

Liu Gaosheng learned from Liu Zhennan 刘震南, famous for his liuhequan, from Dezhou city in Shandong, famous for its braised chicken and watermelon. Ziranmen is a development of liuhequan (6 harmonies boxing).

Liu Zhennan also taught the famous martial art historian Tang Hao and Gu Liuxin (1908-1991), a Shanghai taijiquan student of Chen Fake and Yang Chengfu. In 1957 the Chinese government sent him to Hanoi, where he spent five months in the presidential palace teaching taiji to Ho Chi Minh and several top Party officials. It's fascinating to think that TJQ may have contributed to the US defeat in Vietnam.

Gu also taught many of the Chinese leadership, and was very influential.

[Graculus]

Just a quickie:
on Joseph Crandall's site, check the Liu He lineage (the LF style also associated with Wan Lai Sheng etc.)

"VI. The Shandong Area
The famous teacher Liu Zhennan of Dezhou taught Liu Gaosheng, Tang Hao and others."

.....
There's a little more about Tang Hao and Liu Zhennan in Brian Kennedy's book.
RW Smith says more or less (but with much less detail) the same about Liu Gaosheng as in this article in Asian Fighting Arts.

As far as the Southern styles went, there was one fighter who did well in one of these competitions, but his name escapes me, but I agree that it seems mostly a political thing.

graculus

[Chanchu]

This is a great article, posts and thread-- what makes RSF so fun and cool

thanks!

[Andy_S]

Thanks, very interesting article.

I am hardly surprised that foreigners did not dare compete: How many foreigners were there practicing CMA - or, indeed, any kind of MA? - in Hangzhou are at that time? I have always believed that these tales of Russian strongmen/wrestlers and British boxers wandering China and challenging local MArtists are exaggerated.

Interesting to note that match standards "improved" once head punches were disallowed...which presumably nullified much of the boxing. Shades of Kyokushin.

[Dr.Rob]

What I found even more intresting was that there was no sourthern style?

[DaDa]

Ziranmen is a development of liuhequan (6 harmonies boxing).

Could you explain this one please?
My understanding is that Ziranmen went Dwarf Xu ---> Du Xin Wu ----> Wan Lai Sheng---> etc.

[Yuen-Ming]

Videos of the Leitai matches apparently resurfaced in China a few years ago, only to be immediately taken back by the Government.
I spoke to somebody who have seen them and he reported that the fights looked "ridiculous compared to modern martial sports" and that "any sanda guy nowaday would destroy them in a minute". This is certainly his opinion of the videos but if we take a look at the early boxing matches in the west and compare to those of today we might start to wonder if he might be right.

WRT the absence of southern boxers it is easy to understand, IMHO.
In the west people seem to have a few misconceptions about CMA probably because most early chinese who went to the west and taught were from HK and brought with them some southern styles and their "legends".
If we look at chinese martial history on the other side, we will see that in the last few hundred years there are few southern styles of note - compared to the north - and that most famous and good chinese masters were located up north.

YM

[bailewen]

...if we take a look at the early boxing matches in the west and compare to those of today we might start to wonder if he might be right....

*ahem*

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=R78hdxpR ... r_embedded

[cerebus]

Videos of the Leitai matches apparently resurfaced in China a few years ago, only to be immediately taken back by the Government.
I spoke to somebody who have seen them and he reported that the fights looked "ridiculous compared to modern martial sports" and that "any sanda guy nowaday would destroy them in a minute". This is certainly his opinion of the videos but if we take a look at the early boxing matches in the west and compare to those of today we might start to wonder if he might be right.

Well, that's what I suspect (and I've seen a number of older matches that bear this out), but I still love watching them anyway...

[Andy_S]

Yeun-Ming:

While I agree that the older matches almost certainly were ridiculous compared to today's sanda (the Hong Kong Wu-Chen match showcases how poor traditional masters were at sportive fighting) I can't understand why the PRC government would wish to hide such films. Presumably, it would be in their interest to compare traditional MA with modern MA in order to demonstrate how far CMA (and China itself) has advanced...?

RE: Prizefighting vs CMA
I think the boxing matches of the west - from the 17th century onward - were very rough affairs indeed. There are plenty of press reports and paintings of the day recording them, and the skills and techniques of the boxers were widely portrayed, reported and commented upon, so we do not have to rely upon "oral history."

Moreover, there were national champions/championships who/which were patronized by the aristocracy - and even royalty - and a significant betting infrastructure around the fights. Also unlike in China where MA and MArtists were looked down upon, the elite of the day were known for visiting the pubs and gyms run by boxers, and children of the artistocracy were frequenlty enrolled in courses by boxing masters to learn "the noble art."

Finally, of course, we have film of the last of the 'old-style' boxers such as Dempsey. I think he looks damned good, even by today's standards.

Pre-modern China, AFAIK, had no such regional or national infastructure for sport combat; I believe most leitei matches were very much local, ad hoc affairs in village squares. Also, although Yang and Dong were retained to train the palace guard, I don't believe it was common for the elite to mix with boxers, let alone train under them.

