Yang Cheng Fu v. Baji Master Han Hua Chen

[Bob]

Interesting translation of an article on http://wulinmingshi.wordpress.com/, 2 Heros of Central Guoshu Institute

"Han defeated over 30 well-known fighters, each time with only one blow. . . . Han had great influence on the spread of baji in southern China, to the point there was a saying "Bei Li, nan Han," meaning Li Shuwen in the North, Han Huachen in the South. . . . In the 1930s, when Li Jinglin and Xu Lanzhou established Guoshu Institutes in Hebei and Shandong, Han and his disciples followed Li Shuwen to take up teaching posts there. At the same time, Han also acted as a martial arts trainer for the militia of the Chairman of the Shandong province, Han Fuju. At the Shandong Guoshu Institute, Han met and crossed hand with Yang Cheng Fu. Yang praised Han's skill and the two became fast friends, exchanging with each other. In the 30s, during his tenure and the Shandong Guoshu Institute, Han died of heart disease."


There is also a nice article on Jin Training in baguazhang and you can click a link to go to the original Chinese version of the article.

Many thanks to Yosaku---

[Bob]

Geez, I thought someone would take a swing at this---I mean ya got the invincible system of Taiji against the system that scares off gods, ghosts and whatever, Bajiquan.

Omar, you are one helluva hybrid---no ghostbusters for me---I call Xi'an and get you to sweep out the spirits! LOL

[Doc Stier]

Well, Bob, where have you been, man?



Numerous 'experts' on this forum have repeatedly declared that all of these guys from previous generations were highly over rated by today's high standards, dontcha know? LOL

[SPJ]

just to like to add some points about guoshu guan.

1. shang dong has the first and the best guoshu guan.

2. a lot of good exchanges happened or made possible at guoshu guan.

for example, tong bei people helped improving pi gua considerably at central or nanjing guoshu guan.

3. tai ji, xing yi and ba gua teachers and students exchanged ideas and methods a great ideal at 2nd or 3rd generations.

4. ba ji was introduced and made popular at central guoshu guan.

5. all the well known taiji, xing yi and ba gua teachers all participated in guoshu guan one way or another.

unfortunately due to lack of budget, and civil war with the communists, guoshu guan system was closed or dissipated.

people can only talk about the yester years of guoshu guan era.

[edededed]

I for one would like to learn more about the other Guoshuguans. In Sun Xikun's baguazhang book, he has a list of teachers and management for the Hebei Province Guoshuguan - and quite a list of people it is! It seems dominated by big-name baguazhang teachers, in particular (including Ma Gui, Li Mengrui, Yin Yuzhang, He Jinkui, Feng Junyi, and others, off of the top of my head). Surely would have been a great place to learn martial arts!

[bailewen]

Bob,

Well I must say, I am not seeing much "vs." here. lol. Yeah. Hybrid all right. Anyways, I didn't comment partly because I need to open up a proxy just to see the thing. All blogs are blocked in China. Weird. Technically not all blogs, just anything with the word "blog" in the address.

I just skimmed the article and searched for the names I always search for. Check out the bit on Pei Xirong:

“Pei Xirong was born in 1913 in Raoyang county in Hebei province. His father was a core member of the Yi He Tuan [1], and his mother had also participated in the ‘Red Lantern’ movement [2]. His uncle, Qi Dalong, was a bodyguard in the caravan agency established by Li Cunyi who guarded caravans travelling between Tianjin and Gubeikou. When the Allied Forces invaded Tianjin, he and Li Cunyi battled against the invaders at Laolongtou Train Station. He fought courageously, sustaining several wounds...

...Later Pei Xirong also learnt Bagua Taiji and Bagua Yinyang Panshou from Wu Junshan.. .

After the outbreak of the Sino-Japanese war, the Central Martial Arts Academy moved to the Soutwestern city of Chongqing (formerly Chungking), and [he] later worked as a doctor in Xi’an. Pei Xirong spent several years living near the Little Goose Pagoda.

I mention Wu Junshan because, of course, that's where we get our Baguataijiquan from and hey, not just Xi'an but mentioning the pagoda is really cool. I pass it all the time. Been remodeled recently.

[Bob]

Omar, what I was green in envy with is your situation---learning Yang Taiji in depth, learning baji in depth---somewhat incorporating like we do with baji pigua---and also have an indepth form like taijibagua. In my estimation, this is a very personally appealing curriculum for a school.

My quirky sense of humor and irony was remembering how Robert Smith wrote up Yang Cheng Fu's defeating of Li Jing Lin in a sword fight, preserving the Yang invincibility and yet overlooking something like this---every system has its limitations and is largely shaped by the skill of the practitioner. Of course it is not clear in the article whether the crossing hands was a win, draw or defeat---I suspect a draw. Remember I grew up on an 80s diet that Yang's taiji was the ultimate fighting and health preserving systemt and in the 90s I grew up on a diet that baji was undefeatable---scares the piss out of ghosts and gods---in 2000s, I finally can digest it all--a belch and feng pi---back to training.

Take care---the original article is in Chinese from which it was translated and the link is in the article--thought you might get a kick out it.

