[QUOTE=mawali;959975]There are so many variants of Lohuanquan that one will have to identify the region practiced, the origin, location (village, town), the master’s name and who was his teacher!
I learnt a Lohanquan form, and 2 man sequence taught by teacher Yucheng Huang (died some years ago) who learnt it in Guangdong (big province, I know) and he supposedly learnt it at Shaolin![/QUOTE]
The reason that there is so many different Luohan Quan is because of a few reason, which I will explain:
1 - the name “Luohan Quan” is what it became known as but it is not the original name of the style. it was originally called “Defending and Attacking, Advancing and Retreating Boxing”, which was composed of all the material that was developed in the 1400s from Monk Jue Yuan’s collaboration and further refining of old Shaolin Quan with the Hong Quan and staff methods from Li Sou and the internal ground fighting methods of Bai Yue Feng. They developed a large number of sets.
2 Over time these sets were practiced in the area, they eventually separated into Shaolin Hong Quan system, 5 Fists system (the animal sets) and what became later known as the Luohan System (composed of various 28 Luohan Hands sets and a few Luohan Quan sets. One of which became known as the Da Luohan Quan, a huge set containing all the postures and movements in one set. To help prepare for this huge set, they created many training sets, which became known as Xiao Luohan, Lao Luohan, Duan Da Luohan, and more.
This material is practiced all over Denfeng, Luoyang, Kaifeng, and other parts of Henan.
3 - the Shrine areas of shaolin was were the anti-Qing rebels stationed themselves and they practiced all these sets, plus their local village long fist and mixed it all together, and this stuf, and this stuff spread to other areas, especially Shandong province.
4 - the students of Bai Yu feng and Jue Yuan, such as Yi Quan, and others eventually fled to southern China, where their students became the founders of the Choy Gar style. Eventually this developed into Choy Li Fut style. These southern styles have the most closed connection to Northern Shaolin Five Fists (which they developed the Five Animals sets from). Eventually this material filtered into the other southern Shaolin based styles (Hung Gar, and so on).
So, all these area practice set that they call Luohan Quan, not to mention people that went to Wudang and Emei, and they all do some kind of Luohan Quan material. Some sets are preserved from ancient times accurately, some are parts of the original Luohan material mixed with local martial arts.
Now, there are tons of Luohan Quan sets from all over, and it is just a way of saying “Shaolin Quan”.
