Chen & Yang Tai Chi Jian - Sword forms?

[salcanzonieri]

If Wayne says he was a favorite student of his teacher, that means he showed dedication, skills, talent, and abilities achieved through hard work and analysis of the material.
That should be something we should congratulate. Not many people can do that.

[salcanzonieri]

Anyways, before the topic gets hijacked into something else.

The Chen Spear form and the Yang 24 movements Spear form are both very similar because they come from the same source,
which is the Yang Family (of the Song Dynasty) Pear Flower form.
More than likely Yang Lu Chan carried this with him from Chen village training.
But there are no videos that I know of that show the traditional Yang (lu Chan) 24 spear form (but easy to find the original Song Dynasty Yang Plum flower spear).
The original Chen spear form is lost too, and it is re-created today with White Ape staff merged into it (Which comes from Chen's Tong Bei roots, from 1500s).

The Yang 13 spear form is very different, still found in YongNian village and passed down from Yang Ban Hou. No Chen equivalent.
There is a Shaolin 13 Spear form that is similar.

But, concerning the Yang and Chen Jian sword form. Why are they the same form? They claim two different origins, but same form.
Far as can be ascertained, they both come from the 1928 Jian book in the Yang style.

[windwalker]

Click on the link and you can see that document appears on the 1940s.

No the 1948 Stamp shows a change of ownership from Wu Gongzao to Li Duo to pay a debt. Li Duo returned the book later.

It was not made public in any form until 1985.

In 1993, a second copy written in the same handwriting was made public by the Yang family.

It's hard to imagine the Chen family calling their stuff Taijiquan till after the Yangs popularized it.

We do not call it Taiji.

[DiaitaDoc]

Anyways, before the topic gets hijacked into something else.

But, concerning the Yang and Chen Jian sword form. Why are they the same form? They claim two different origins, but same form.
Far as can be ascertained, they both come from the 1928 Jian book in the Yang style.

Do you have examples of Chen style claiming Yang style as the origin of ANYTHING they do?

Because it sure sounds like they don’t like to do that… maybe for marketing reasons.. So, they made up an origin story?

[Bob]

Some where along the line someone needs to do a historical look at the influence of Song Weiyi - I never could fine much about him and what the sources were of his sword practice and its range of influence

[wayne hansen]

What do you already know of him Bob

[wayne hansen]

Double post sorry

[Bob]

In our line he was responsible for the version of the kun wu sword practice via warlord General Zhang Xiangwu and possibly the version of the Taiji sword we learned

In an old issue of the Journal of Chen Tai Chi (name may be off a bit but have copies filed away) he was with other warlord generals too and had some tie to the wudang/Daoist sword practice.

However, much of this seems anecdotal and shouldn't be taken solidly grounded in historical verification or treated as fact.

[wayne hansen]

I came across this film of Dr Tao the other day and will post it as it’s own thread
What is called Hsing I sword on here I learnt as Man Heaven Earth sword form
Things like this make it hard to delve into the past
I have always thought CMC,s two man sword work was MHE based

[Urs Krebs]

The Yang 13 spear form is very different, still found in YongNian village and passed down from Yang Ban Hou. No Chen equivalent.
There is a Shaolin 13 Spear form that is similar.

If you once could forget about Shaolin...

You should compare the Yang Shi 13 Qiang with the Chen Shi 13 Dagan and you maybe discover some similarities...

[zrm]

Some where along the line someone needs to do a historical look at the influence of Song Weiyi - I never could fine much about him and what the sources were of his sword practice and its range of influence

In the old books Song is listed as "Chen Shijun". I assume Song Weiyi is a honorary name. He was some kind of Taoist hermit who taught Li Jinglin. It was Li Jinglin that everybody studied with and responsible for it's influence.

