Heretical history of Tai Chi

Discussion on the three big Chinese internals, Yiquan, Bajiquan, Piguazhang and other similar styles.

Re: Heretical history of Tai Chi

Postby Bob on Fri Jul 03, 2020 7:26 pm

FWIW - in 1999, in the lobby of a hotel in Shanghai, after demonstrating some of our art (bajiquan Chen & Yang's taji) for Wu Bin (Jet Li's teacher), we all sat down for a beer or two. Wu Bin proceeded to tell us that only 2 original Shaolin forms survived - all other forms were modern adaptations & interpretations.

In 2000 we visited the "Shaolin Temple" - the demonstrations were played to the beat of modern Rock music - it was contemporary wushu at its finest!
Last edited by Bob on Fri Jul 03, 2020 8:05 pm, edited 3 times in total.
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Re: Heretical history of Tai Chi

Postby GrahamB on Fri Jul 03, 2020 10:58 pm

Actually, the Smith Hypothesis (that Wu Yuxiang got Yang Lu Chan to cobble Taijiquan together out of whatever Northern martial arts he already knew, then added a backstory of Chen village and Chan San Feng, plus yin yang philosophy to make it feel old, and turn it into a brand) does explain why every posture in Taijiquan is found in other arts...
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Re: Heretical history of Tai Chi

Postby Trick on Sat Jul 04, 2020 1:02 am

salcanzonieri wrote:Well after everything is said and done,
All the names of the movements are found there as well All the names are Buddhist concepts,

-

Maybe Shaolin drew inspiration from Daoist sources ? Yes it’s far out and far back, but why not ?!.......ist it believed that Buddhism Daoism and Confusianism concepts mixed and blended over time in China ?

Whats the Buddhist concepts found in the postures names of YTQ ?
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Re: Heretical history of Tai Chi

Postby Trick on Sat Jul 04, 2020 1:25 am

salcanzonieri wrote:
- I can show you how Shaolin Jingang Quan was used to incorporate Fajin and Fa Li into the Taiji form.


So if Taijiquan is actually(as I read from your “I can show you” list) Shaolinquan, then why wasn’t Fali methods originally in TJQ ?
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Re: Heretical history of Tai Chi

Postby Trick on Sat Jul 04, 2020 1:40 am

GrahamB wrote:I think you are posting on the wrong thread... this one is all about how Tai Chi was completely invented by Confucians in the Royal Court, not Taoists. Get your own damn Taoist thread. ;D

Isn’t all but the truth allowed in the Heretical history thread 8-)
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Re: Heretical history of Tai Chi

Postby Bao on Sat Jul 04, 2020 1:50 am

salcanzonieri wrote:Nice, but you are really changing the subject. I know that Zen Buddhism has roots in Taoism.
That's fine for meditation and mindfulness and enlightment.

BIG SO WHAT

I am stating the the actual movements found posture by posture in TJQ. are all found within Shaolin Qigong and Routines.


You miss the point. Shaolin movements itself and Shaolin practice were at least partly developed directly from Taoist exercises, Daoyin and Neidan. The internal aspects in Shaolin comes from both Daoist and Buddhist practice. So to say that there is no Taoist influence in Shaolin is just plain wrong.

Bob wrote: Wu Bin proceeded to tell us that only 2 original Shaolin forms survived - all other forms were modern adaptations & interpretations.


That is what I've heard as well. Old Shaolin is different from modern longfist styles, which has become synonymous with "Shaolin". Actually more similar to IMA practiced today than Changquan.
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Re: Heretical history of Tai Chi

Postby Trick on Sat Jul 04, 2020 2:29 am

salcanzonieri wrote:Nice, but you are really changing the subject. I know that Zen Buddhism has roots in Taoism.
That's fine for meditation and mindfulness and enlightment.

BIG SO WHAT

I am stating the the actual movements found posture by posture in TJQ. are all found within Shaolin Qigong and Routines.
That's my point. A point that can be proven not only by me, who practiced both Shaolin and TJQ since the early 1980s, but also many other researchers in China and outside of China.

It is a very important fact that each and every posture, and strings of postural movements can be found.
TJQ is pieced together, it's a patchwork of all different Shaolin material, which was always internal.
The whole internal vs external thing was all a hoax and always was.

The only external martial arts is modern day Competition Wusu, and now we can add MMA to that, perhaps.

Regardless, none of that is important. What is important, very important, is that every single piece of TJQ can be pointed out in the different related Shaolin Qigongs and routines that are part of the Ming dynasty era Shaolin Hong Quan systm (which consisted of Chan Yuan Gong, Louhan 13 Postures Gong, Lao Xiao Da Hong Quan, Rou Quan, Jingang Quan, Tai Zhu Chang Quan, Ape Monkey Quan, Xiao Pao Chui, etc.,)
So don't ignore this statement, which is a fact, and change the subject into blah blah blah.

Furthermore, I don't think that Pao Quan from Chen Wang Ting's time survived. The current Chen Pau Quan sets contains 2 vaguely general movements from Shaolin Xiao Pao Quan, which are also found anyway in all the other Shaolin forms I just mentioned. Right now no one knows where the movements in Chen Pao Quan originated from.
But that is changing the subject as well.
But it still seem a no “big so what” but rather a big issuefor you, that there should not be traced to any Taoism;Taoist theories to Taijiquan?

