Shaolin Rou Quan - Supple (soft) Boxing

Wai Jia: The Kung Fu Forum Shaolin Kung Fu
1

Shaolin Rou Quan is my favorite style of Martial Arts.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=x4TnQf9LFXs
Shows the great Shaolin master Zhu Tian Xi explained applications.
These movements are found in various Rou Quan sets that I have learned.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kyhHetPrhmY
The rare to see Shaolin Rou Quan 36 posture Yi Lu set.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SabJwXlBwEY
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=puIJYVYgu_s
The Er Lu (second road) to the previous set.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PuVdVOhB1cc (part1)
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PuVdVO (part2)
The Shaolin Luohan 13 Gong Quan set.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8fJy0V-ZiEs
Shaolin Chan Yuan Gong (Zen sect Circular excercises or skills), a Rou Quan neigong set that establishes a strong foundation for internal martial arts.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ufKS670txV4
Shaolin Chan Yuan Quan applications and movement explanations.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IqzmMbpEO8U
Shaolin Liuhe Gong (6 harmony exercises or skills), a Rou Quan neigong set, which is learned first as a foundation.

Various Rou Quan sets:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=u4zI7DNKsoU
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WIoXRPGAB2w
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=83MGzkmu1kk

If you know of more, please add to this list, thanks!

2

Wonderful vids! Thank you for posting them.

The first vid of Shifu Zhu Tian Xi reminded me of the first time I attacked(at his req) Sifu Manuel Rodriguez. Another that understands kung fu and knows how to use it. Also, he is another that doesn’t really seem like he can move with speed, fluidity, and power all at once but when he does you are very suprized.:eek:

3

[QUOTE=ittokaos;955664]Wonderful vids! Thank you for posting them.

The first vid of Shifu Zhu Tian Xi reminded me of the first time I attacked(at his req) Sifu Manuel Rodriguez. Another that understands kung fu and knows how to use it. Also, he is another that doesn’t really seem like he can move with speed, fluidity, and power all at once but when he does you are very suprized.:eek:[/QUOTE]

Yes, when one uses the correct core body mechanics, all the work happens fluidly on its own, not brute strength which requires will power.

4

Zhu Tianxi

Zhu is one of the great Shaolin folk masters. He visited our office back in 2000. I wrote a rather lackluster article on it in our 2000 July issue: When Mountains Meet-San Francisco Hosts Shaolin Kungfu 2000. He’s featured in our DVD - Shaolin Kung Fu 2000 - which captures his demo team (along with a huge demo of local masters) along with a special bonus footage of GM Zhu doing Shaolin Chan Yuan Quan (Shaolin Zen Circle Fist) and applications. That section is the real gem in this DVD - traditional Shaolin at its finest.

Ok, end of sales pitch. Carry on. :wink:

5

[QUOTE=GeneChing;955726]Zhu is one of the great Shaolin folk masters. He visited our office back in 2000. I wrote a rather lackluster article on it in our 2000 July issue: When Mountains Meet-San Francisco Hosts Shaolin Kungfu 2000. He’s featured in our DVD - Shaolin Kung Fu 2000 - which captures his demo team (along with a huge demo of local masters) along with a special bonus footage of GM Zhu doing Shaolin Chan Yuan Quan (Shaolin Zen Circle Fist) and applications. That section is the real gem in this DVD - traditional Shaolin at its finest.

Ok, end of sales pitch. Carry on. ;)[/QUOTE]

You can find his life story on line, I think some site has a PDF file about him.

That demo is great pm the Shaolin KF 2000 DVD.
That’s the only time that he taped himself doing that form.
And the applications section is amazing. If you blink at the wrong time all you see is the assistant on the floor. How he goes from 0 to 120 MPH that fast, I don’t know. He’s one of the best traditional martial artists around.

6

GM Zhu is quick, that’s for sure.

