Sun Lutang's styles

[northstar]

It's well known that Sun Lutang constructed his own version of taijiquan, which looks rather different from the Yang and Chen styles (haven't seen the others myself). However, Sun also knew xingyi and bagua. Sometimes I read the expression Sun style bagua, do you know what kind of modifications he made to Cheng Tinghua's style? What about the xingyi?

[Scarletmantis]

Sun's style Ba Gua is often refered to as Eight Animals Ba Gua Zhang. I've seen it, and had the opportunity to learn the empty hand set from a friend of mine, but never took him up on the offer. I kinda have my hands full with Liang and Coiling Dragon style.
However, I will say that there are 'LOTS more spinal twistings in the set I saw than in traditional Cheng's style. Almost every technique has the practitioner swivling his hips and shoulders in a wide circle like a hula dancer. They also walk using a Taiji style step (ie heel to toe) rather than the muddy stepping I've grown accustomed to. It seemed to be a much shorter set than the Coiling Dragon, but longer than Cheng's Eight Mother Palms or Liang's Old Eight Palms.
Sifu Jerry Alan Johnson has a video out called Eight Animals Ba Gua if you wanna see it for yourself. My only complaint is that he never demonstrates the form himself, but instead has one of his students do it!

[PlasticSquirrel]

sun lutang's xingyiquan was and is quite interesting. the movements are very simple and compact, and the stepping is very active and high in comparison to all other xingyi styles that i have seen.

sun lutang's style is all over it. the jins are well-defined and preserved in their most primal states. the stepping is very agile, quick, and nimble in nature, just like sun.

sun xingyiquan still shares most of it's characteristics with other hebei styles, though. it's curriculum is also quite brief when compared to others:

wu xing
lian huan
shi er xing
za shi chui
ba shi gong
wu xing sheng ke
an shen pao

this can be easily attributed to sun's desire to teach his arts in a modern and approachable way, with a simple but complete curriculum.

[Mark M]

Scarletmantis, I don't know where your friends style of Bagua came from but it doesn't sound like anything that we practice. We do a "slide step" for lack of a better description. not any heel to toe stepping. Also I'm not familiar with any "hula" type hip movement. My teacher was a student of Sun Lutang in Nanjing.

[RAF]

Surprisingly there is a multitude of stepping techniques in bagua.

1. Mud sliding step (foot remaining flat)
2. Mud sliding step (heel reaising up)
3. The Rolling Step
4. The Crans step

You'll find a great variation on postures too.

A great source with pictures and explanation is:
The Circle Walk Practice of Bagua Zhang, Pa Kua Chang Journal, Volume 4, No. 6, Sept/Oct 1994, pp. 3-22.

While you are there, check out Part III, Martial Arts Taught in the Old Tradition (What is Bagua Zhang?) Its a great look at the variation in bagua.

I think its time for the editors at the old bagua journal to put together an edited book of old articles from their journal. It would be much along the the lines of Adam Hsu's Sword Polishers book. Those articles contain some of the best no BS information available and now they are out of print.

[Anthroman]

On the Shen Wu discussion board there was talk of the journal being put on CD. Does anyone know anything more about this?



http://www.shenwu.com/discus/message...tml?1010618600

[Scarletmantis]

My descriptions are based on my own crude understanding of the language of Sun's system. While there are many commonalities between styles of Ba Gua, it seems that each master contributed his own slant, and thus own language to the system. No offence was intended but I'm sure that the exagerated (in comparison to my style) hip and shoulder movements are present in your Ba Gua if you are practicing Sun's style. Every practitioner I have seen uses them. The comparison to Hula dancing was simply a colorful metaphore. I have never seen a Sun pratitioner with use the sliding step, but as someone else pointed out, there are many "correct" ways to walk in Ba Gua. I prefer to emphasize whatever method is most comfortable and natural for the student. Since you have trained in Sun's style, why not give your own comparitive description?

Bodhi Richards

[Mark M]

Hi Sacarletmantis, instead of describing in words our stepping method, I will say that if you've seen the Jet Li movie "The One", the brief scene of him practicing his bagua, is the same stepping method that we use. Our hand position is slightly different, but what he was doing is pretty much what we do. I'm not aware that Sun Lutang taught Bagua with any other stepping methods, does anyone else have infomation to the contrary? I'd be interested to read about any differences.

