Comparison of Chen Pao Chui and changes

[salcanzonieri]

Here is the Chen YanXi (Chen FaKe's father) line (Du YuZe in Taiwan) version of Chen Er Lu Pao chui (the movements make sense and you can see how they are derived from various weapons and what the practical usage is)



Here are two well known early students of Chen FaKe (and you can see that the form isn't changed much at all)




And then this form in Chen village post Chen FaKe times becomes very different to the point that (in my opinion) the movements are weird and way over done and lose their practicality):

[Bao]

I agree, the Chen village guys just keep on screwing things up.

[Trick]

I like looking into and compare different flavors of the same forms, whether it’s a Taiji or xingyi or even Karate form, I like the idea of tracking the roots of the forms.

However, for me and for many, a form since I know this from personal experience holds deeper teachings that isn’t really to be found in - ‘this technique works as defense against that attack- kind of way.
Important is to have gotten correct teaching of the solo practice in the first place, then dedication till the point the form is one’s own, then the magic begins.
At this point two students of the same original form most certainly has taken two different flavors but still embodies the essence, which of course isn’t, as mentioned - a punch here, and a kick there - kind of way.

Just the other day I read this little article which I found grasped this kind of issue -

. In Buddhism it is said that the soul wants to express itself with form and that the form requires soul. The ideal would be this way, but in reality the form many times forgets about the soul and tries to maintain itself alone. The temples (form) forget about Buddha (soul) and only show their beauty and structural size.

Form and soul are as meat and bone, but they must not clasp themselves to a given form. Said in another way, they must not transform form into something divine. The soul, if it constantly evolves, will never cease to search for a new form with which it may better express itself. You have to break the actual form and take a new one. This is the reason Kyokai’s position was completely incomprehensible.

https://shotokai.com/style/

[Bao]

I like looking into and compare different flavors of the same forms, whether it’s a Taiji or xingyi or even Karate form, I like the idea of tracking the roots of the forms.

However, for me and for many, a form since I know this from personal experience holds deeper teachings that isn’t really to be found in - ‘this technique works as defense against that attack- kind of way.
Important is to have gotten correct teaching of the solo practice in the first place, then dedication till the point the form is one’s own, then the magic begins.
At this point two students of the same original form most certainly has taken two different flavors but still embodies the essence, which of course isn’t, as mentioned - a punch here, and a kick there - kind of way.

Just the other day I read this little article which I found grasped this kind of issue -

. In Buddhism it is said that the soul wants to express itself with form and that the form requires soul. The ideal would be this way, but in reality the form many times forgets about the soul and tries to maintain itself alone. The temples (form) forget about Buddha (soul) and only show their beauty and structural size.

Form and soul are as meat and bone, but they must not clasp themselves to a given form. Said in another way, they must not transform form into something divine. The soul, if it constantly evolves, will never cease to search for a new form with which it may better express itself. You have to break the actual form and take a new one. This is the reason Kyokai’s position was completely incomprehensible.

https://shotokai.com/style/

I like this kind of thinking and the quote is very good. However, in martial arts, everything is about function. You build your whole foundation and body method (shenfa) for your body and methods to function in very specific ways. So your martial arts "soul" is connected to "function." A specific function decides how something will be formed. Function and form is the same as soul and form. Which means that if the function is gone, the soul is also gone.

[Trick]

I like looking into and compare different flavors of the same forms, whether it’s a Taiji or xingyi or even Karate form, I like the idea of tracking the roots of the forms.

However, for me and for many, a form since I know this from personal experience holds deeper teachings that isn’t really to be found in - ‘this technique works as defense against that attack- kind of way.
Important is to have gotten correct teaching of the solo practice in the first place, then dedication till the point the form is one’s own, then the magic begins.
At this point two students of the same original form most certainly has taken two different flavors but still embodies the essence, which of course isn’t, as mentioned - a punch here, and a kick there - kind of way.