[johnwang]

Robert Smith wrote up Yang Cheng Fu's defeating of Li Jing Lin in a sword fight,

I don't believe this statement is true. I believe Li Jing Lin evicted Yang Cheng Fu (won't allow him to stay) and that contributed to Yang Cheng Fu's final death.

[Bob]

John, I would have to go and look it up but I think it is in the Martial Arts Musings book---I wrote about this years ago on the Sword Forum and how inconsistent it was with Li Jing Lin wriing a calligraphy piece in Chen Weiming's Sword Book along with Chen Weiming's description of Li Jing Lin's wudang sword and its close affinity with the Yang taiji sword. I am not sure whether you believe that it is not true that Robert Smith wrote this or whether the incident is untrue. I suspect that the sword crossing hands did not take place. Interestingly I did not hear about the later part.

Chen Weiming talks about Li Jing Lin passing through Shanghai at that time.

[Robert Young]

I don't believe this statement is true. I believe Li Jing Lin evicted Yang Cheng Fu (won't allow him to stay) and that contributed to Yang Cheng Fu's final death.

John, personally I don't think general Li would have evited Yang, becasue he did not need to. Did Li complaint about Yang's teaching or even confronted with him? That I believe. Li was the vise president of NanJing Institute, and Yang was a teacher. Li was one generation higher than Yang, and he was one of the person to hire Yang in the first place. Some people said Yang was not used to the free fighting training in the institute (the students had to fight every week), so he left. But that was another street story.

Back to the sword topic. General Li was famous for his straight sword. Every teachers in the Inititute recognized his reputation. Several books published by NanJing Institute have praised general Li's sword. I don't believe there was a sword fight between them either. After Yang left NanJing, he was hired as dean of education in Han Zhou Institute, Li taught his Tai Chi sword there. So, I don't think their relation was that bad. If that was the case, Li would not have taught sword in Hang Zhou Inititute, not to mention to teach Tai Chi sword there.

[nianfong]

nice article. just wish the writer would be more consistent with his pinyin vs wade-giles.

[Adam S]

Numerous 'experts' on this forum have repeatedly declared that all of these guys from previous generations were highly over rated by today's high standards, dontcha know? LOL

Classic Doc

[johnwang]

personally I don't think general Li would have evited Yang, becasue he did not need to.

My teacher loved to talk about 2 things that he believed most people may not know the truth. I can only repeat what he had told me and I can't prove anything myself.

- 汪精衛(Wang Jing Wei) was a undercovered agent. The order to assassin 汪精衛(Wang Jing Wei) was "to hurt him but don't kill him".
- Yang Cheng Fu's death. Li Jing Lin said in the public, "He is cheating on his students again" (my teacher was beside him when he said that). Yang left that city soon after that.

I don't believe there was a sword fight between them either.

I don't know where did Robert Smith get this information.

I suspect that the sword crossing hands did not take place.

I don't believe that Yang Cheng Fu was a sword expert.

[SPJ]

sort of off topic a bit.

politics is always politics. there is a great gray area.

http://baike.baidu.com/view/40135.htm?fr=ala0

yes Wang was a double agent. China was squeezed between Russia and Japan. Since late Qing, the policy was either alliance with Russian against Japan, or alliance with Japan against Russia. or just play the balance of scale between Japan and Russia.

Japan supported Dr. Sun's uprising against Qing. but later Japan supported Yuan Shi Kai. Because Yuan agreed to the continuation of foreign concessions and unequal treaties favoring foreign powers at the expence of China.

Dr. Sun wanted abolition of all unfair foreign treaties. so no western powers recognised his southern guang zhou government. negociations of course went to Russia. Young communist russia supported Dr. Sun, russian aide and especialist came and trained nationalist officers and army. in exchange, Dr. Sun allowed chinese communists to exist within the nationalist party. This was the first nationalist/communist cooperation or alliance.

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so Russia supported Chiang to resist Japan. Chiang also formed alliance with US to fight Japan. this was an alliance against Japan.

Wang was on a peaceful mission. He ruled well in the Japanese occupied areas, economic and social orders were restored in Nanking and shanghai.

on the contrast, chung king suffered lack of resources, hard economic, being bombed daily---

in Yan An, Chinese communists enjoyed good agricultural economic from the farmers.

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every one knew that Japan would be defeated by the west. it is only a matter of time. while waiting for the time to come. Wang was responsible for the huge populace in the occupation area. China is still China. Japan came but one day Japan will leave.

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[SPJ]

another big controversy is Pu Yi.

the last emperor pu yi was well aware of Japan's intention to annex his ancestor's ground and the surely ultimate defeat of Japan by US or Russia or both.

He was kidnapped by Japanese agents in tian jin. He lost his total freedom.

He was just a puppet or tool used by Japan.

It was not his free will to "restore" Qing or man chu guo in the north east.

He can not even decide what he will eat or dress, let along to "rule" a "country".

He had to do everything according to Japan's orders.

so he had to play "dumb" and partied all the time. or just faked meetings with "ministers" . it was all a stage show.

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He was called a betrayer, collaborater, sell out--

IS he?