Li was considered one of the last chinese sword masters because he could give the Japanese sword guys a run for their money.

https://brennantranslation.wordpress.com/2014/06/01/wudang-sword/

In my youth, I studied poetry and classical literature, but as I matured, I fell in love with martial arts. When I packed my bag and went off to commence my military studies, the skill of sword fighting was listed in the academy as a specialized subject. But as there were no instructors for this course, foreign talent was borrowed by way of a Japanese man named Ryokichi from Matsushima. I learned from him how to strike, stab, chop, and slash, and became rather arrogant about my abilities. I later went to Japan and encountered among their sword experts a man named Nobutake from Kokura. Having some time to myself, I requested instruction from him. His skill seemed to me to be exquisite and very unique. I trained from him for a while, but could not complete my studies with him because I then had to return to China.
I had become fully aware by then that you Japs had sneaked from our material and then pretended to invent it in order to show yourselves superior to us. But when I had considered how nobody was teaching it here and I had groaned over the difficulty of inspiring such talent, it was clear that you were not the ones to be reproached. Even though China is vast, suddenly all of its sword masters seemed to have vanished. I could not yet accept that, and more than ten years slipped by as I persisted in my faith that I would seek out and find someone somewhere who possessed a wealth of knowledge. I hoped I would meet such a person and observe the innate sword art of our nation. But experts who were at a satisfactory level were so extremely rare and books of sword theory rarer still. And I finally gave up all hope.
Then in early 1927, it was announced there were to be national and regional martial arts competitions, and that General Li Jinglin of Hebei was invited to come south and manage the Central Martial Arts Institute. Thereupon people from Beijing and Shanghai started pushing each other aside to get a glimpse for themselves of Li’s astonishing sword skill. In the autumn of 1928, the National Martial Arts Gathering was to be held in Zhejiang, and Li was appointed as head judge. I attended with the specific purpose of gaining an audience with him. I got to listen to him explain the beginnings and development of our nation’s sword art, as well as personally see his methods of body, hand, and sword. This was truly what I had wished to see and had been so unsuccessful in finding for more than ten years.
I was pleased beyond all the hopes I ever had. I also discovered how shallow and crude my own skill really was at the time, and have since been learning from Li. I find his skill to be so deep and refined that I can hardly express it in words, not even by way of analogy. Instead I have put his own oral teachings into a book, in order to prevent them from being forgotten. My classmates have all said it would make the training easier for beginners and have urged me to publish it and have it widely circulated. Hence I have made this account of how this project started. My fellow countrymen, I hope you will honor me with instruction wherever I have made errors.
– written by Huang Wenshu [Yuanxiu], second month of summer, 1930

They mention a little bit about Song in these books. I am not 100% sure he is real person.

https://brennantranslation.wordpress.co ... g-yuanxiu/

陳世鈞　劍客　民國
[100] Chen Shijun / sword master / Republic
皖北籍，隱於關東者有年，能出沒無踪，日食全羊，與數日不食。冬不裘，夏不葛，以人盤劍，傳河北李芳辰將軍。
He was from northern Anhui. He spent many years living as a hermit in Guangdong. He was able to appear and disappear without trace. He could eat a whole sheep in a single day or go several days without eating at all. He wore no thick furs in winter nor thin clothes in summer. He taught the “human realm” sword art to General Li Jinglin of Hebei.

李景林　將　民國
[101] Li Jinglin / general / Republic
籍隸河北棗強縣，親受陳世鈞劍俠之傳授人盤劍術。曩在東省之日本軍人，及海內國術名家與劍術者，無不披靡。其他拳術，槍術亦極優良。　李將軍傳
He was from Zaoqiang county, Hebei. He learned personally from the sword hero Chen Shijun, who taught him the “human realm” sword art. He utterly defeated all contenders, be they the Japanese soldiers occupying the eastern provinces or famous martial artists and sword fighters of China. He also excelled in other boxing arts and spear arts. (Bio of Li Jinglin [See Huang’s 1931 Wudang Sword book.])

https://brennantranslation.wordpress.co ... ang-sword/

Li Jingling, called Fangchen, as well as Fangcen, was from an aristocratic family in Zaoqiang county, Hebei. He was the youngest of five brothers, but the fourth of the brothers had died young. All of their uncles were local merchants, but their grandfather had been a martial artist well-known in the area between the two rivers, the Yangtze and Yellow. While Li was young, he was taught by his father, and he had a very heroic prowess.