Just the other day I read this little article which I found grasped this kind of issue -

. In Buddhism it is said that the soul wants to express itself with form and that the form requires soul. The ideal would be this way, but in reality the form many times forgets about the soul and tries to maintain itself alone. The temples (form) forget about Buddha (soul) and only show their beauty and structural size.

Form and soul are as meat and bone, but they must not clasp themselves to a given form. Said in another way, they must not transform form into something divine. The soul, if it constantly evolves, will never cease to search for a new form with which it may better express itself. You have to break the actual form and take a new one. This is the reason Kyokai’s position was completely incomprehensible.

https://shotokai.com/style/

I like this kind of thinking and the quote is very good. However, in martial arts, everything is about function. You build your whole foundation and body method (shenfa) for your body and methods to function in very specific ways. So your martial arts "soul" is connected to "function." A specific function decides how something will be formed. Function and form is the same as soul and form. Which means that if the function is gone, the soul is also gone.

yes, the body is a tool to carry us along at the physical plane.
the forms（the set movements）we practice are designed to teach us how to efficiently interact not only with objects but with other souls too, so the practical teachings within the form on a higher level should trancend beyond dealing in mere physical interactions of punching, kicking and wrestling kind of ways.

[origami_itto]

The wiggly extra bits look like he becomes more separated.
The first guy up top... he moves his energy like reeling silk.
The one on bottom, he does that thing I notice in a lot of Chen guys where you see them gather before issuing instead of keeping it held throughout the movements. (The common Yang equivalent IMHO being they never gather it AT ALL)
The fajin should be like releasing an arrow, but they seem to shove the arrow.

Regarding the forms in general, I hold to the idea that they are intended primarily to cultivate the jin lu or energy path to fill that movement with smooth strength and power.

Our cultivation is like forging a sword, the various pieces and parts of the whole are each useful in a large number of ways, though the applicability of each is of course limited, and the overall design reflects compromises and optimizations for particular projected purposes.

The effectiveness of these arts lies in their ability to equip the practitioner to better function in the world. If our art is entirely tuned to prevailing in a particular limited context conflict scenario it isn't doing much to help my day to day.

Move furniture, deal with dogs, catch things I knock over or drop... knock over and drop less things, ya know, all that stuff. Hopefully falling down less and getting up faster as I age is a part of the deal.

But like you say that's just the physical, the direct and indirect cultivation also includes the mental and spiritual planes of interaction.

Anyhow just rambling, time for coffee

[GrahamB]

it all looks like Chen Tai Chi to me.

[greytowhite]

My Chen teacher was under Xiaowang for almost half a decade before CXW switched focus from Xinjia to Laojia about 2010 for the Arizona group because he was unhappy they hadn't embodied the silk reeling well. After meeting Chen Qingzhou and later Chen Yu he decided he wanted to go for Qingzhou's older gong fu but then CQZ passed away and my teacher was deported to Mexico. There are definitely things not being transmitted properly within the Big 4 Village groups.

[Bhassler]

Du Yuze's stuff is definitely different-- a lot of the angles are changed and some of the jins are just flat-out different. There's nothing to suggest that it was Chen Fake that changed things and not Du Yuze; Du had multiple teachers, of which Chen Yanxi was only one, and as much as people like to say that Chen Fake changed things based on his experiences in Beijing, the same and more could be said about Du Yuze in Taiwan. Either or both could be true-- the point is there is no compelling evidence that Du's stuff is representative of an older or "more original" way of doing things than Chen Fake's stuff. It's pretty common here on RSF to present a theory that gets a lot of objections, then come back months or years later and elaborate or repeat the same theory as if it's established fact.

If you want to compare the Chen village stuff to Chen Fake's direct line, it seems it would make sense to include Chen Yu, Zhang Maozhen, or other students of Chen Zhaokui who would be of the same generation as the big 4 from the village. There are early students of Feng around, but for whatever reason video seems hard to come by. They don't look like the later Hunyuan practitioners.

