Tai Zu Mantis style

Wai Jia: The Kung Fu Forum Northern Praying Mantis
61

I gave up on all that.

Modern Shaolin is full of stuff like Steles with simplified characters and monks who claim to have been there for ever despite the temple having been abandoned in the Warlords period after 1912 and being deserted right up until 1982 after the Jet Li movie’s success prompted the government to redevelop it.

All the other sources are mainly folkore as well.

After reading the stories and the pre-WW2 histories I get the idea that when Fan Xudong made his trip out to the Henan temple it was already a kind of ‘trip’ to a historical site and not an active martial arts centre.

That’s my own speculation of course. All makes for nice conversation over food after training.

RF

62

[QUOTE=Redfish;815283]I gave up on all that.

Modern Shaolin is full of stuff like Steles with simplified characters and monks who claim to have been there for ever despite the temple having been abandoned in the Warlords period after 1912 and being deserted right up until 1982 after the Jet Li movie’s success prompted the government to redevelop it.

All the other sources are mainly folkore as well.

After reading the stories and the pre-WW2 histories I get the idea that when Fan Xudong made his trip out to the Henan temple it was already a kind of ‘trip’ to a historical site and not an active martial arts centre.

That’s my own speculation of course. All makes for nice conversation over food after training.

RF[/QUOTE]

Agreed.

Shaolin ceased to exist as a viable center around the 1700s.

When people say “shaolin” that covers the whole Henan region surrounding the temple area where people who left Shaolin over the centuries had settled down and taught what they knew, these lay lineages are the only place that preserved what older Shaolin material was like, along with any written material that they copied or took from the place as well.
Modern shaolin post 1920s is reconstructed stuff and once it became wushufied it became fake as well.

63

[QUOTE=Sal Canzonieri;814697]Hi;

thanks for responding.

I looked over some of your posts in the Mantis Quarterly. I have some comments.

In here you said: http://www.mantisquarterly.com/forum/showpost.php?p=1830&postcount=14

If you permit me to explain some deeper things about Shaolin, maybe it will have bearing on your thoughts on Duan Da and Chang Quan and Mantis style.

In the original Shaolin methods, not the modern crapola wushu junk, Tai Zu Chang Quan means ‘long boxing’ as in time wise, meaning movements all connected together to make a ‘long’ flowing set. As opposed to short drills. And, in fact, Shaolin Chang Quan of tai zu variety is considered a Duan Da, a ‘short striking’ methods, though it is part of Long Boxing school.
Tong Bi of Han Tong’s version was from military drills that come from Sword fighting methods. They also can be ‘duan da’ short strikes.

Most of the people on the 18 masters list are Ba Fan Men stylists, which again is duan da methods, short strikes. And Ba Fan Men (consisting of Ba Fan Shan and Ba Fan Shou) is a type of Luohan Duan da, as opposed to the a Luohan Chang Da that Shaolin normally shows people. Ba Fan Men is called fanzi Quan nowadays.
It is mentioned in General Qi’s book along with and a few styles that are also the styles of the 18 masters (Wen Jia Quan, and others).

In Henan Shaolin, Luohan Duan Da = Fanzi Quan = tong bi (which means ‘through the arms’, not the ‘through the back’ character that modern bai yuan tong bei uses). As such, Henan Shaolin Luohan Duan Da is related to Han Tong’s Tong Bi, not to Hong Dong city’s Chang Quan coiling tong bei (which is a *******ized Tai Zu/Chen Tai Ji combination - Hong Dong Tong Bei comes from a member of the Chen clan that returned to their ancestral city and his Chen TJQ was given another name to hide its source).

Most all Shaolin material can be traced back to their Rou Quan sets and their nei gong sets of Luohan 13 Gong, Chan Yuan Ba Gong, and Lie Hu (6 harmony) Gong.
These are their most ancient material and they are all clearly derived from Tong Bi sword fighting techniques, which come from Taoist sources originally, such as the Qianzai Temple, which had been practicing Wu Ji and Tong Bei 13 Gong for many centuries.[/QUOTE]

No Offense, Henan Shaolin these days will make claims to anything that people suggest. It’s all about tourism and money. Personally, I won’t take any of their claims seriously.

Frankly, the Rou Quan and all those so called “gong” are highly of suspect because of dubious theory and methodology. Anybody can make up a long and slow moving form and call it whatever name. So going to claim Shaolin is oldest because it has a “Rou Quan form” that is reminiscent of Yang Style Taiji gone terribly bad isn’t going get anyone anywhere.

As for Qianzai Si, well it’s not a Daoist temple per se. It’s Confucianism, Daoism and Buddhism all in one as far as I am aware. Technically, it’s a cult hang out space. In Chinese history where there is a cult, there is going to be militia as far as I am concern. It won’t be surprising to find martial arts in militia. You can almost be sure that there is possibly more than one kind of martial arts being taught there. To claim there is a unified curriculum in a particular cult militia is not very prudent IMHO. We could suggest there is possibly a more dominant practice of sort but to say it is a well defined training program of any kind simply is wishful thinking.

We have creationism myths in a lot of the martial arts in order to explain the dubious origins of them. Guest what? One of the most popular and enduring of these myths is the one about the White Ape, which is what Tongbiquan is nominated after. The reason is because the myth is about loyalty, filial piety, humanity, and justice. All the virtues and values of what martial artists supposed to represent and uphold. But if you look at modern day Henan Shaolin, non of these actually applies, so there is no real roots of Tongbi in the Henan Shaolin pysche any more than a fragment of imagination period.

I am sorry to be blunt but I am just calling the shot as I see it.

Warm regards

Mantis108