The Raw Shaolin Form

[Royal Dragon]

Have you been able to compare the moves from that website? remember the one formTaiwan that had 2 Tai Tzu sets, and a Xiao Hong set? Do you think those tow sections are supposed to be the 2nd, and 3rd section of Shaolin's Tai Tzu set?

Shaolin Master,
In today's world, of the arts that descended from Tai Tzu, which do you think is closest to the orginal? Cha Fist, Hong Fist, or Chen Taiji? Both? depending on the line? As in maybe each style reperesents a focus on a specific aspect of Tai Tzu?

Can you provide and video links to either clips on the web, or VCD's of closley related forms?

[lunghushan]

Sal, is there any other source for this other than the encyclopedia that you have found yet?

[golden arhat]

i wouldnt be surprised if the govenment tried to create one standard shaolin form for compettition the same way thaey did for southern CMA (nan quan)and northern CMA (chang quan)

[GeneChing]

See my article Battling to be Shaolin’s Best: The Shaolin Kung Fu Grade “A” Tournament By Gene Ching in our Shaolin Special 2003 November/December. It's only really practiced in Dengfeng and among Shaolin people fresh out of Dengfeng. They needed something so the 80 schools near Shaolin could compete Taolu on an even platform. It's a challenging forum, but there's some distinctly wushu-like moves, almost like nandu, which make it in a class by itself. It think this is actually tangential to this discussion however (of course, so are the haiku )

Getting back to the 18, I've not been able to validate it as being that old from any ancient text or reference yet. It's often propounded as the original in myth, but with Shaolin, there's the performance wushu, there's the tourist guidebook, there's what is propounded in myths, and there's authentic Shaolin. There's more aspects, but I don't have all day to list them. And I wouldn't say that these are all mutually exclusive, although some certainly are. Shaolin is a huge complex place. Only the shallow simplify it. I've seen several 18 lohan. Even today's Shaolin jibengong is sometimes foisted off as an 18 lohan.

[Sal Canzonieri]

Sal, is there any other source for this other than the encyclopedia that you have found yet?

Nope, other than some older books that came out of Shaolin that have to same forms in them.

I haven't been able to get any firm verification about when this form was developed.

If it was from any time before Dong Hai Chuan, then it would make the form most interesting.

If it was the other way around, then I would say that this is the closest to Shaolin Ba Qua that one can get.

I can literally find all these 144 moves inside the various mother palms of ba gua forms.

[Sal Canzonieri]

Have you been able to compare the moves from that website? remember the one formTaiwan that had 2 Tai Tzu sets, and a Xiao Hong set? Do you think those tow sections are supposed to be the 2nd, and 3rd section of Shaolin's Tai Tzu set?

Shaolin Master,
In today's world, of the arts that descended from Tai Tzu, which do you think is closest to the orginal? Cha Fist, Hong Fist, or Chen Taiji? Both? depending on the line? As in maybe each style reperesents a focus on a specific aspect of Tai Tzu?

Can you provide and video links to either clips on the web, or VCD's of closley related forms?

I tried but the videos are done too fast to really see the forms clearly.

I did compare the Shaolin Tai Tzu Chang Quan form to the earliest known version of Chen Tai Ji:

Also, I need to clarify which CHEN tai ji, there is a big difference.

Not the Xia style of Chen Tai ji and Not all that descends from Chen Fake, New Frame is totally changed from the old way.

The line that stayed closest to the oldest way of doing the Chen Lao Jia are these two, these are the ones that it makes sense to compare to, not modernized Chen Tai Ji (sorry, my fault for not being specific about which line of Chen):

- Chen Zhao-Pei style of Chen Tai Ji, now taught by Chen Qing-Zhou. Born in 1933 Chen Qing-Zhou became the student of Chen Zhao-Pei. After practicing and teaching for over 20 years in Liberation Cemetary (he even slept some times) he added the New Frame of Chen ZhaoKui (Chen FaKe's son) to his repetoire. However, on further consideration he REJECTED the New Frame from his teachings. Chen Zhao-Pei was of Chen Fa Ke's father's generation. Read this bio: http://www.geocities.com/Tokyo/Towers/1570/cqzbio.html


- Chen TingYuan style of Chen Tai Ji. Some people believe that it was the foundation of when we now know as Chen Tai Chi. As with a number of other recorded sets this one was lost to the Chen Family in its 13th generation, because the sole 12th generation inheritor left out of Chen JiaGou (Chen Village). This Chen BuFu is believed to have committed a crime while aiding other people. He relocated to ShanXi region and changing his name to Guo YungFu. In 1975 Chen LiQing, from ChenJizGuo, visited master Hsu FongQin Hsu in ShanXi and recovered the form.

Here's a quick comparison:

Keep in mind that the Lao Jia form is like 4-5 forms combined together, so it consolidates similar moves from the forms. And it repeats moves a lot, plus it adds moves from Hong Quan, Spear, Staff, and Pao Chui, besides moves from Tai Tzu quan.

Also, the Chen lao jia form uses the names that the General Qi form uses, but the sequence of moves are instead done as in the Shaolin Tai Tzu Quan form.
Does that mean that the original names for the moves are like the TZQ form or like the Gen. Qi form?
Both the TZQ and the Gen QI forms do the same moves but call them different names and do them in a different order.