When he grew up, he did some wandering north of the Great Wall, and there met an unusual man, Chen Shijun of Anhui. Chen was a man of few words. He appeared and disappeared without trace, and he wore the same clothes regardless of winter or summer. An exponent of the Wudang branch, he was skillful in the “sky realm”, “ground realm”, and “human realm” sword arts. Li spent several years learning from him, then also practiced Taiji Boxing, long spear, Shuaijiao, and other skills, and he became very powerful in all of them.

During the last years of the Qing Dynasty, the nation was increasingly in decline. Li wished to go to Baoding and train with the army, but Chen tried to dissuade him: “The purpose you have inherited from your previous life runs deep. You and I are bound together by fate. So far you have only learned the ‘human realm’ sword art. If you keep at it and learn also the ‘ground realm’ and ‘sky realm’ sword arts, then my teachings can be passed down, and you can become a sword hero. If you abandon this work so you can attend to some other, I can see that your skill will earn you a fame that will not be meager. But you will toil in vain, for you will still not have rescued the nation. Five years from now, you will have gradually become a star. But ten years from you, you will be posted to some frontier. Then fifteen years from now, you will be drifting all over the country, having achieved nothing at all, either for others or for yourself. Remember this: twenty years from now, we might bump into each other again on some river.”

However, Li was intent upon serving the nation and ultimately parted ways with Chen and went into the army at the Baoding Accelerated Training School. He then held up his weapon, spurred his horse on, and dominated the battlefield, defeating Wu Ziyu at Guandong and smashing Feng Huanzhang at Nankou

[zrm]

Actually I have another translation of the same book that has some commentary (Major methods of the Wudang Sword, translated by Dr Lu Mei-Hui with commentary by Chang Wu Na). They says Chen Shijun story is not related to Song at all and that the Chen Shijun story was probably made up by the author *shrug*. They say that Song Wei Yi was a real guy and that Li learnt from at a military academy in Baoding in 1905

They say Song taught the Dan Pai Wudang Sword and that Song learnt from a Daoist monk called Zhang Ye He, but Song wasn't a monk himself and was the first non-monk to learn it.

[Bob]

Thanks ZM - appreciate your postings - overall, I'm pretty certain Song Weiyi was an actual person but the Daoist stories are difficult to pin down - a bit skeptical on my part.

[Bob]

quote="DiaitaDoc"]

Anyways, before the topic gets hijacked into something else.

But, concerning the Yang and Chen Jian sword form. Why are they the same form? They claim two different origins, but same form.
Far as can be ascertained, they both come from the 1928 Jian book in the Yang style.

Do you have examples of Chen style claiming Yang style as the origin of ANYTHING they do?

Because it sure sounds like they don’t like to do that… maybe for marketing reasons.. So, they made up an origin story?[/quote]

Well I did hear from someone who is both a well skilled martial artist and qualified academic, many years ago, SPECULATE, based on his uncle connected to the the Chen Village state that Yang style taijiquan was PROBABLY closer to the original Chen style practice than compared to the current practice of Chen style taijiquan.

Of course it immediately brought up the question about which version of Yang style practice were we thinking about.

His response was because there had been so much personalization among the various off shoots of taijiquan in general that it was unanswerable and any formal study would be a waste of time given the plethora of forged documents and outright distorted claims.

[zrm]

Thanks ZM - appreciate your postings - overall, I'm pretty certain Song Weiyi was an actual person but the Daoist stories are difficult to pin down - a bit skeptical on my part.

Here is the relevant part of that book.
https://www.northatlanticbooks.com/blog ... ang-sword/

They go on to say Li added a bunch of other sword material from other systems to the core Dan Pai Wudang Sword style and that at some point his student Yang Kui-shan took over teaching. Yang Kui-shan (edit: taught also learnt) from Shang Yun-xiang, Li Shu-wen, Sun Lu-tang etc.