What if Yang Lu Chan didn't change the form? Maybe Chen did?

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Re: What if Yang Lu Chan didn't change the form? Maybe Chen did?

Postby GrahamB on Sat May 07, 2022 2:09 am

I don't think we can infer anything meaningful about Xinyi/XingYi being a precursor to Taijiquan based on inclusion of XY classic phrases in writings by Chen Xin (1919) Chen Zhaopi (1932) or Chen Xiaowang (1990)

Chen Xin is writing 69 years after Yang Lu Chan appeared in Beijing to teach (1850). That's a lifetime.

We already discussed the publishing flurry of the 1930 manuals and the search for legitimacy.

However, it's important to note that there was a long and respected history of martial practice in Chen village before anybody said the words "Taijiquan". The ideas and martial tactics of General Yue's famous army had seeped into the soil of the whole country long ago when his army was disolved at the start of the Yuan Dynasty and soldiers returned to civilian life and he became a much loved folk hero, I don't think it was possible for anything to have escaped the influence/origin of the ideas found in today's Xinyi/XingYi because of that. I'm not talking about a Confucian style lineage of who taught who going back centuries, but the idea that culture, religion, society, entertainment, ideas and influence can shape martial practice as much as the more cataclysmic events of history like wars, famine, flooding, bandits and body guarding.
Last edited by GrahamB on Sat May 07, 2022 2:30 am, edited 4 times in total.
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Re: What if Yang Lu Chan didn't change the form? Maybe Chen did?

Postby Urs Krebs on Sat May 07, 2022 12:30 pm

salcanzonieri wrote:I got the info about Li Sou from various sources

1 - The Shaolin Da Quan (4 volumes Shaolin encyclopedia) - from contact with, back in the 1990s, the writer and compiler 'Shi De Qian, now deceased.
2 - from people I knew in the 1990s that were learning at ShaoLin and in the Dengfeng and other villages, such as Baifeng DaoRen, Josh (same person you know), Dr. Russ Bo, LFJ, Tea Serpent, and a few others that were doing research with me for my book that I knew from the Kung Fu Forum. We did extensive research in the all the forms practiced at Shaolin and their origins and their connections to other styles.
3 - from Tong Bei research that Stephen Yan did from locating various Quan Pu held on by families that had ancestors that studied at Shaolin.
4- From Chinese language books, which are mentioned in the following from my book:

