Notable Chen fighters

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Re: Notable Chen fighters

Postby GrahamB on Mon Feb 04, 2019 7:44 am

There's certainly no mention of Beijing in that bio I posted above.
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Re: Notable Chen fighters

Postby Steve James on Mon Feb 04, 2019 7:46 am

I don't know of any Yang style guys who have done well in San Da.


Funny. In my experience it is exactly the opposite. I only know of Yang and Wu stylists who have been successful in open competitions. Many of them were CMC stylists. Of course, many people argue that there's no tcc in sanda or kickboxing, etc.

Anyway, I thought origami-ito was asking about records of Chen fighters. I noted that they weren't at the recorded national tournaments. Everything else is just oral legend -which doesn't mean that the legends aren't true. Why weren't the Chen stylists invited to the tournaments, or why didn't they go, is way more interesting than why they didn't win. Where were they?
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Re: Notable Chen fighters

Postby Bao on Mon Feb 04, 2019 7:54 am

Li wanted his students to test their Tai Chi skills in sparring and in competition and encouraged them to do so. He is also one of the biggest promotors of deep relaxation. So for him, real Tai Chi skill could and should be used for any type of fighting.

When the whole body relaxes, the upper and lower parts must be completely relaxed. This is one of the necessary conditions of taijiquan. If your movement is not complete, or is complete but not relaxed; or if you only relax your shoulder but your waist, kua, belly, and back do not know what is relaxed; or after practice, your palm does not feel inflated, then this shows you did not have the right teacher. I have often seen practicioners shake their body and make lots of sounds. Their heads are like those of sale-pitching people; swollen, manicured, proper, everything in place, and with a look of arrogance and a condenscending attitude. They think taiji only "talks" about being soft and does not "speak" of force. Actually, these types of arrogant, over-confident people do not know that taijiquan has it's own theory and can only be learned from a teacher. It is not something you can learn by mere observation. Taijiquan is not something you can just figure out by yourself at home.
In the practice, you should feel the whole body relax and also feel the movements being clean. If the whole body is stable and sunk then the whole body will be comfortable and connected. In every movement you should quietly think of how to use your intention, of how to send your intention to the other's body, and of how to enter inside the other's body. With this method, after a long period of practice, you will see progress.


https://www.qi-journal.com/Taiji.asp?Na ... .D=Article

Li Yaxuan as the head of Beijing sanda team, I’ve never heard. As i understood he always stayed in the south., Shanghai/Nanjing and then Chengdu ?


He studied with Yang Cheng Fu from ten years in Beijing, from 1914 to 1928. One year after YCF moved to Shanghai, he established himself in Hangzhou. Will try to find the source on Li as Sanda coach.
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Re: Notable Chen fighters

Postby Steve James on Mon Feb 04, 2019 7:58 am

GrahamB wrote:There's certainly no mention of Beijing in that bio I posted above.


http://centerfortaiji.com/about/chenfake.html

Here it says that a Chen was invited to the Nanjing Academy to teach tcc. I think it's silly to say that only simplified tcc was taught at the Academy. Might as well say the same for all the arts taught there. There are actual documents from the academy that list who taught what and even how much they were paid.
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Re: Notable Chen fighters

Postby windwalker on Mon Feb 04, 2019 8:10 am

oragami_itto wrote:Yang Lu Chan and his son Ban Hou were both called Yang the Invincible due to their demonstrated fighting prowess. Yang Cheng Fu was known as an accomplished fighter and even Cheng Man Ching had a reputation built on publicly defeating many challengers.

I'm surely only showing my ignorance but what about the Chens? As I understand it the style was still quite secret until the early 20th century so it's not surprising that there are few stories circulating. Recently they've got a few names competing in propaganda matches, but what about Chen Masters famous for anything other than being head of the system or surviving some wars and creating it?



There seems to be some assumptions being made about YCF.

This person wrote of his experiences with YCF and other teachers of the time.

After I arrived in Beiping, I investigated the result. Although there are within the Beiping martial arts community those who know of Yang Chengfu’s reputation, there are few who know what level his skill was at, because he lacked fighting experience.

To only practice Taiji Boxing and go without experience of sparring is not adequate. Taiji Boxing especially requires a great deal of sparring experience, for it is otherwise quite difficult to be able to tell if one is succeeding in it. Practitioners of Taiji Boxing by all means must not overlook this sparring experience aspect.
https://brennantranslation.wordpress.co ... xperience/
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Re: Notable Chen fighters

Postby GrahamB on Mon Feb 04, 2019 8:16 am

Steve James wrote:
GrahamB wrote:There's certainly no mention of Beijing in that bio I posted above.


http://centerfortaiji.com/about/chenfake.html

Here it says that a Chen was invited to the Nanjing Academy to teach tcc. I think it's silly to say that only simplified tcc was taught at the Academy. Might as well say the same for all the arts taught there. There are actual documents from the academy that list who taught what and even how much they were paid.