GM Zhu has that economy of motion that comes from well-practiced techniques. It was fascinating to meet him. When he said he was going to show Shaolin Chan Yuan Quan and allow us to film it, I didn’t really know who he was yet. Nor was I that familiar with Chanyuanquan. But I got to watch the filming and the apps were just devastating. You don’t really get a sense of how quick and efficient he is from the footage. That’s really hard to capture on film.

GM Zhu is an example of the power of many of the folk masters around Shaolin. As I’ve said so many times before, everyone fixates on the monks, but few look at the folk masters. The folk masters kept traditional Shaolin alive. If you look at Shaolin Kung Fu 2000, you’ll see GM Zhu’s demo team, which is pretty much wushu. The team isn’t even monks. They’re just some star kids from his school. Zhu isn’t a monk. He’s a laymen disciple like me. When people say that the traditional is all gone from Shaolin, they just don’t know.

This is something I was trying to get at with my 2008 November/December cover story Shaolin Masters Keeping the Faith. Ironically, I couldn’t put Chen Tongshan on the cover of a Shaolin special. A major part of the sell power of our Shaolin specials is that monk on the cover. Chen Tongshan, like Zhu Tianxi, is not a monk. It would be wrong to robe them up (I doubt they’d do it anyway, even to be on the cover). Many of the top traditional Shaolin masters from Shaolin are not monks. But that’s too complicated for the newsstand covers.

But back OT to rouquan, I agree with Sal. It’s great stuff. I look forward to studying it someday.

7

[QUOTE=GeneChing;955773]It would be wrong to robe them up (I doubt they’d do it anyway, even to be on the cover).[/QUOTE]

he’s robed up in the instructional videos he made. sal linked to them in the first post. :slight_smile:

anyway, i was gonna ask if you all have found any footage of chanyuanquan and liuhequan (the boxing sets that match the gongs), or other information on them.

i havent seen that demo video yet. did gm zhu mark the set for public display? his instructional videos were, but not that bad.

8

[QUOTE=LFJ;955842]he’s robed up in the instructional videos he made. sal linked to them in the first post. :slight_smile:

anyway, i was gonna ask if you all have found any footage of chanyuanquan and liuhequan (the boxing sets that match the gongs), or other information on them.

I haven’t seen that demo video yet. did gm zhu mark the set for public display? his instructional videos were, but not that bad.[/QUOTE]

Well, he used to be a monk, along with a group of others of his lineage, and then they all quit in protest about 10 years ago concerning who was going to be the new abbott and the then support for modern wushu Shaolin crap.
But now the abbot there has become a big supporter of traditional Shaolin and is working hard to find the correct ways to do the sets and document them. He has been releasing a series of booklets with complete very detailed explanations for each movement, in english and chinese. I have the Rou Quan Yi Lu and Er Lu books and they are fantastic. They have been interviewing the local folk masters and comparing the sets and correcting the sets for any missing moves and so on.
These booklets are very hard to find, I have just a few of the 10 that are out so far.

Zhu Tian Xi’s videos are okay, but if you know about these forms videos, they tell you things without telling you, what I mean is that they explain things so that if you already know the foundational material, what they really mean is very clear and verifies what you learned, but if you are a beginner and think that you can just use the videos to learn from you will learn things wrong with things but in that they know beginners will do wrong.
Mark the Chan Yuan set, yes, they are marked, each version of the set on the different videos is missing some moves. But if you have all the versions, you will have the complete set. I had learned all of it and found this out by observing each version was missing something the set I knew had.