Shaolin Xiao and Da Hongquan 少林洪拳 – This style focuses on absorbing the adversary’s energy with a soft
outside and a hard inside. These sets are an important part of the Shaolin Temple curriculum. The book Shaolin Quanfa
少林拳法 states that Monk Jue Yuan (覺遠) met Lǐ Sǒu (李叟) and Bai Yufeng (白玉峰) and later introduced Li’s
teaching into the temple, including mastery of Hong Quan, of the staff (Gunshu 棍术), Qinna 擒拿, etc. This is the
216
origin of the two Taolu currently practiced in the Songshan Shaolin schools, which were later spread and preserved in
the local villages. Some villages already had practiced Hong Quan sets before they had even reached Shaolin and are
still practiced today.
Bai Yufeng, Li Sou, and Jue Yuan played important roles; Jue Yuan was an ex-military layman who took a fancy
to martial arts. Later he became a monk at the Shaolin Temple, dedicating himself to the study of boxing positions.
Soon he started his search for other famous masters. In Gansu Province in the west of China, in the city of Lanzhou,
he met Li Sou (李叟, “old man”, whose real name was Li Yuansou 李元叟), a Henan master of Da Hong Quan “Big
flood fist”. Li Sou accompanied Jue Yuan back to Henan, to Yang Tong Fu Temple in Luoyang, to introduce Jue Yuan to
Bai Yufeng, who was born in Shanxi province (which neighbors Shaanxi), at Taiyuan. Bai was a master of an internal
method from Luoyang Tong Fu Chan Si Monastery. The three of them, plus Li’s son, went to the Shaolin.
Jue and Bai Yufeng developed the “18 Stuffs of Luohan/Arhat”, increasing the number of movements from 18 to
72, and then to 173. They collected fragments of almost completely neglected patterns, put them to order and perfected
them. Bai Yufeng also created the Imitation Boxing, which mimicked the movements of the tiger, the leopard, the
snake, the crane, and the dragon and other animals for a total of 12. Ten sets were preserved and the others were not
finished by the time of his death.
According to the 17th century book, The Shaolin Secrets, Li Sou was also very skilled at martial arts, especially at
Da Hong Quan and the staff. His forms were taught at the Shaolin Temple. Li Sou left his Hong Quan to Shaolin, which
still practice Xiao and Da Hong Quan to this day. After ten years, Li Sou left the Shaolin Temple, as a parting gift he
created some sets of Hong Quan just for Shaolin. Li Sou made these sets of Shaolin Hong Quan (that are now called
‘Hong’ as in ‘Flooding’ or ‘Flowing’ Fist) by mixing postures from Da Hong Quan’s Taizu Chang Quan and Pao Quan
routines with postures from the 18 Luohan Quan.
Note: It is said that the original “Coiling Long Fist” martial art practiced in the Hongdong area of Shanxi is very
closely related to the Da Hong Quan that Bai Yufeng and Li Sou practiced, which spread there from Henan originally.
This is before Hongdong Long Fist merged with the Chen village version of Tongbei Long Fist that was introduced
there much later. This original Da Hong Quan was an internal martial art (as described earlier in this book) and had
been influenced by the Neijia Quan practiced in nearby Sichuan province. Practitioners from Sichuan often exchanged
martial information with people in neighboring Shanxi province. Shanxi is considered by Zhaobao Taiji Quan
practitioners as the source of the Taoist 13 Postures that was taught in the 1500s by ‘Wang Linzhen’ to people in Henan
(the Dong, Li, and Chen families, whose ancestors were ALL originally from the Hongdong, Shanxi area originally).


1. Well, I referred to that specific routine, the 2nd one. I went through every single page as there could be use a different name. This routine is not described in the Shaolin Daquan of Shi Deqian.
2. Josh also told me a very different story about this routine. So, i ask again how comes your conclusion that this routine (which is a Xiao Hong Quan version) is created by Li Sou who was a Da Hong Quan expert ?
3. I’ve read some threads here in RSF from more than a decade ago. Stephen Yan didn’t agree on most of your posts back then. Did he change his mind since then?
4. You’re posting a part from your book as a proof of your sources but you don’t mention the sources in this part of your book.
Counting all together it seems that you’re making assumptions but you’re not working scientific. Instead you’re telling us that your assumptions as the truth. I respect though that you really love the martial arts and especially what comes from and around Shaolin. But sometimes it maybe would help if you step a little bit back to get a better overview on the matter.
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Re: What if Yang Lu Chan didn't change the form? Maybe Chen did?

Postby Doc Stier on Sat May 07, 2022 5:30 pm

One of the most frequently reoccurring lessons learned in my own training has been the realization that many things fully reveal themselves to me only when I abandon my previous ideas and assumptions regarding them. I believe this is true for everyone who continuously refines their practice over the course of a lifetime. :)
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Re: What if Yang Lu Chan didn't change the form? Maybe Chen did?

Postby gerard on Tue Dec 19, 2023 7:36 pm

Interesting thread.

The only constant is "change." Form(s) will eventually change resulting from changes in the mind and the environment as part of the mind.

Who knows what TJQ will look like in the year 2350 (if wee are still around). ;)
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Re: What if Yang Lu Chan didn't change the form? Maybe Chen did?