For these reasons, I don't think it is wise to compare/contrast and draw conclusions from two very different cultures.

To sum up: I am sure the traditional masters of the past had tremendous gongfu: This can be seen in the old photos in books like Brian Kennedy's work on CMA manuals. What they lacked was combative experience against other trained fighters; they may also have suffered from conservatism and the blinkered views and opinions that affect traditionalists in many disciplines. The story of the iron palm master makes this clear: Great gongfu, but couldn't apply it when it came to the crunch.

[lazyboxer]

Videos of the Leitai matches apparently resurfaced in China a few years ago, only to be immediately taken back by the Government.
I spoke to somebody who have seen them and he reported that the fights looked "ridiculous compared to modern martial sports" and that "any sanda guy nowaday would destroy them in a minute". This is certainly his opinion of the videos but if we take a look at the early boxing matches in the west and compare to those of today we might start to wonder if he might be right.

WRT the absence of southern boxers it is easy to understand, IMHO.
In the west people seem to have a few misconceptions about CMA probably because most early chinese who went to the west and taught were from HK and brought with them some southern styles and their "legends".
If we look at chinese martial history on the other side, we will see that in the last few hundred years there are few southern styles of note - compared to the north - and that most famous and good chinese masters were located up north.

I heard something similar elsewhere, and agree that they would be somewhat disappointing to us today. The situation is not dissimilar to modern MA tournaments where so-called "internal" stylists with plenty of flashy taolu routines either collapse into a heap of flailing spastic limbs under pressure or use modern boxing and grappling methods to stay ahead.

The unflattering comparisons between Northern and Southern styles is something I had drummed into my head as soon as I took up CMA, and appealed to my inherited English class prejudices. The Northern styles, at least back then, seemed to appeal to better educated people (and the Qing Imperial associations didn't hurt either), and I got the impression that Cantonese MA were a bit of a lower-class joke. I realize now that was somewhat unfair - but the essential point is still correct: that the best skills were cultivated where wealth and power were most concentrated, in Northern China.

RE: Prizefighting vs CMA
I think the boxing matches of the west - from the 17th century onward - were very rough affairs indeed. There are plenty of press reports and paintings of the day recording them, and the skills and techniques of the boxers were widely portrayed, reported and commented upon, so we do not have to rely upon "oral history."

Moreover, there were national champions/championships who/which were patronized by the aristocracy - and even royalty - and a significant betting infrastructure around the fights. Also unlike in China where MA and MArtists were looked down upon, the elite of the day were known for visiting the pubs and gyms run by boxers, and children of the aristocracy were frequently enrolled in courses by boxing masters to learn "the noble art."

A friend of mine has a lovely story about his ancestor in the 18th century, a great landowner in the North of England, who went into an inn for a drink on a very hot day. Although he was short and slightly built, his father had hired a famous London boxer to train him when younger. A group of strapping young farm labourers failed to recognize him and started to mock his distinctive squeaky voice, so he invited them to settle the matter with their fists. He quickly knocked several of them out, and became a local legend.

Ziranmen is a development of liuhequan (6 harmonies boxing).

Could you explain this one please?
My understanding is that Ziranmen went Dwarf Xu ---> Du Xin Wu ----> Wan Lai Sheng---> etc.

Wan Laisheng adapted his inherited liuhequan after meeting Du Xinwu, and called it liuhe ziranmen. Master Du was a qinggong expert from Hunan with a mysterious past - Yuen-Ming, did Dwarf Xu really exist?

[Yuen-Ming]

...if we take a look at the early boxing matches in the west and compare to those of today we might start to wonder if he might be right....

*ahem*

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=R78hdxpR ... r_embedded

I am afraid you cannot compare the two, Omar

When China had these first 'sport fighting' matches western boxing had about a hundred years of experience in a similar field.
So one should compare the very early boxing matches of the 17-18th century to the likes of Tyson today and see how they stand.

YM

[Yuen-Ming]

The unflattering comparisons between Northern and Southern styles is something I had drummed into my head as soon as I took up CMA, and appealed to my inherited English class prejudices. The Northern styles, at least back then, seemed to appeal to better educated people (and the Qing Imperial associations didn't hurt either), and I got the impression that Cantonese MA were a bit of a lower-class joke. I realize now that was somewhat unfair - but the essential point is still correct: that the best skills were cultivated where wealth and power were most concentrated, in Northern China.

Right on, LB !
There was no racist intent in my post of course but it is normal that the best skilled people, in any field, would try their fortune where money and power was: and Beijing (the north) had been in power in the last few hundred years so people would flock there from anywhere in China.

Wan Laisheng adapted his inherited liuhequan after meeting Du Xinwu, and called it liuhe ziranmen. Master Du was a qinggong expert from Hunan with a mysterious past - Yuen-Ming, did Dwarf Xu really exist?

I think he did, although I never made any research in that direction he seems to be cited in various texts so I'd tend to believe the story.

YM