I certainly would say the same thing for all the arts taught there. That's exactly what Kuo Shou "National arts" was, a simplification of the martial arts for mass teaching. People get very upset when you say this, but it's true.
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Re: Notable Chen fighters

Postby origami_itto on Mon Feb 04, 2019 8:17 am

windwalker wrote:
This person wrote of his experiences with YCF and other teachers of the time.


That is certainly an account. There are others that differ.
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Re: Notable Chen fighters

Postby windwalker on Mon Feb 04, 2019 8:20 am

oragami_itto wrote:
windwalker wrote:
This person wrote of his experiences with YCF and other teachers of the time.


That is certainly an account. There are others that differ.


the sky is blue but some say its red.
If he was known as a "fighter" there should be many examples that one could chose to illustrate this.
If he was known for his push hands the same would be true, and there are many examples and accounts of it.

Was he good at push hands or fighting?
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Re: Notable Chen fighters

Postby Steve James on Mon Feb 04, 2019 8:24 am

I'm not upset at all. I think your argument is about the skill of the students. The academy proper was not around for long. Students weren't studying for long or specializing. That wasn't the point. But okay, I asked where the Chen people were.
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Re: Notable Chen fighters

Postby GrahamB on Mon Feb 04, 2019 8:28 am

Steve - didn't mean you necessarily, just other people.

I think the Chen guys peaked in terms of fighting-fighty stuff with Wang's generation that I mentioned above.
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Re: Notable Chen fighters

Postby origami_itto on Mon Feb 04, 2019 8:41 am

To partly answer my own question, Chen Fake and his nephew Chen Zhao Pi are both listed here as notable Lei Tai fighters.

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of ... i_fighters
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Re: Notable Chen fighters

Postby Bao on Mon Feb 04, 2019 8:52 am

He studied with Yang Cheng Fu from ten years in Beijing, from 1914 to 1928. One year after YCF moved to Shanghai, he established himself in Hangzhou.


Should clear it up a bit. Chengfu was in Hangzhou before Shanghai. Here he was chief instructor in the Martial Arts School of and invited Li Yaxuan to assist. Later when Chengfu went to Shanghai and Guangzhou to teach Taiji, he put Niu Chunming in charge of teaching there in Hangzhou and Li stayed for some time to assist Niu.
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Re: Notable Chen fighters

Postby Steve James on Mon Feb 04, 2019 8:53 am

oragami_itto wrote:To partly answer my own question, Chen Fake and his nephew Chen Zhao Pi are both listed here as notable Lei Tai fighters.

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of ... i_fighters


17th generation Chen-style t'ai chi Master Chen Fake (1887–1957), became famous in his hometown of Chénjiāgōu (陳家溝) for his victories upon the lei tai.[7]


18th generation Chen-style t'ai chi Master Chen Zhao Pi (陈照丕) (1893–1972), Chen Fake's third nephew, was hired to guard the famous "Tong Ren Tang" (Le Brothers) pharmacy in Beijing in 1928. He kept a low profile by disguising himself as a street vender, wishing to avoid conflict with other martial artists. However, the scholar Li Qin Lin (also from Henan province) wrote an unauthorized article in the Beijing Times newspaper describing the superiority of Chen-style t'ai chi to other styles in the area. In its conclusion, the article asked the masses who had not experienced Chen-style to "try it out" since a Chen master (Chen Zhao Pi) was currently living in Beijing.
The local martial arts schools saw the article as a “challenge” and so Chen Zhao Pi was urged to set up a lei tai by the Xuan Wu Men, one of the city's many gates. At first, challengers came one at a time, but eventually thronged to the lei tai in groups of threes and fives. Over the course of 17 days, he defeated over two hundred people and made many friends.[9][10]


Zhaobao t'ai chi ch'uan Master Zheng Bo Ying (鄭伯英) (1904–1961) became famous after winning the 1931 lei tai competition held in Kaifeng.[18]


According to the article, Chen Fake was most famous for lei tai victories in his hometown. The Chen Zhao Pi story is great, but I wonder if he ever did make it to Nanjing.
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Re: Notable Chen fighters

Postby robert on Mon Feb 04, 2019 9:08 am

oragami_itto wrote:Yang Lu Chan and his son Ban Hou were both called Yang the Invincible due to their demonstrated fighting prowess. Yang Cheng Fu was known as an accomplished fighter and even Cheng Man Ching had a reputation built on publicly defeating many challengers.

I'm surely only showing my ignorance but what about the Chens? As I understand it the style was still quite secret until the early 20th century so it's not surprising that there are few stories circulating. Recently they've got a few names competing in propaganda matches, but what about Chen Masters famous for anything other than being head of the system or surviving some wars and creating it?

Chen Ziming's manual has some bios in it. You might find some of them interesting.

https://brennantranslation.wordpress.com/2017/08/31/taiji-boxing-according-to-chen-ziming/
The method of practicing this boxing art is nothing more than opening and closing, passive and active. The subtlety of the art is based entirely upon their alternations. Chen Xin
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Re: Notable Chen fighters

Postby origami_itto on Mon Feb 04, 2019 9:09 am

Ah, good point! Also worth noting is that was during the Chinese Republic era, so even outside the village the talent was a bit weaker as I understand it.
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