I have put some videos of Chan Yuan Quan on my Youtube page. When I have the chance I will post more.
There is no Liuhe Quan set that matches the Liuhe Gong set. Shaolin Liuhe Quan is a different style from a different origin, although it uses Shaolin Rou Quan as one of its foundational materials.
Liuhe Gong is a moving nei gong set, it already is a routine, it doesn’t need a matching Quan set.
I have taught seminars on the Liuhe Gong set and shown the self defense applications of each move, besides the nei gong movements, and also I have shown how you can do the set with a staff in hand. And I have shown how you can do partner movements, one person using movements #1 against a second person doing movements #2. The Liuhe Gong has very much to teach and is very important as the main foundation to base all subsequent Shaolin Quan training on.
The main thing it teaches, outside of the nei gong health benefits - cleansing the organs and channels, is to “Swing, Sink, and Point” during the execution of the movements, which is totally internal and the far beginning of understanding how to do Taiji Quan.

If people first learned Liuhe Gong, Chan Yuan Gong and Quan, Luohan 13 Gong and Quan, and the other Rou Quan sets, then they would have a spectacular internal martial arts foundation and core body mechanics that would make it VERY EASY to understand and do Taji Quan, saving many many years.

9

about the liuhe boxing set matching the neigong set, i just read you incorrectly elsewhere.

here’s a couple more videos.

liuhegong:
http://you.video.sina.com.cn/b/18934281-1587646302.html

chanyuangong:
http://you.video.sina.com.cn/b/19706782-1587646302.html

how do these compare to the complete versions you know? what are they missing, if anything?

also, is there a video of the 108 rouquan set? is that the one gm zhu did an instructional on? how about rouxingchui?

10

[QUOTE=LFJ;955888]about the liuhe boxing set matching the neigong set, i just read you incorrectly elsewhere.

here’s a couple more videos.

liuhegong:
http://you.video.sina.com.cn/b/18934281-1587646302.html

chanyuangong:
http://you.video.sina.com.cn/b/19706782-1587646302.html

how do these compare to the complete versions you know? what are they missing, if anything?

also, is there a video of the 108 rouquan set? is that the one gm zhu did an instructional on? how about rouxingchui?[/QUOTE]

ha, what is this the ghetto version of the sets? These are the laziest versions of the sets that I have ever seen! There is no whole body movement, just arm swinging independent of the dantian movements.
Also, the swing, sink, point emphasis is totally missing.

The Liuhe Gong is almost the same as Zhu Tian Xi’s version, except this has the 4th and 5th movements reversed. Strange cause that would mess up the meridian channels you would be clearing.

The Chanyuan Gong here has a few missing movements, he is doing these the same as the commercial video and includes the same marked mistake that they put in it in the same place.

I think that this is just someone copying the commercial videos?

I have two videos only of the 108 Rou Quan, one is of Zhu Tian Xi when he was very young and he skips a whole part. The other is his commercial video, which contains all the movements, but you have to watch his applications and teaching the class to see the complete form, because he does the demo and then adds the missing stuff when teaching the class.

Rou Xing Chui there is a commercial video out of the set. They claim that the set goes back to the early Tang dynasty and was done in a demonstration to the emperor. But, they say it was added to over time.
When I see the form, it very much appears like Tongbei, with a lot of the same postures and movements using the same names for them too. Which makes me suspicious that it is a recent form (at least from the 1600s). Unless this is one of the Shaolin root sets that Dong Cheng used when he developed Tong Bei, so that might be way they seem to have some overlap.

11

Just found this video of Zhu Tian Xi doing some Chan Yuan Gong, he’s skipping some of them and adding one that is hardly ever shown to others (strange!):

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=H8tMO0Gb8gs

12

[QUOTE=Sal Canzonieri;955910]
I think that this is just someone copying the commercial videos?
[/QUOTE]

no idea, i just found them. but some of the moves are completely different. like the third movement in liuhegong.

[QUOTE=Sal Canzonieri;955923]Just found this video of Zhu Tian Xi doing some Chan Yuan Gong, he’s skipping some of them and adding one that is hardly ever shown to others (strange!):[/QUOTE]

nice find, your searching skills are great!

i’m interested, if you know the full versions of these shaolin neigong and rouquan sets, can you upload them sometime? they are extremely rare.

not sure why gm zhu and all the others talk about wanting to spread shaolin arts to more and more around the world (as he said in one of his videos), but then they always mark their stuff which just causes confusion. especially for those doing research on it. cant even see what its supposed to look like.