[Daniel Madar]

8 animal, or ba xing ba gua was developed by Liu Feng Chun, Dong Hai Chuans last student, and a hsing-i master prior to studying with Dong. To my understanding it is not related in any way to Sun's bagua which is from Cheng Ting Hua.

Ba Xing Bagua has 8 separate animal forms, which make up the whole system. They are Dragon, Lion, Tiger, Horse/Unicorn, Monkey, Bear, Rooster, and Hawk. Each form focuses on an specific skills, Lion for example focuses on throws.

That being said, I can be wrong about Suns Style not being called 8 animals. Xie Peiqi in Beijing also practices and teaches an 8 animal form of Yin Style, but it is not referred to as such, as I understand it.

Also, Sun did not create his style of Taiji, he learned from Hao Weizhen and then modified it. If you ever see Hao style performed, the resemblance is easy to see.

-D

[Scarletmantis]

Daniel, we've got Eight animals too. Zhang's coiling dragon set is based on Dragon, Hawk, Lion, Monkey, Tiger, Phoenix, Unicorn, and Fighting C0ck. As far as I know, Zhang was a late student of Dong, but of course there is alot of crossover between styles as most of the old Beijing students studied together after Dong passed on. It seems so wierd to me that people tend to be surprised at the similarities between styles, when it's really the differences that bring up the questions in my mind. For instance, Liang style is supposedly a "pure" Ba Gua form, but looks alot like Xing Yi to my uncultured eye. On the other hand, Zhang's style is supposed to be a "combination" set but it's sooo smooth, circular, spiraling, complex, that it truly lives up to everything that Ba Gua is legendary for, in my opinion. Anyway, I stand by my admittedly limited knowledge of Sun's style, only because I have met many more practitioner's who claim a Sun lineage than not, and they all work in basically the same way. I'd like to hear more details from Sun practitioners though, as they're the real experts.

Mark, I would like to hear more. Jet Li would not be my first choice as a representitive of my Ba Gua style!

[Sum Guye]

I think Jet Li was performing "Gao style" Bagua in 'The One' not Sun style.

[Mark M]

Scarletmantis and Sumguye, I'm sorry if it came off as what Jet Li was doing was the same as what we do. What I was trying to get across was that I remember watching the movie and as he was walking the circle I watched his footwork and that was the same stepping method that we use. His hand position was slightly different, I don't really recall any movments except one looked like what we call the Tornado palm and that may have been in a fight sequence. I can tell you that we have a Snake, Lion and Ape form and that's about it for animals the rest have other names like turning back palm etc. I don't have the translations for the rest of the palms handy, they're in my notes somewhere, I just do them. Mark

[NafAnal]

I didn't like the movie style ba gua, it looked ghey

[Daniel Madar]

Scarlet,

Most bagua styles use 8 animals. The difference in Ba Xing Bagua is that there are 8 completely separate animal forms, rather than Lion Palm, Snake Palm, etc.

-Dan

[hasayfu]

I'm not an expert but Sifu studies Sun style from Sun Jian Yun (Sun Lu Tang's daughter) and I've seen him practice it. I've also been taught the single and double palm changes.

The first type of stepping taught is the heel toe variety. Inside leg walks a straight line and outside leg covers the arc. Other forms of stepping come later.

I do not ever see Sifu do anything that could be construed as a hula dancer. His BaGua is very smooth though the twisting is at maximum torque. In fact, SLT always emphasized connected body movements.

The first stage is learning to hold the twisted postures while maintaining total body linking. Next, maintain while walking the circle. Then maintain through various changes.

The 8 palms are all named after animals so I can see where the idea that it's called 8 animals but it is actually called Yu Shen Lian Huan (Swimming Spirit Connected Body) BaGuaZhang.

Each form is a single posture and a change. That's it. I am told this was how Cheng Ting Hua taught it and it was up to each student to devise combinations for their own circle. Very Hsing-I in it's approach.