Yes of course postures of boxing might have been though up within the walls of Shaolin, but without any religious significance to them....Who thought up the forms, the monks, visitors with Taoist or Confusian background, or battle tired soldiers seeking temporarily sanctuary in the temple, or perhaps a mix of them...
To the very same shell of a form then different intents can be poured in to giving it different performance characteristics whether it was intents of spiritual, religious or strictly martial, or perhaps a mix of them...

Me too, with a little twisting and turning ‘I can show you’ how the Kanku-dai Kata of Karate very likely is the same form as the os the those of the Chen village, not name wise but posture wise.....is that very very important? maybe....but however an interesting reserch hobby to play around with.
Last edited by Trick on Sat Jul 04, 2020 7:03 am, edited 1 time in total.
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Re: Heretical history of Tai Chi

Postby Trick on Sat Jul 04, 2020 2:35 am

Bob wrote:FWIW - in 1999, in the lobby of a hotel in Shanghai, after demonstrating some of our art (bajiquan Chen & Yang's taji) for Wu Bin (Jet Li's teacher), we all sat down for a beer or two. Wu Bin proceeded to tell us that only 2 original Shaolin forms survived - all other forms were modern adaptations & interpretations.

In 2000 we visited the "Shaolin Temple" - the demonstrations were played to the beat of modern Rock music - it was contemporary wushu at its finest!
According to Wang Xsiangzhai after his visit to the Shaolin temple only two boxing techniques where poorly known about at the temple
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Re: Heretical history of Tai Chi

Postby Trick on Sat Jul 04, 2020 7:09 am

GrahamB wrote:Actually, the Smith Hypothesis (that Wu Yuxiang got Yang Lu Chan to cobble Taijiquan together out of whatever Northern martial arts he already knew, then added a backstory of Chen village and Chan San Feng, plus yin yang philosophy to make it feel old, and turn it into a brand) does explain why every posture in Taijiquan is found in other arts...

but Chen Fake acknowledged that YLC studied chen family boxing from his grandfather who resided in the chen village ?
Last edited by Trick on Sat Jul 04, 2020 7:10 am, edited 1 time in total.
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Re: Heretical history of Tai Chi

Postby GrahamB on Sat Jul 04, 2020 11:07 am

YLC died 15 years before CF was even born.
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Re: Heretical history of Tai Chi

Postby Trick on Sun Jul 05, 2020 12:34 am

GrahamB wrote:YLC died 15 years before CF was even born.

Yes ?.
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Re: Heretical history of Tai Chi

Postby GrahamB on Sun Jul 05, 2020 1:53 am

The podcast is currently looking at what happened in the 1850s. From that perspective Chen Fake is mostly irrelevant, since he hasn't been born yet. We'll get onto what happened in the 1920 and the public, commercial, Tai Chi schools in a later episode.
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Re: Heretical history of Tai Chi

Postby salcanzonieri on Tue Jul 07, 2020 10:26 am

Trick wrote:
salcanzonieri wrote:Well after everything is said and done,
All the names of the movements are found there as well All the names are Buddhist concepts,

-

Maybe Shaolin drew inspiration from Daoist sources ? Yes it’s far out and far back, but why not ?!.......ist it believed that Buddhism Daoism and Confusianism concepts mixed and blended over time in China ?

Whats the Buddhist concepts found in the postures names of YTQ ?


I posted about that in another thread. Yes, agreed.
And other researchers, from France, back in the 1980s, found that 83 TJQ postures are found in Shaolin and have the same names.

Shaolin taking from Daoism, is what Zen (Chan) is, a merge of concepts. Some concepts overlap.
But that is another topic, and it is a moot point, nothing new and already discussed to death.

The religion is different than the martial arts side, we are talking about the postural movements.
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Re: Heretical history of Tai Chi

Postby salcanzonieri on Tue Jul 07, 2020 10:32 am

Bob wrote:FWIW - in 1999, in the lobby of a hotel in Shanghai, after demonstrating some of our art (bajiquan Chen & Yang's taji) for Wu Bin (Jet Li's teacher), we all sat down for a beer or two. Wu Bin proceeded to tell us that only 2 original Shaolin forms survived - all other forms were modern adaptations & interpretations.

In 2000 we visited the "Shaolin Temple" - the demonstrations were played to the beat of modern Rock music - it was contemporary wushu at its finest!


500 years worth of Shaolin forms survived in the local villages all around Henan, and they were brought back to Shaolin.
We people say "Shaolin" forms, they don't mean EXACTLY from the Shaolin temple right now this minute.
They mean what Henan villages call Shaolin Quan, all the forms these villages practice that were learned from Monks and Layman that learned the old Ming era Shaolin.
These towns preserved the forms that were written down in Shaolin's books of record, there are about 100 different forms.

Only a few show connection to TJQ, which are TZ Chang Quan, Lao Pao Chui, Lao Xiao Hong Quan, Rou Quan, Jingang Quan, Ape-Monkey Quan, Xie Quan (Slanting Quan), and Luohan 13 Postures Rou Qung, Chan Yuan Gong.
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Re: Heretical history of Tai Chi

Postby salcanzonieri on Tue Jul 07, 2020 10:33 am

Trick wrote:
salcanzonieri wrote:
- I can show you how Shaolin Jingang Quan was used to incorporate Fajin and Fa Li into the Taiji form.


So if Taijiquan is actually(as I read from your “I can show you” list) Shaolinquan, then why wasn’t Fali methods originally in TJQ ?


How does anyone know if it originally had it?
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