Originally Posted by
Leto
We've been over this many times.
This is what I think is crazy. Long time students don't even know where the forms they have learned came from, or if there are any other styles or schools which practice them. I didn't either, when I first started, but a little research and talking to people revealed more facts.
Jiang Rong Qiao's book is titled "Baguazhang Lian Xi Fa". It includes the "rules of bagua", which in our CSC manual were broken down into 64 rules. It has been quite helpful to me in correcting some of the movements I was taught incorrectly.
The eight animal form I have only been able to find taught by Jerry Alan Johnson on his old video instruction series from the 80's, of which clips are available on youtube and elsewhere. Based on the way he teaches the Jiang Rong Qiao form, I would say he didn't get it from Sin The. There is a possibility Sin The got something from him, though.
The Yang style taijiquan form, which out east you guys call the 64, is Cheng Man Ching's 37 posture form, an abbreviated version of the classical Yang style form of Yang Cheng Fu. It is published in a book called "Master Cheng's New Method of Taichi Ch'uan Self-Cultivation", and probably elsewhere as well. The 24 posture form we learned is the standard 24 posture simplified tai chi form taught everywhere, sometimes called the Beijing form. It is also based on movements from the classical Yang style form of Yang Cheng Fu (not combined styles, as I was told when learning it, that is a different form). I am sure that has been published in numerous forms by numerous people since it was invented in the 1950's.
I don't know where the Chen 83 posture is published, because I never got a chance to take that seminar and actually see the form.
Most Xingyiquan is very similar, across school and styles, especially the five elements. The animals have a bit more variety. I am not sure which branch of xingyiquan ours is supposed to be, but it seems most likely Hebei branch. It is definately not Henan/Xinyi LiuHe quan. I've been learning a lot about xingyi and bagua from watching Luo Jinhua of Sha Guozheng's style, who was a student of Jiang Rongqiao.
I also have Doc Fai Wong's Shaolin Five Animal book and video. It is the same form taught by Sin The. The way I learned it from Soards, some of the movements which make it obvious that it is from a Choy Li Fut lineage were altered (the rear arm swinging). As this particular form I don't think anyone has seen anywhere except from Lau Bun's Hung Sing Choy Li Fut, I think it's pretty clear that is where Sin The got it. The book was published in 1988. When did Sin The start teaching it?
Yes, Sin The could have learned these styles actual people, as they are all pretty common. Given that he came to the US in 1963, there is no way he learned the tai chi or bagua before then, as the teachers of the forms we use were still alive and living in Taiwan and China respectively. It is possible he learned xingyi as a boy, but I doubt it, given the style of the material he started out teaching, which uses no xingyi mechanics. At best, they were learned from colleagues or seminars or private lessons, and he never told anyone who his actual teachers were. Maybe some people feel that it isn't important that he do so, that it doesn't matter where anything came from, as long as you "win the fight". But at the very least, no one should be advertising or talking as though everything they teach is an ancient tradition direct from the shaolin temple. They should be saying when asked that the basic material is from Sin The's interpretation of the material he learned as a boy (18 is still a boy). The rest is borrowed from various modern and traditional sources in order to introduce variety and create a diverse and fun curriculum.