the rum soaked fist: internal martial arts forum

According Hong Junsheng 洪均生 (1907-1996) in the first publication of his book in 1988, page 390, said that Chen Faka was born after Chen Yanxi was 60 years of age, and he was away most the time teaching the son of Yuan Shikai, who later became the first president of the Republic of China (1912-1949).

According Baike:

https://baike.baidu.com/item/%E9%99%88% ... 99/6224706

Chen Yanxi was born in 1848 and passed away in 1929 at the age of 81. This is contradicting what Hong Junshen had said, as Chen Faka was born in 1887 when Chen Yanxi was 60 that makes his year of birth to be 1827 or before.

From one source the big four in Chanjiagou learned from Chen Zhaopi (1893-1972), the nephew of
Chan Fake, who returned home in 1958 and was persecuted during the Cultural Revolution.

What are the exact dates of birth and death of Chan Yanxi?

My postulation is that Chan Yanxi improved what Chan Fake had learned when he was away from home. Maybe this is why Shen Jiazhen’s 8 unique features of Taijiquan (1963) are applicable to the modified version of Hongtong Tongbei Quan. If that is the case, these features are applicable to modify any martial art.

https://rumsoakedfist.org/viewtopic.php ... 61#p465497

I failed to find a link between your age calculations and the "postulate". Care to elaborate?

If you are interested in Chen Yanxi's Taiji, look into Du Yuze 杜毓澤's lineage in Taiwan. Du was a disciple of CYX and later also studied with CYX's nephew Chen Mingbiao, making him the most senior Chen Taiji practitioner in Taiwan until the time of his death in 1990.

The concept of Chan 缠 is from Baguaquan, and you can find that in Chapter 12 of Sun Lutang’s Baguaquan Xue (1917), he mentioned the snake technique contents the white snake flicks its tongue and the two-headed snake WINDS its body. The only person had access to Baguaquan from Chenjiagou in those days was Chen Yanxi, who was teaching Fu Zhensong and others with Jia Qishan 贾岐山, the disciple of Dong Haichuan 董海川 from 1897 to 1900. Shen Jiazhen did not have access to all these but his 8 unique features gave a good analysis of Taijiquan and the two sets of Cannon fists since he learned them all.

That's one curious theory, for sure, but I don't think Sun Lutang talks specifically about Chan Si 缠丝, or does he? If not, I'm afraid you would need a bit more evidence, because the concept of coiling is quite popular in CMAs and is not something proprietary to either Taijiquan or Baguazhang. Personally, I think it's most probable that it came to both from some earlier sources.

My Chen taiji instructor here locally said that the chansi exercises were not developed until the 70s but that they were already contained within the Laojia form. The government asked the Chen representatives to put together preparatory exercises because the other styles had them and they wanted each of the 5 Families to have somewhat equivalent material.