Is Liu He Ba Fa(water boxing) older or younger than the 3 main internal arts?

[LaterthanNever]

Someone told me that LHBF is older than TC, HY and BG..others say "no" since it supposedly is a synthesis of the 3 and hence..cannot be older. Can anyone comment?

[lungyuil]

Hi,
from what i have been told by my sifu and also as noted, it is an older system that was around before the 3 internal arts.

Many people i guess would say it is younger because it is not aswell known as tai chi, ba gua and hsing yi and because if comprises methods i guess from these 3 arts.

We also have another internal art called Wan Yern which our history states predates all of these arts but it has never really been heard of.

Hope this helps
Cheers
Lung

[uki]

be like water... eventually we return to the source. there is no form, no shape, yet it can assume all shapes... it can be controlled, yet it can flood banks and destroy cities, ruin crops... it falls as life giving rain or beautiful snow... surely it is the most encompassing of all concepts to embrace while training - unless of course you muse the element of mercury instead(which is a whole other concept altogether) to me, the term water boxing invokes the image of being freeform as water... it seems to be safe to conclude that becoming inspired by water happened long before being inspired by a circle or a straight line - i conclude this simply by witnessing the regression of mankind over the course of the ages until now, when the inflectional point is upon us and wisdom and understanding begin to rise once more.

[B-Rad]

Some branches are certainly younger, at least in their current incarnation, because as you say they are heavily made up of elements from versions of these xingyi, bagua, and taiji. I haven't seen a ton of lhbf though, and I'm not a historian, so I guess it's possible these elements were added to the system later rather than used in its creation. I'm not sure what the "official" history is.

[TaiChiBob]

Greetings..

Much older..

Be well..

[kfson]

I enquired about this form at a neighborhood school, about a year ago. They only teach it in seminars and the form has several hundred moves. I think 350 was the approximate number. Wow!

[lungyuil]

Hi Yes, the form has close to 350 moves...Very long form but also beautiful. The rise and fall aswell as the forward and backward motions feeling as if you are in water makes the form come to life. But i guess that is with other internal arts also.

There are different versions of this form. If many talk about the LHBF being younger than Tai Chi, Ba Gua and Hsing Yi, maybe they are thinking of the chinese Wu Shu version.
All versions are similar yet different, but i also think that comes from ones understanding/interpretation of internal and the meaning of LHBF.

There are also other forms in LHBF, but these were created by Wu i believe and some was exercises taken from the Hsing Yi and Yi Quan. These are the "external Sets", but the original long form of LHBF is older than the rest.

Cheers,
Lung

[TaiChiBob]

Greetings..

Originally, as i understand it, 365 movements.. i know there some sort of relationship there...??

Be well..