13

[QUOTE=LFJ;955931]no idea, i just found them. but some of the moves are completely different. like the third movement in liuhegong.

nice find, your searching skills are great!

i’m interested, if you know the full versions of these shaolin neigong and rouquan sets, can you upload them sometime? they are extremely rare.

not sure why gm zhu and all the others talk about wanting to spread shaolin arts to more and more around the world (as he said in one of his videos), but then they always mark their stuff which just causes confusion. especially for those doing research on it. cant even see what its supposed to look like.[/QUOTE]

Well, that guy’s Liuhe Gong, he just switches the 4th and 5th movements around, they are transposed, everything is there though, just poorly executed. You can hardly tell what the moves are for. He’s doing the third movement right, just sloppy, and his angles are exaggerated. Same for his fourth movement, that’s way extended and is missing the scoop the moon action, the most important part of the movements.

By the way, the real way to do it, in the right order, the first posture is for the lungs, the second for the spleen, the third for the liver, the fourth for the triple burner, the fifth for the heart, and the sixth for the kidneys.

Shaolin Six Harmony Life Bringing Exercises - Shaolin Liuhe Yang Sheng Gong -

Dan Shou Tui Shan (Single Hand Pushes Mountain)
Xuan Lung Qi (Announce Lung Energy)

Feng Bai Yang Liu (Wind Swings Tree Willow) - Jian Pi Qi (Strengthen Spleen Energy)

Huai Zhong Bao Yue (Bosom Center Embraces Moon) Shu Gan Qi (Relax Liver Energy)

  • Jiang Long Fu Hu (Subdue Dragon Ambush Tiger) Tiao San Jiao (Harmonize Triple Burner)

Luohan Tuo Tian (Luohan Support Sky) Yang Xin Qi (Support Heart Energy)

Qing Long Bai Wei(Green Dragon Swings Tail) Yi Shen Qi (Benefit Kidney Energy)

Hmm, well I haven’t taped me doing the full versions because I give seminars about the sets. I’ve done two seminars two years in a row in Spain that went very well, teaching the full sets, the nei gong, the quan, the applications, and more. I’ve done a bunch in NJ and NYC too over the years.

I know the full versions with correct movements of this whole traditional system:

Shaolin Liuhe gong
Chan Yuan Gong and matching Quan set
Luohan 13 Gong and matching Quan set
Rou Quan 108 postures
Rou Quan 32 postures Yi Lu and Er Lu sets
Ape Monkey Quan
Hong Quan both Xiao and Lao Jia versions
Hong Quan Er Lu
18 Louhan Hands sets 1 to 8
Lao Hong Quan sets 1 to 4
Taizu Chang Quan 32 postures
Shaolin Five Elements Quan (very rare)
Rou Xing Chui
18 Luohan Quan and Ba Bu Lian Huan Quan
Liubu Jia from Big Vast Fist
Yue Jia Ba Fan Shou rows 1 to 24
Various Wei and Nei Gong sets

There are also other sets from other related systems I know or am working on.

I’ll gladly go anywhere I am requested to teach seminars on these sets.
I teach the correct body mechanics, footwork, and WHY the movements do what they do, which no one I know of does so. Also applications, self defense, and how to convert the sets into weapon sets.

14

[QUOTE=Sal Canzonieri;955933]He’s doing the third movement right, just sloppy, and his angles are exaggerated.[/quote]

the third movement, huaizhong baoyue, zhu tianxi pushes straight forward and then scoops back downward. while this kid pushes to the side across his chest in front of the opposite shoulder. its a completely different move.

how did you learn these shaolin neigong and rouquan sets? who was your teacher?