It's also worth noting that what's shown and said publicly does not always match what's done in private. Casual observation can easily gloss over missing details that indicate differing levels of skill between one practitioner and another. Realistically, unless you're in a particular lineage and know how things are supposed to be done relative to that lineage, outside of crossing hands there's no reliable way to know who's good and who's not.

[Urs Krebs]

Oh dear... Posting a few videos, randomly not logically chosen and another weird discussion is started to blame the village guys.

As coming from a village lineage myself i can say the following:

The Pao Chui which we know in our lineage as "Lao Jia Er Lu" was taught in the village by Chen Zhaopi.

The Pao Chui which we know in our lineage as "Xin Jia Er Lu" was taught in the village by Chen Zhaokui. It is known in Beijing as Er Lu. It has the same structure as in the first few videos.

However, many people will say, but, but... but! They never want to see the obvious.

[Bob]

I've always found Du Yuze's flavor and form more closer in flavor to Chen Qingzhou's forms.

Du Yuze Lineage: The only difference regarding fact and theory is that this is what Du Yuze said regarding his teachers and lineage - now maybe he is lying or maybe its a different level of form and flavor than what Chen Yanxi taught or maybe it was the best the Du could do or may have not been with him that long

He only had one other teacher according to Du himself - I know this because my teacher learned directly from him along with Dr. Leung in Du Yuze's Home/Livingroom

However, I really don't have any bone to pick in this fight - variation seems to be the norm rather than the exception.

Du Yuze's Pao Chui (from Chen Yanxi's instruction):

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0U794Im1nnA

Master Du Yuze’s Chen Style Tai Chi



https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=V3YqCNqq6-U

GM Chen Qingzhou Laojia YiLu Postures 1-53

[salcanzonieri]

If Du YuZe "changed"the forms, etc., then WHY is his forms (shown by his students) done much the same way as Chen FaKe's early students (as shown in the 2nd and 3rd videos).
The first 3 videos are essentially the same.

The form becomes different, much different, from Chen ZhaoKui's line in Chen village.
Why did Chen Qingzhou abandon that version and go back to what he first learned?

The fact that Chen FaKe's early students and Du YuZe's students do the forms the same way says a great deal.
If Du YuZe "changed" a great deal of the form, they shouldn't be the same but they are (with minor variations).

You can see how great the postures changed from Chen ZhaoKui's line rather than from Chen FaKe's early students (which as i said is a lot more like Du YuZe's version rather than like Chen ZhaoKui's version).

[Bhassler]

If Du YuZe "changed"the forms, etc., then WHY is his forms (shown by his students) done much the same way as Chen FaKe's early students (as shown in the 2nd and 3rd videos).
The first 3 videos are essentially the same.

The form becomes different, much different, from Chen ZhaoKui's line in Chen village.
Why did Chen Qingzhou abandon that version and go back to what he first learned?

The fact that Chen FaKe's early students and Du YuZe's students do the forms the same way says a great deal.
If Du YuZe "changed" a great deal of the form, they shouldn't be the same but they are (with minor variations).

You can see how great the postures changed from Chen ZhaoKui's line rather than from Chen FaKe's early students (which as i said is a lot more like Du YuZe's version rather than like Chen ZhaoKui's version).

Your original post stated pre- and post- Chen Fake, so I read it as a sort of continuation of earlier claims you made that Chen Fake changed the form from what Chen Yanxi taught, and was therefore pointing out that if the two forms were indeed significantly different (which I feel they are), then there was nothing to suggest it was one person who changed it, and not the other. Sorry if I misread your post.

As for the Chen Zhaokui line, what they do in the village should not at all be taken as representative of Chen Zhaokui's taiji. For that, you need to look at Chen Yu. What they do in the village is from Chen Zhaopi. Chen Zhoakui did visit to teach some, but the underlying mechanics of that method are different to what they do in the village, so it seems as if what they call xinjia in the village adopted some of the external choreography, but still uses Laojia mechanics. (The fact that the mechanics are different is not in debate-- having trained both, the fundamentals are different, and so what is built atop those fundamentals is also different. If you know, you know. Also, note that I am not saying "better", just different.)

