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In another post I mentioned I had seen a baji video I liked and it had an interview with Adam Xu where he mentioned his baji teacher, Liu Yunqiao, had him study taiji with his friend Du Yuze. I found it on YT. The interview with Adam Xu starts around 16:07.
When GM Liu Yunqiao was in his 20s he was traveling with his senior Gongfu brother General Zhang Xiangwu and the general made him learn Yang style taijiquan along with reading all of the appropriate treatises - the young Liu couldn't quite understand why he had to do it since his bajiquan was at its peak but later he said it really helped him with bajiquan - Liu also got knocked down 3 times by the Liu He Praying mantis teacher (Master Ding Zi Cheng in his 40s while Liu was in his 20s). Liu went on to learn the system. Liu He tang lang is the "softest" of the praying mantis styles - furthermore in an article (no author so we can't say whether it is authentically quoted) but Liu said the Yin/Yang aspects of bagua tied all of his martial arts together yielding a deeper understanding of each art.
My speculation, and it's nothing more than that, is Li Shuwen was known to be an edgy, energy driven kind of figure and Liu's direction was partly to offset this - As my teacher said and we quoted in an article we wrote many years back, Liu told him, "You will thank me in your old age for teaching you bagua."
Posted: Sat Sep 03, 2022 9:24 am