Postby everything on Tue Dec 19, 2023 8:21 pm

messi plays differently than his coaches, brothers, dad, or any other players did. probably it's simply because he's better at literally every detail. did he look up to certain players with certain form he could maybe learn better than other "forms", though? sure. should we obsess about the people before him? instead of messi himself? the way they moved when many/most would say nobody in history can control the ball or multiple opponents or the game better? it would seem weird.

other goat candidates and modern greats do not move the same way. pele, maradona, OG ronaldo, ronaldinho, zidane, iniesta etc., all "look" very different. if they did martial art "forms" without the ball and opponent, people would see something seemingly quite different. the effect they produce, though, is of a similar stratosphere of quality. imagine if messi "tried" to move like those greats. it wouldn't work. he probably wouldn't be the arguable GOAT. this is an even weirder discussion when we claim what is on the "inside" is the key.
Last edited by everything on Tue Dec 19, 2023 8:22 pm, edited 1 time in total.
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Re: What if Yang Lu Chan didn't change the form? Maybe Chen did?

Postby Graculus on Wed Dec 20, 2023 12:14 am

And yet it is often possible to tell someone’s martial arts teacher by the way they move.

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Re: What if Yang Lu Chan didn't change the form? Maybe Chen did?

Postby everything on Wed Dec 20, 2023 10:44 am

messi probably moves similar to how his idol did (but better and more optimized - with smaller legs and lower center of gravity - for those movement types). he cannot move like cristiano ronaldo, haaland, mbappe, lewandowski and so on. i guess it's the same with lebron, curry, jordan, etc. Ali, Tyson, Mayweather, Jr. In basketball, I like watching luka doncic. it looks like he just walks up slowly and "peng jins" everyone. perhaps it'd be interesting to see the builds of famous IMA people. for example, YCF and Sun Lutang look dramatically different in build (and in form). was YLC large or small? How about his teachers? and so on
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Re: What if Yang Lu Chan didn't change the form? Maybe Chen did?

Postby salcanzonieri on Wed Dec 27, 2023 2:49 pm

"The Form" seen in Yang and Chen had to have already existed before anyone went to Beijing to teach, simply because Chen ChangXing's descendants taught this form in various places, such as in Shanghai (as Andrew Falk has shown), and Chen YanXi (Chen FaKe's father) taught the form in Shandong like he taught Du YuZe.
It's all the same form. And people from Chen ChangXing's time married outside of the village and the Chen TJQ done in those places is "the form". Not anything different.

It's been "the form" since at least Chen ChangXing's time (when he consolidated Chen forms to create Yi Lu and Er Lu). It's been done pretty much the same way.
A few things are different in the Yang, but not that much, and these moves are obviously from his prior knowledge of Long Fist, such as how Yang style does a very different Fair Lady at the Shuttles. But the order of postural movements doesn't change from Chen to Yang, they are still the same even though some moves are done differently, the sequence of "the form" is still intact.

Someone with deep knowledge of internal ideas and long fist structure created a softer Chen martial art than their Pao Chui Er Lu form.
Creating the 5 forms, the 108 long fist form, (and Pao Chui). So, that must be Chen WangTing.
But obviously much later Chen ChangXing combined these form, or what was left of them, since some of the 5 were said to be lost in Chen family records (as Tang Hao and others pointed out).
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Re: What if Yang Lu Chan didn't change the form? Maybe Chen did?

Postby Trick on Wed Dec 27, 2023 10:05 pm

”the form” was most probably wery common excersise(s)from and around shaolin.
shaolin was famous for staff combat, boxing excersises was probably not many, that can be the reason why ”the form” is ”common”.
i see”the form” in a couple of the old katas(forms)of karate
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Re: What if Yang Lu Chan didn't change the form? Maybe Chen did?

Postby everything on Thu Dec 28, 2023 8:36 am

if we only care about "external", there are only so many ways to move. one reason FMA seems so interesting from a distance. reduce things to a small amount of angles of attack. there are a small amount of ways to deal with those angles. combinations = "combine" simple things.
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Re: What if Yang Lu Chan didn't change the form? Maybe Chen did?

Postby wayne hansen on Thu Dec 28, 2023 1:13 pm

I started training FMA to try and find out the validity of tai chi weapons
I found out there was nothing missing
That was recognised by 3 of the greats who everyone looks up to these days
One also practiced Hsing I because it used the same logic as KI
Don't put power into the form let it naturally arise from the form
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