question for yizong guys.

[mixjourneyman]

I was just looking around the net for information on Sun Xikun and his bagua via Cheng Youlong.
I came upon a yizong sight affiliated with Luo Dexiu and found out that Luo learned from a student of Sun.
I would just be interested in hearing about what this particular branch of bagua looks like and some special points about its practice.

At the Wudang school in Montreal we practice bagua from Cheng Youlong as well, but the only written point of reference I have for it is Sun Xikun's book, as there seem to be no books by Cheng Youlong or his other students (at least available in English in the west).

It just caught my interest that we may have some similarities with you.

Does Luo usually teach this branch?
Its a super good style of bagua to be sure (most complex and powerful I have come across so far).

[edededed]

We used to be overflowing with Yizong members here... But I think they all left for some reason...

Cheng Youlong's lineage is an interesting one - if only because lineage members are so scarce! Besides Sun Xikun, only Ma Deshan is famous; Ma Deshan's disciple Si Zhen is still in Beijing, so that would be one lineage that you would probably be very interested to check out.

[mixjourneyman]

We used to be overflowing with Yizong members here... But I think they all left for some reason...

Cheng Youlong's lineage is an interesting one - if only because lineage members are so scarce! Besides Sun Xikun, only Ma Deshan is famous; Ma Deshan's disciple Si Zhen is still in Beijing, so that would be one lineage that you would probably be very interested to check out.

Si Zhen is alive?
I thought he had died.
The video of him on youtube is quite awesome and even though the form movements are different bares a strong resemblance to what we do.

[edededed]

He's healthy and well, as far as I know.

Their's is a quiet lineage - amazing that that video made it to the Web at all!

[mixjourneyman]

Yeah, if he's still around I would like to go visit him sometime.
It would be great to see the man in action!

[JessOBrien]

I can't say I'm a true Yizong guy as I have only studied with Luo Laoshi as a seminar student each summer for the past 10 years. However, as far as I've heard he hasn't taught much of the Xun Xi Kun Ba Gua here in the states. Some bits and pieces of it, but the overall program has been Gao Yi Sheng style. He told me that the Sun Xi Kun Ba Gua he learned from Liu Chen helped him connect the dots about many aspects of Cheng Ting Hua's Ba Gua method. He said that he got a lot of good throws from those guys as well, and that Liu Chen was a very insightful teacher. Luo Laoshi speaks of his experiences with Liu in my interview with him in the Nei Jia Quan book.
-Jess O

[Chris McKinley]

Some of the Luo branch Yizong guys had a tiff with Dave from Atlanta, apparently for the mere fact that he was a student of Allen Pittman. That settled down but then there was a split between Brian from Red Leaves and Luo and his crew over distribution of Luo's videos. That seems to be when most of Luo's guys took off since at that time, only the Red Leaves board was active.

[mixjourneyman]

Jess, thats really interesting, thanks. All the more reason for me to cough up the cash and get a copy of your book

Chris, its too bad. Those guys like Geo really know what they were talking about in terms of Bagua usage and form.

[shawnsegler]

Geo is awesome, James. If you ever make it to DC do yourself a favor hit up Geo for some bagua usage and then go to the National Gallery of Art. It's free and has the most bomb cafeteria and Gelatto bar ever.

[mixjourneyman]

Geo is awesome, James. If you ever make it to DC do yourself a favor hit up Geo for some bagua usage and then go to the National Gallery of Art. It's free and has the most bomb cafeteria and Gelatto bar ever.

Sounds nice.

[shawnsegler]

Those are pretty much the only reasons to go there. Otherwise DC is kind of a shithole.

[edededed]

I like to go to the National Museum of Natural History to oogle a bit at the big gems they got in there...

By the way, the Sun Xikun lineage stuff in Yizong is sort of their indoor stuff, so...

As for Jess's book, I enjoyed the interviews by Luo Dexiu, Gabriel Chin, Fong Ha, Alan Pittman, and Zhao Dayuan the most

[Felipe Bidó]

We used to be overflowing with Yizong members here... But I think they all left for some reason...

They're still not sure if we are part of Red Leaves / Emptyflavor Bunch.

Ah, hell..Mr. McKinley said that already.

[XiaoXiong]

Mix; We really don't do Sun's stuff until after we've done all of the Gao stuff. Which there is a ton of. The gao inner door stuff is in the same vein as Sun's bagua so they go well together, but are not one and the same. Luo's bagua is really all taught from the perspective of Zhang Jun Feng's line. That said it's all informed and flavored by what he learned from Mr. Liu. I know a lot of our throwing comes from that school as well as at least one 2 man set. I am still working on the Gao system for the forseeable future, so I do not have much insight into Luo's Sun bagua training, but I can see how he is different from say Hong Yi Xiang, or Su Dong Chen for example in his applications. I personally suspect that it's his deep research into bagua that accounts for the difference in preference Luo Laoshr has for throwing as well as his amazing body timing rhythm and power. I'm sure a certain portion of his development can be attributed to Liu's training methods. That said Luo Laoshr is the one really responsible for all of his skill. He had great teacher's, but he took it all beyond what any one of them gave him, and devloped a really sound understanding of bagua that is not based only on this system or that so much, but is based on a wealth of knowledge he has accumulated from many different people. I think that sometimes people make it sound like he got more high level stuff from Liu Qian than from the Hong's, or that Gao's system isn't as sophisticated as Sun's for some reason. The thing is that Luo was the best fighter at Liu's School, and even in his youth as a teenager was one of the very best at Hong's school, which was huge with hundreds of students. Luo talks all the time about Hong Yi Xiang and Hong Yi Mien when he is teaching. I've never heard him say much about Liu and fighting stuff. When I asked him about it he said mostly he learned throwing from Liu. My point is not to downplay Liu's bagua influence, but just to point out that the Luo himself really talks about the Hong's a lot more and got the bulk of what he knows from them.
J

[edededed]

I think it's just that Gao is his main thing, so he teaches that first. Also, people often share things if they have the right to do so, or if it has already been 'released' once into the public already... Liu Qian's line seems quiet and all, so maybe he's staying careful about that.