Taizu's Longfist is First 太祖的長拳起首

[Tainan Mantis]

Most schools of Mantis pay homage to the list of Eighteen Masters that make up our style.
At the beginning of the Eighteen founders of Mantis (Which we should really be calling Luohan), a list of 18 masters and their specialty,is Song Taizu, founding Emperor of the Song Dynasty.

太祖的長拳起首， Taizu's Longfist Comes First.

If his Longfist comes first it must be pretty important.
So, if we really understand our style, or if masters understand this style, then what does Taizu's Longfist actually mean?

Looking at Longfist today is a maze of confusion. A never ending list of forms.
Even within a single style or school of Longfist will likely have many many forms of longfist.

Or, you may say that within our 18 masters list Taizu's Longfist refers to a Longfist form as taught to the military during the Ming, famously known as Taizu's Longfist.

But, I say that it is neither of those. Instead it means a technique, not a form, or a style. It means Taizu's single technique that he passed down for posterity. So, if Taizu has but a single technique and our list of creators of the style is only eighteen, then how many techniques does the style have?

Eighteen techniques? Thirty-six techniques? Hardly enough to make up so many forms that exist today.

Eighteen Masters
太祖的長拳起首，韓通的通背為母；
鄭恩的纏封尤妙，溫元的短拳更奇；
馬籍的短打最甚，孫恆的猴拳且盛；
黃祐的靠身難近，綿盛的面掌飛疾；
金相的磕手通拳，懷德的摔捋硬崩；
劉興的勾摟採手，譚方的滾漏貫耳；
燕青的拈拿跌法，林沖的鴛鴦腳強；
孟甦的七勢連拳，崔連的窩裡剖捶；
楊滾的棍採直入，王朗的螳螂總敵。

[mawali]

Taizhichangquan is an old method and it appears that based on where the form was learned, Taizhu took on many shapes, features, skills, etc base don the province, town or village where it ended up. Didn't Sal and few scholars identify a Taizhu form that was a basis for Chen shi Family art now known as taijiquan

[YouKnowWho]

This is the Taizu long fist that I have learned.

[YouKnowWho]

Here is another clip.

[RAF]

Partial clip of the taizuquan of Liu Yunqiao:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=S3nWtZSfAx4

[Tainan Mantis]

Great. Thanks Fellas for posting examples of Longfist forms. There are millions of these longfist forms on the internet now. Plus more we have not yet seen.

And these two examples (first two videos being the same form) are a good cross section. They are both valid longfist and yet both different stylistically. So, in terms of Old Praying Mantis, or even in terms of Ming Dynasty General Qi Jiguang, does "Song Taizu's Longfist" refer to a form like this.

I say not.

It refers only to a technique.
That should be a technique that shows up in the schools of, Longfist, Tongbei (or Tongbi if that is what you like to call it), Taichi, Mantis and several southern styles going all the way to Okinawan Karate.
We would expect the technique to look radically different between Taiji and Karate, but there should still be a link, even if we are no longer able to find it.

Without the ability to determine what Song Taizu's technique was, styles like Longfist, Mantis, Tongbei, Taiji are missing an important component of defining what they are.

So the next question would be; how do we go about defining the very first component of what makes up our style?

[Tainan Mantis]

Taizhu form that was a basis for Chen shi Family art now known as taijiquan

Modern Taiji is descended from Song Taizu's Longfist form as recorded in a short chapter of General Qi Jiguang's military manual New Book on Effective Training Methods published early 1560's. Republished several more times in the Ming and Qing dynasty. There is no indication that it was ever a rare book.

I have seen with my own eyes a handwritten version purported to be from the end of the Ming or at least the beginning of the Qing. It is larger than the book and in color on a rolled up scroll sealed in a safe. The owner pointed out the headgear; the soldiers wearing something like a turban or headscarf.

Unlike during the Qing when the queue (the braided pony tail) became required by law at the start of the Qing.