Luohan Quan

[Sal Canzonieri]

I learned the yi lu and er lu together as one set from Yan Zhuang. Actually LZH er lo is really bizzare, it has nothing in common with any other set. I know a lot of shaolin sets and almost every move in er lo is unique and appears nowhere else. THis in someway links it to yi lu as most of the yi lu set is unique as well (in comparision to shaolin standard sets, namely dahong, pao, tongbi, changhuxinyi). I think the fact it is so so different from many other shaolin sets means that this luohan quan may be from a different era from the other luohan quans. Tagous book makes it look more standardized but actually everything about this form is strange, nothing is done the way its done in other forms, it is utterly unique. not to mention Luohan quan has a different shen fa than you would use in other shaolin sets.

Well, if you think about the history of Luohan Quan and that it comes from the material that Jue Yuan was doing (from out of Bai Yufeng's Wu Quan), these old Luohan sets should really look like Chang Quan, Hong Quan, Pao Quan since they are all of one family arising from the same time period and people.
If the sets look too different from Pao Quan, etc., than they more than likely were developed during the Qing Dynasty, rather than the early Ming era of Jue Yuan.

Being that Liu's book has a very strange looking Shaolin Luohan 18 Hands set that he attributes to Li Sou and so on, and then he shows his Da Luohan, which shares some similar attributes and looks related to it, I would guess at this point that Da Luohan could turn out to be the oldest of the Shaolin Luohan Quan sets.

I don't have LZH's Da lu book (that sounds awesome by the way) but i think if you take a look at it again you may find that his second half of yi lu luohan is his er lo set... His sons performance in the VCD is not exactly as it may look written down. you will have to actually commit a few moves to memory then look through it. Plus in the VCD his son changes direction a lot of times, he does this to keep it in a smaller space.

Liu's Yi Lu set is the (same as Shi deyang's) Lao Luohan set, OLD Luohan, and it is also called 3 Section Luohan, because it has three sections to the set. Deyang and now a lot of others call this set "Xiao Luohan" but it is really known as Lao Luohan. Over 10 years ago I was shown it as Lao Luohan. SO< let's say it is correct and really old, then IF as Shi Yan Zhuang does it, Liu's Yi Lu and Er Lu are one complete set, then it may signify (especially since Er Lu looks so Pao Quan like) that these are some of the oldest Luohan Quan sets that harken back to Jue Yaun's Luohan Quan sets.

By the way, this set shown in Liu's Yi lu, which is the same as Deyang's Xiao Luohan set, has nothing to do with Tagou's Xiao Luohan (which as shown previously is in fact Liu's San and Si Lu sets and also Shi Degen's Yi Lu set). Previously in this thread, much further back in the posts, you said that Deyang's Xiao Luohan was weird because it looked nothing like anyone else's Xiao Luohan.

Well, yes, that is because everyone is using the name "Xiao Luohan" too loosely.
Deyang's Xiao is the Lao Luohan Quan set, as established so far in this discussion, and it is not at all the Xiao set in the Tague books, since that is in fact the Yi Lu set (most of it) from Shi Degen.

Shi Degen's Yi Lu is the standard for the Tagou Xiao Luohan set, but it is not a Xiao set nor a Da set. It is one of at least 8 sets (18 is hard to believe). Tagou calls the set "Xiao" just to make it act as a couple with their Da Luohan set (which Liu does a much more complete version).
I think NONE of the sets shown in anyone's videos known so far is the actual real Xiao Luohan set.
The real Xiao Luohan set is the one 27 posture set shown in the Shaolin Encyclopedia.

Now, to top it off, the LAO Luohan / Liu's Yi Lu set is simply nothing but the first 36 Postures / 67 movements of the DA LUOHAN set (if you follow along in Liu's Shaolin Da Lu book's more complete version of the Da Luohan set). Liu's Yi Lu set is EXACTLY the same (but a bit less complex) as his version of the Da Luohan set.

As such, it is different than Tagou's version because their version has extraneous movements and skips postures and so on. But it is generally the same set from movement 1 to 66. After that the Tagou set is nothing like Liu's version and ends so after, missing the whole last sections.
Sorry, but in my personal opinion, the Tagou version is a big mess, it lacks many, many postures and transitional movements and lacks the amazing coherence that Liu's version has. If you can see the two versions side by side, you would agree. It's like beauty and the beast, really.

Are we totally confused yet? Ha!
Lao / 3 Section / Xiao (deyang) / Yi lu (Liu zhenhai) set = Da Luohan postures 1 to 36. A very nice number to stop at and make a shortened version of Da Luohan.

So, Da Luohan is the mother set to Lao Luohan. The first 36 posture match in form and in sequence.
One thing settled. Phew!!!!

The second half of Tagous Da luohan is very close to yong wens luohan which is also from Degen. SO i think Degen probably knew all the respective sets. How Tianxi chooses to name them is up to him so the yilu, erlu etc means nothing, there is probably not an order.

I now know both Tagous Da luohan and yan zhuangs yi lu.... There are only a couple of moves that don't fit, i really think that the second half of Da luohan is just an abreviation of LZH er lo set. It may be an abreviation that appeared 200 years ago and has changed somewhat but i think it is the same thing. It still contains a lot of similarities.

Where is there a video of Yong Wen doing this Luohan set, do you have a link?

Second half of Liu's Da Luohan, from his book, is same as Tagou's but with many more postures and transitional movements. AND, Liu's version has 16 more pages of postures after Tagou's ends, with 3 postures per page! That's 16 x 3 = 48 more just for the end, and then there is all the transition postures not seen in Tagou.
Also, Tagou has just sets of straight punches in gong bu whenever it loses its place when followed along Liu's version. Seems it just fills in missing movements with just piles of punches (unless they marked the set that way) and generalized extraneous movements.

I assure you that Liu's book version of Da Luohan is much more comprehensive and complex and very interesting compared to Tagou's rudimentary looking version. It truly is a Da Luohan set with 69 postures (not counting open and close positions) and 144 different movements.

Okay, moving on:
Liu's Er Lu vcd is identical to Liu Zhenhai's second half of Da Luohan Quan.
I just followed along these two videos to his book and they are identical (though no where as detailed as the book version).

SO, that makes a set, Liu's Yi Lu and Er Lu together make a complete Da Luohan Quan set.
Thus, Shi Yanzhuang's Yi Lu set is the complete Da Luohan Quan set.
Another mystery solved. Hurray!
Lao Luohan and Da Luohan both settled, with Lao being the first half of Da.