Meihuazhuang

[Tao Of The Fist]

In the Las Vegas area, there is a teacher at UNLV that teaches meihuazhuang. After doing a lot of online research, some important things about the style are:

* This style is seldom heard of and is kind of rare.
* The style goes back at least to the Ming dynasty, and could even be as old as the Han dynasty, so it is considered an ancient style.
* The style had originated in the Kunlun Mountains.
* Many of its practitioners were associated with the Boxer Rebellion, and as such kept a low profile due to prohibitons on the style.
* Meihuazhuang practices the 18 classical weapons, as well as weapons unique to the style.
* It is often described as an 'internal' style, as qi and qigong are very important to the training and has five postures cooresponding to the five elements and their construction/destruction cycle.
* It seems to have a very loose structure in comparison to most other styles, and puts a big emphasis on freefighting.

Here are links to my internet sources:

http://clubs.unlv.edu/imaa/
http://www.meihuazhuang.ca/
http://www.angelfire.com/ca/Meihuazhuang/
http://www.youtube.com/user/SifuWu
http://www.youtube.com/user/YinShenping
http://yinxing.free.fr/Site%20England/TextWhat.htm
http://www.meihuazhuang.org/ (The site is in French, I think...)
http://wulinmingshi.wordpress.com/2009/08/16/1929-hangzhou-leitai-tournament/
http://www.wholife.com/issues/8_2/02_article.html

If anyone could give me more information on the style, or point me to more websites that would, I would mighty appreciate it.

[uki]

plum flower fist or something to that tune... traditionally forms are practiced on a hundred stakes in the ground. practitioners also practice hitting water in order to make a "flower blossom" with each strike. :)

[David43515]

Lots of styles have what they call "Plum Blossom" sets or practice on "Plum Blossom Poles". The blossom of a Plum, has 4 petals and looks like a small pink (+) sign. So forms that move across the floor in the four cardinal directions might be categorized as plum blossom sets. And the most basic pattern of posts would be a small + with one in the center and one at the end of each arm.

[Tao Of The Fist]

I know there are many styles with sets called plum flower. Hung Gar, Bak Siu Lam, Song Shaolin, Choy Lee Fut, and a lot of other styles have a set called this.

What I am talking about is a STYLE CALLED MEIHUAZHUANG. More specifically, Ganzhi Wushi Meihuazhuang or Stems and Branches Five Posture Plum Flower Post. Like I said, this style is rare; it's mainly practiced in the rural areas of Hebei, Shandong, Henan, and Shaanxi.