15

[QUOTE=LFJ;955966]the third movement, huaizhong baoyue, zhu tianxi pushes straight forward and then scoops back downward. while this kid pushes to the side across his chest in front of the opposite shoulder. its a completely different move.

how did you learn these shaolin neigong and rouquan sets? who was your teacher?[/QUOTE]

yeah, I said that this weird guy in the video doesn’t do the most important part, the scoop the moon movement. Zhu does do it straight forward and then scoops, his main student does it with an angle and then scoops, so do other people. I learned that you just point your arm towards your centerline line as you move it forward (it deflects on incoming attack) and then once you reach out you scoop in and down back.
So, there is a slight incline towards the center line.
Actually the first move has a slight incline too for the same reason.
If you are thinking of the self defense aspects acting as one with the neigong aspects, then you protect your centerline at all time. By making a vector in front of you, your arms automatically protect as they attack. In the videos, Zhu is doing it just for Qi gong reasons, not self defense, and who knows, maybe he doesn’t want to show it perfectly, in case people are just copying it and not going to a real teacher.

I learned these and many other things from a private Kung Fu club that I belonged to and now lead. I worked at a place that had a very large population of Asian engineers working there, they had formed a KF club before I worked there and many practitioners traded forms with each other and practiced self defense and test how the forms worked and it was Shaolin based. Everyone had been practitioners in China before they came here to work. It was open to anyone that wanted to practice. So I joined about 20 year ago. Little by little, the engineers retired and left the company or were laid off, and five years ago I became the leader of the club and now teach the material we all practiced. Obviously one of them was a student of Zhu Tian Xi’s material, maybe from a different lineage. Since, they were not “official” teachers in a school system, we were able to learn the close door stuff since we were not a threat. If you wanted to learn more, you did. Also, there were people there that taught a lot of Southern Shaolin as well.
Also, outside of there I took classes with students of Peter Kwok, also people from Liu Yun Chiao (Wutang School), Bruce Frantzis, Frank Allen, and also others that were part of the Taiwan / Shandong Northern Long Fist lineages and Shuai Jiao lineages. I’ve been having private and semi-private classes for over 15 years in NYC with someone that knows a real lot about traditional methods. Also, I traveled all over meeting people for my research and trade people information and forms.

The integration of everything I learned is like learning Ziran, Natural style, I learned important foundatinal basics, core mechanics, footwork, self defense, nei gong, etc, from Shaolin, Taji, Bagua, XingYi, and many more styles, as you would if you learned the Ziran style. Hence, I call what I learned, Natural Chinese Martial Arts.
Everyone like to disparage teachers, so I only talk about that stuff when I am in person with someone. I learned things from people that they did not teach their own students, because they said their students were not interested in history and why certain things are done so, and they were afraid the information would be lost. Hence, I have a huge archive of information.
Just one aspect of it, the interelationship between all the internal martial arts and the long fist arts, I was able to write a 260 page book (all text, so far, I still have to add all the graphics). So, unorthodox, but I learned a hell of a lot more than most people every do and I’ve been able to not only write all these history articles, but also protect myself when touring with my band around the world and everything I learned has really worked. I was also asked to judge forms tournaments during the 1980s for many years.

16

awesome. what about the chanyuanquan set? where did you learn it? it seems in 2007 you had only heard about it, never thought it really existed: http://forum.kungfumagazine.com/forum/showthread.php?t=47237

also, what do you know about this jingangquan set, there is so much taizu changquan and hongquan in it. the poster says its part of the cotton boxing sets, which i have only seen master deyang’s school do;
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oSRzgdC5bfk

btw, what do you charge for your seminars?

17

a version of the shaolin luohan 13 quan:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VTfXbARdXS4

and by the students:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pgDp--rohkk

dont know why its called “yijinjing” on both videos. it also seems to be missing quite a few of the essential 13 movements that make up the set.

