Last weekend I travelled with my Sifu (of ZiMen & YingMen) to a town known as QingJiang. QingJiang is the martial village of JiangXi Province (it is like what CangZhou is to Hebei and Wudanis to HuBei). We went to visit fellow masters of our arts and the current ZhangMen of ZiMen quan. It was more than interesting to say the least.
Anyway,......we met an old practitioner of BaiMei. I was enthusiastic to find a practitioner all the way here in JiangXi so I showed him JBT and he exclaimed that is not Bai Mei. Then he performed a set and itwas ultra-different to say the least. Then I thanked him and asked about my Babuhuzhang (which is anEmei art I studied years ago claiming a Bai Mei origin). He then said that he had seen Babuhuzhang but in Emei BaiMei is the art he practised.
So of course I asked further questions and then he related how the nameof the style he practises came to be known as Bai Mei Quan.
He elaborated that in the Southern Song times there were many martial practises on Emei Shan. As an example the 'Emei 12 Zhuang Gong' as practised by Venerable Monk BaiYun. As well as his art as founded by DeYuan who mimicked the ape's TiaoYe(jumping/leaping) and TengNuo (rise & fall gallop) motions and then developed a set of Ape Fist. In oneof the manuals which he showed it had a section that explained that DeYuan white hair when he was older including his eyebrows and as a result he became known as Bai Mei Fa Shi (Venerable Master Bai Mei). Generations later adopted the name from their founder and the style becameknown as BaiMeiQuan.
Anyways, it was highly interesting the set is relatively short and simple, combat light and agile, movements soft but not so compact, but totally different to the Chueng Lai Chuen Clans.
Regards
Wu Chan Long