nicklinjm wrote:
Very interesting post Bob, especially the mention of Sang Dan-qi as AFAIK he was the only direct student of Shang Yunxiang who left the mainland. Do you have any more details about what and who he taught?
I didn't want to hijack the fajin post so my post is moved here. I'm typing from a frickin phone so bear with me - first of all I've not really trained deeply in this like bajiquan and we learned pieces of it over almost a 15 year period - I didn't and don't have any goals of reaching some "deep" martial art level - I just find the practice helpful and satisfying - my primary focus is on the wu xing & xing yi set of da qiang practice we learned. About 6 of the Animals were taught.
Initially the xing yi was primarily taught for public students and the late teacher Dave Schenk (disciple) owner of the Center for Body, Mind Harmony.
However, as stated in my earlier posts, I started xing yi practiced to support & develop my liuhe duan chui practice (old age favorite LOL) and also on a visit to China, my teacher took students to Jinan, Shandong and met up with a 103 year old xing yi practitioner (I wasn't there but got to see the dvds and was impressed with his practice along with the seemingly overlap of the baji neigong I practice with the xing yi nei gong present in Miller & Cartmell's book) - he passed at 105
We didn't learn much about Sang Danqi's background - my speculation is because of the Guomindang relationship there was a fear of persecution of his teacher on the mainland.
Sang Dan-qi 's wife & daughter decided to move to New York City and he decided to stay in Taiwan - Liu Yunqiao offered to let him stay at the Wutan school and my teacher (Master Tony Yang) started to bring him breakfast in the morning when he trained. GM Liu told Master Yang to ask him to teach you Xing Yi - his Xing Yi is very good
So Sang Dan-qi had Master Yang hold santshi for three months even though Master Yang was well advanced in bajiquan/pigua zhang
One of the first things we learned (besides the requirements of santishi) was to advance & retreat slowly in the pi quan posture and to hold the pi quan posture for 3 - 9 breaths in 3 parts of the pi quan posture as you moved forward and backward in the posture - that could take as long as 30 minutes. This is close to what the Brinkman clip shows for using pi quan as a health conditioning practice.
Interestingly, the zuan execution does not pull the retreating arm back to the side of the waist but the wrist of the arm is located underneath the elbow of the forward arm/fist - it closes/protects the front of the upper body - I've not seen that in other practices and don't know if was simply a personal modification - seems like a very close range application.
Also beng quan punching arm/fist travels forward underneath the retracting arm/fist
We learned a linking form and there was a xing yi dao but that was never taught
I hate typing on a phone and will later add more - Our bagua sword & dao comes from him along with the double-headed bagua spear (I didn't learn, unfortunately).
Sang Dan-qi never talked about his teacher - could you please elaborate on the teacher you cited? Thanks in advance