Luohan Quan

[Sal Canzonieri]

Keep in mind, Luohan Shiba Shou as a name is as common as styles being named after Damo. It doesn't necessarily mean anything, except that it is obviously Buddhist/Shaolin related!

Don't mix up the courtyard styles. The Xiyuan and Nanyuan Tongbiquan aren't just different versions of the same system. They have different origins. The one likely to be related to General Han Tong's Tongbiquan is the Xiyuan system, which being older is a bit scattered and also has many different names.

Nanyuan Tongbiquan is a lot easier to follow, as it is not so old. It is basically Dong Cheng's Tongbiquan, a mixture of the Shaolinquan he got from students of Bai Yufeng (Taizu Changquan, Hongquan, Paoquan) and Yuanhouquan, and later (Datongbiquan) Ji Jike's Xinyi rooster concepts. This is between the mid 1500's to the final years of the Ming Dynasty in the mid 1600's. We can know this by looking at the contents of the material and when and where it was created and taught.

Luohan Shiba Shou yilu as described is mainly Nanyuan Datongbiquan technique. Other roads are more Xiaotongbiquan. As both of these came from outside created in the late Ming Dynasty, it doesn't make sense for the same technique base to have been created within Shaolin centuries earlier. This Luohan Shiba Shou series at the earliest may be placed somewhere between Nanyuan Xiaotongbiquan and Datongbiquan.

Also, I wouldn't suggest taking instructional videos as reference for history! Shi Deyang basically just repeats common Shaolin legends in the videos, rather than discussing factual history. In most cases it is pretty easy to debunk the legends with a little research.

Someone I know asked Shi Xingsen (who is in some Liu Zhenhai instructionals) why the sets they show differ in the videos and books they made. He said the books are often more accurate because people who are really serious will look to books for research purposes. The videos in most cases are just for hobbyists, so they just have watered-downed versions of the sets with a word or two of basic legends for the "formation".

By the way, in Shi Deqian's individual book on this Luohan Shiba Shou series he gives quite a different story on the origin of the name which isn't about statues. If there is a much older Shaolin Luohan Shiba Shou system, this can't be it. It's Nanyuan Tongbiquan all the way through.

okay, so let's say it these 8 sets were developed around the same time as the other Nanyuan Shaolin sets. maybe they were created first before the nanyuan tongbei quan sets (lets' called the xiyuan version Tongbi quan), is that possible?

When Bai Yu Feng, Li Sou, and Jue Yuan went back to Shaolin, it is said there was hardly anyone there. They looked through all the library materials to create the new Shaolin Quan. It can't be the 1641 date (when the massacre by warlord Li Jiyu happened), it has to be before that, back when the Mongols were in power. People claim they were from the later Ming times, which makes no sense since there was plenty of martial arts there then, except right after the massacre. But Dong Cheng was from the late 1500s to mid 1600s, he learned Shaolin Quan before the massacre from students of Bai Yu Feng. Since he learned Hong Quan, staff, Taizu Chang quan, ROu Quan, and Pao Quan and he called what he practiced Tong BI Quan, it must be Xiyuan Shaolin that he learned.
After the massacre, 1641 (I think), Shaolin would need a reconstruction and hence the nanyuan gate Shaolin sets were developed. Okay, so it stands to reason they would want to develop some Luohan 18 hands since that was what Shaolin was known for. They had to get info from the countryside to do this reconstruction. So, what did the countryside Shaolin influenced folk have?

After this massacre time period, Dong Cheng called his art Tongbei Quan, because he had learned some Taoist material, such as their sword fighting and empty hand sets that were based on the 13 Postures, which was from originally Shaolin Rou Quan anyways (what dates for Rou Quan are in the Shaolin Encyclopdia)?

Now most important of all, the Luohan Siba Shou 8 Routines very clearly has all the animals and proto-typical postural movement material that Yinfu and Cheng Tinghua bagua Zhang was developed from. It is very very like Yinfu Bagua zhang, Cheng's came later and there is some overlap but not as much as Yinfu Bagua.
So, Dong Haichuan and Yinfu must have both practiced what they were calling Luohan first. How did they get them?