The Chen Qingzhou thing is interesting, because what he ostensibly went "back to" would be what he claimed to learn from Chen Zhaopi, which is who the village guys learned from. However, Zhaopi would have been 78 by the time Qingzhou went to learn from him, so it's likely that whatever Qingzhou had came from his father, and the association with Zhaopi was more about gaining notoriety than actual training. Which, again, is not to say that he wasn't awesome or anything like that, just pointing out where the meat of his gongfu likely came from.

[Urs Krebs]

Your original post stated pre- and post- Chen Fake, so I read it as a sort of continuation of earlier claims you made that Chen Fake changed the form from what Chen Yanxi taught, and was therefore pointing out that if the two forms were indeed significantly different (which I feel they are), then there was nothing to suggest it was one person who changed it, and not the other. Sorry if I misread your post.

As for the Chen Zhaokui line, what they do in the village should not at all be taken as representative of Chen Zhaokui's taiji. For that, you need to look at Chen Yu. What they do in the village is from Chen Zhaopi. Chen Zhoakui did visit to teach some, but the underlying mechanics of that method are different to what they do in the village, so it seems as if what they call xinjia in the village adopted some of the external choreography, but still uses Laojia mechanics. (The fact that the mechanics are different is not in debate-- having trained both, the fundamentals are different, and so what is built atop those fundamentals is also different. If you know, you know. Also, note that I am not saying "better", just different.)

The Chen Qingzhou thing is interesting, because what he ostensibly went "back to" would be what he claimed to learn from Chen Zhaopi, which is who the village guys learned from. However, Zhaopi would have been 78 by the time Qingzhou went to learn from him, so it's likely that whatever Qingzhou had came from his father, and the association with Zhaopi was more about gaining notoriety than actual training. Which, again, is not to say that he wasn't awesome or anything like that, just pointing out where the meat of his gongfu likely came from.

You didn't misread Mr. Canzonieris post, i read it the same as you.

As for the Chen Zhaokui line, I doubt what you write. In my personal opinion, what is called Gong Fu Jia is more an evolution by Chen Yu than from Chen Zhaokui. Recordings from Chen Yu from the early 1990s doesn't show much difference to what was taught by my teacher. However, i admire what i see from Chen Yu he indeed has great skills.

The Chen Qingzhou thing is also a fairytale. He wasn't - again my personal opinion - the Grandmaster as many have seen him. Every video you see from him, his postures, structure, just everything tells something different. Probably it was just too difficult to learn for him. What is true, that his oldest son Chen Youze learned from my Master Wang Xian and that's why his skills look totally different. But officially he's the inheritor of his father and not of Wang Xian. Compare the videos of father and son and then it's obvious. The structure of their Er Lu btw is the same as taught by Chen Zhaopi.

[salcanzonieri]

As per comments I made in the past about Chen FaKe changing the Laojia form (the New Frame is entirely a different thing), what has been pointed out to me is that I am seeing early Chen FaKe Beijing version versus later Chen village version of the forms.
That is an important distinction. Who actually changed the forms?

For example the posture shown here (in the 4 videos I posted above)
video 1 - Du Yu Ze style look at 2:10-13
video 2 - Chen Fake's oldest early student in Beijing look at 2:42
video 3 - Feng ZhiQiang also early Chen Fake student in Beijing look at 2:58+

Video 4 - Chen Village style look at 2:59-3:01.
That is a DRASTIC posture change.

The original sequence came from using the sword and follows through into the subsequent movements, in the first 3 videos it is obvious from sword fighting techniques.
Chen village video 4 shows something very impractical to do and changes the function of the postural movements very much.

And that is one example of many changes. The changes to the form change the function of the movements.