Well, no, of course since its Shaolin, its not that straightforward.Originally Posted by LFJ
The 18 postures within the Luohan 13 Gong Quan set are thought to compose the original set. Not that particular set itself as it is done today, but it's particular 18 postures.
This goes back to Bai Yufeng and Jue Yuan, as they found this old Luohan material and then were taking the Five Elements material and the 8 Directions material (which came from Shaolin Hua - Transforming character - Quan) and created their new "Attacking and Defending, Advancing and Retreating Boxing", which was later called Wu Quan (Five Boxing, not Five animals, that came much later) and then later called Luohan Quan. They started with some simple Luohan Quan and 18 Luohan Hands sets that were still to be found; they went through the library at Shaolin to find things, as near the end of the Yuan Dynasty, Shaolin was pretty much destroyed (yes, yet again) by northern invaders. When Jue Yuan got to Shaolin not much was left, hence, he went searching for experts to bring in some rejuvenation to Shaolin Quan. He met Li Sou and then Li's master, Bai Yufeng, who became the head librarian at Shaolin. Bai searched through the old books and rediscovered the Five Elements and Eight Directions methods and they continued from there.
Some people think that whatever was left of Shaolin Quan was preserved by Jue Yuan and Bai Yufeng and that all we have of Shaolin Quan today is descended.
During the Qing dynasty, these 18 postures are thought to be what was used as the base for Shi Zhanju to create his 41 postures version. See, Sheng Chou might have created the 18 postures set, but it was extinct by the Ming era of Jue Yuan.
(Lost stuff is in the chapter right before the chapter that has the drawings of the sets, the chapter has names of set and their movements, but no drawings, and some historical info. Check it out and see if there is anything interesting there or some clues.)
Likewise, the Yi and Er Lu sets that Shi Yanzhuang does are composed of postures from those listed as Er and San lu in the lost forms chapter. Not the exact same sequences, they seem inside out when I tried to follow them.
These two sets are very Chen Taiji like (and hence, Tongbei Quan like).
Were they created in the Qing or earlier? Chen TJQ didn't exist before the 1650s, likewise Tongbei Quan didn't exist before the late 1500s. Chen TJQ was developed after the massacre of Shaolin monks by the rebels.
I know that the Shaolin Encyc.'s Rou quan Yi Lu set is very different than all other Rou Quan sets. I think it was radically changed and made much more typical Shaolin Quan like during the Qing era when it became the 41 posture version. There are some postures and movements seen in the Luohan 13 Gong, both sets start out with the same Old Man / Monk Splits Wood posture, for example.
I don't know why Huike is considered the founder of 3 sets of Rou quan that Shi Degen teaches. Nothing anywhere talks about this. There is a deep healing sitting meditation qi gong set that is attributed to him, it is for healing deep wounds in the body and so on. (Again, Liu Zhenhai has a vcd in his series showing this Huike healing qigong. Ha.)
All of this could have come from the same source 18 posture Rou Quan. So 41 postures Rou Quan was from Qing Dynasty, but Shi Degen's set from Huike could have formed much earlier, still using the original 18 postures Rou quan to start from.
Plus, who knows what happened during the early Ming and what Jue Yuan changed or not, what they preserved or not.
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