18

[QUOTE=LFJ;955982]awesome. what about the chanyuanquan set? where did you learn it? it seems in 2007 you had only heard about it, never thought it really existed: http://forum.kungfumagazine.com/forum/showthread.php?t=47237

also, what do you know about this jingangquan set, there is so much taizu changquan and hongquan in it. the poster says its part of the cotton boxing sets, which i have only seen master deyang’s school do;
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oSRzgdC5bfk

btw, what do you charge for your seminars?[/QUOTE]

The truth is that there is no actual separate Chan Yuan Quan, what it is is a series of drills that you do as self defense movements based on the movements from the neigong drills. Zhu Tian Xi created that particular Chan Yuan Quan set he did. At that time I had yet to see his version of it. I had heard he had one, but had not seen it yet. Other people have their own version, I had mine. Mine includes tongbei and Chang Quan drills inside it. One of Zhu Tian Xi’s students does it with Chuo Jiao kicks added to it.
That’s how real routines are created, from through knowledge of the style, its footwork, strategy, concepts, core body mechanics, drills, etc. Once you have instilled the foundation into your body / mind system, you naturally created Quan (routines) from the drills.

That particular Jingang Quan set is not at all like the Shaolin Jingang style, also known as Vajra style.
What this is, is from the long fist system of styles found in Henan province that are centered around Wenxian County (which is where Chen village is located).
In this county there is a long history going way back to Tang Dynasty of Da Hong Quan (Big Vast Fist), and over time by Ming era, there developed (from influence of Shaolin Rou Quan and TZ Chang Quan, and other styles from Shanxi, Sichuan and Shandong) there developed some local internal martial art styles. Jingang Quan was one of them. All these styles have the same common core, their opening movements are about the same, to show were they came from (the movements in sets actually tell a story of where they came from, who passed the moves, etc. The opening sections are usually a series of salutes, sometimes more than one, telling who passed the set on to who. Shaolin always kept the original salutes and then added their own. So, certain Shaolin sets have like 3 or more salute material in the beginning of their sets, they were always a repository of routines, not always the originators (hardly ever actually) and they gave homage to where the sets came from by keeping the salutes.
For example, the opening moves of Lao Hong Quan Routine 1, say “the land was conquered from east to west (by Song Emperor), now protection is needed from the north, so one must ride the tiger (use martial arts, which is tough for a Buddhist to justify) to strike righteously and defend”.
Cotton boxing, another name for Taiji, also another name for Duan Quan, closerange boxing, part of the Wen Family of martial arts (always mentioned in the military manuals, such as Qi Jiquang’s book and others.

I charge $1,000 for a seminar, no matter how many people are there.
I give the historical background, teach the foundational movements, the core mechanics, then the nei gong, then the quan, then the applications, with hands on person to person trying out of the concepts, while explaining why things are done in such a way.

19

[QUOTE=LFJ;955987]a version of the shaolin luohan 13 quan:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VTfXbARdXS4

and by the students:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pgDp--rohkk

dont know why its called “yijinjing” on both videos. it also seems to be missing quite a few of the essential 13 movements that make up the set.[/QUOTE]

Uggh, crap fu.
Not only is it missing a lot of the movements (the are not 13 Gong being done at all), but it is showing no understanding of internal movements, nothing is coming from the dantian area, no whole body movement, incorrect stances, incorrect footwork. It’s being done like fake Taiji. The ending is really incorrect most of all.

I know that there are some different lineages besides Zhu Tian Xi’s that do this set. But this one seems just plain wrong. Why bother doing the set this way? And passing it off as Yijinging to cover up is weird and suspicious.

20

cool, thanks. i know about the 10 sets of the old vajra style. wasnt sure about this neigong style though.

shaolin cotton boxing (mianquan) was discussed here before. no one really knew about it. its this one:
http://www.56.com/u16/v_NDI3MDIxODE.html

i’d like to see something about the series of salutes, so i’d get an idea of what you’re talking about. its been discussed before, but doesnt sound familiar.