First go here and look at these photos of Chen Fa Ke doing the Lao Jia form (ignoring the fact the Chen did the New Frame, which added a lot of extra winding movements):
http://www.chinafrominside.com/ma/taiji/chenfake1.html

These are the equivalent moves in the Shaolin Tai Tzu Chang Quan form:

1. Chen: Preparing Form (Yu Bei Shi)
TZQ: Preparing Form
(both moves are identical)

2. Chen:Buddha's Warrior Attendant Pounding Mortar (Jin Gang Dao Dui)
TZQ: does the very similar Scoop Moon from Ocean Bottom (Hai di lao yue)
Chen does Pound Mortar like 5 times in the Lao Jia, the TZQ form does variations of it and calls them different names.

3. Chen: Lazily Tying Coat (Lan Zha Yi)
TZQ: Face to Face wrench hand (Yin-mian ban shou)
(both moves are identical in every way)

4-5. Chen: Six Sealings and Four Closings (Liu Feng Si Bi),
Single Whip (Dan Bian),
TZQ: These two Chen moves are pieces of this TZQ move - Press-down Hand hidden (Nan-yin)

6. Chen: Buddha's Warrior Attendant Pounding Mortar (Jin Gang Dao Dui)
TZQ: Block Shape Hammer (jie ba chui)
(both moves are identical in every way)

7. Chen: White Crane Spreads Wings (Bai He Liang Chi)
TZQ: Support forearm (Cheng Bang)
(both moves are nearly the same, application is exactly the same)

8-13. Chen: Walk Obliquely With Twist Step on Both Sides (Xie Xing Ao Bu), etc.
TZQ: These chen moves are same as Close Body (He shen), Lift ground seize sky (ti di qing tian) moves in TZQ, except that in Chen they are done on each side and in
TZQ they are done at the same time on both sides.
Also the Chen form repeats the moves twice.

14. Chen: Hidden Thrust punch (Yan Shou Hong Chui)
TZQ: Plunder or Brush Past Hand (Lue shou)
(identical)

15. Chen: Buddha's Warrior Attendant Pounding Mortar (Jin Gang Dao Dui)
TZQ: Squeeze hand Cannon (Ji shou pao)
(identical movements, even facing the same direction)

(Chen skips the next two moves from TZQ but does them later:
Plunder hand with single Dashing Fist (Lue shou dan dong quan)
and
Two lifting flying feet (Er qi fei jiao)

16. Chen: Draping Over Body (Pi Shen Chui)
TZQ: Both embrace (Shuang kuo)

17. Chen: Lean With Back (Bei Zhe Kao)
TZQ: Close body with both wrapping fists (Su shen shuang bao quan)

18. Chen: Blue Dragon Out of Water (Qing Long Chu Shui)
TZQ: Left Plowing hammer (zuo jue-qi chui)
A jue-qi is an ancient plow, from over 1,000 years ago)

19. Chen: Push With Both Hands (Shuang Tui Shou)
TZQ: Phoenix spreads wing (Feng Hwang Zhan chi)

Chen skips next move in TZQ and does it later
Shake Mountain (Yao shan) which is exactly the same as
31.Wave Hands (Yun Shou) in Chen, as shown on Jarek's site, on the page where he compares these moves and shows photos of both.


20. Chen: Change Palms Three Times (San Huan Zhang)
TZQ: Wrench hand and Push Waist 3 times (Ban shou Tui yao)

21. Chen: Punch at Elbow's Bottom (Zhou Di Chui)
TZQ: Tiger strike (hu pu)

22-23. Chen: Step Back and Whirl Arms at Both Sides (Dao Juan Hong) and Step Back and Press Elbow (Tui Bu Ya Zhou)
TZQ: Expel striking energy (Pai da qi yan)

23: Chen: Middle Winding (Zhong Pan)
TZQ: Close Body both wrapping (Su shen shuang bao)

24-30 Chen repeats some previous moves

31. Chen: Wave Hands (Yun Shou)
TZQ: Shake Mountain (Yao shan)
(exactly the same)

32. Chen: High Pat on Horse (Gao Tan Ma)
(Not in this TZQ form, but seen in Gen Qi's form and also seen in Shaolin Lohan forms).

that's half the form almost, matched move by move, each move has the same function too.

The other half of the TZQ form matches up the same way, skipping all the Chen repeats of moves.
Like the Chen lao jia form, the TZQ form next does the
two low crescent kicks, the kneeling punch, the jumping kicks, the hand under the elbow, the Tiger Grabs the Heart (same names used at the same point in the form!), the jump kick, the low punch, the repeat of Lazy tying Coat type moves, the kick, the getting down really low, the getting up really high and looking down, the various chin na kind of moves, the big side kick, and winding hands near the end, etc.

Need I go on? The two forms follow each other.

[Sal Canzonieri]

The thing is that many many of these movements that are found in the Tai tzu Chang Quan form and Chen tai ji
are ALSO done the exact same way in this 18 Lohan Hands 144 move form.

So, if this particular 18 Lohan 8 section form really from before the Ching Dynasty, then it might explain why many people, such as Sun Lu Tang, have commented on how many movements in tai ji and ba qua seem to overlap and can be understood by each other.

[GeneChing]

Think you could compress that all into 1500-2500 words with pictures?

[Sal Canzonieri]

Think you could compress that all into 1500-2500 words with pictures?

Okay, will work in it when I get the chance.
I need to have someone take photos of me doing both forms.

Maybe I can put all the side by side movement comparisons into a table?

[GeneChing]

Email me privately if you're serious about pursuing this - gene@kungfumagazine.com. It's been a while since you've published anything with us.

[lunghushan]

Is that the Encyclopedia from Earthworks that we're talking about here? A little pricey, and only in Chinese.

Does anybody know where to get something like this in English?

Also, does anybody know where to get decent videos of these forms? I hesitate to buy any DVDs or VCDs from China because I got a lot in the past but they weren't very good ... seemed to be only wushu-ized material.