# CIMA - Which Style's Practitioners Lives Longest



## Xue Sheng (Oct 20, 2011)

I was doing some research, although the results are fairly meaningless, because I have no family history or causes of death or life styles of any of the guys I looked up, but it appears that Baguazhang guys may just live longest on average...depending on....

Yang Taijiquan average life span: 73

Chen Taijiquan Average life span: 78

Taijiquan Average Life Span: 75 or 85 if you throw in Wu Tunan who lived to 105

Xingyiquan Average Life Span: 80 - Wang Ji Wu lived to 100 years old

Baguazhang Average Life span: 83 or 99 if you throw in Lu Zijian who is still alive and allegedly 116

This however is not all of the guys that trained these 3 styles and as I find more I will add more.

But for the most part Taijiquan guys of the past tended not to live to long. Most Baguazhang guys lived to a rather old age except for Cheng Tinghua who was killed during the Boxer Rebellion at or near 52 years old.


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## CrushingFist (Oct 23, 2011)

I actually thought Taijiquan was going to win lol


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## Xue Sheng (Oct 24, 2011)

That is what I thought too when I started this but, other than the odd 106 year old, there are/were more really old Baguazhang guys than really old Taijiquan guys


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## oaktree (Oct 24, 2011)

I thought since Zhang San Feng was immortal Taiji was the winner. But Dong Haichuan raised from the dead maybe Bagua is the winner.....
  To bad Xingyiquan does not have any immortals in their history. :angel:


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## Xue Sheng (Oct 24, 2011)

oaktree said:


> I thought since Zhang San Feng was immortal Taiji was the winner. But Dong Haichuan raised from the dead maybe Bagua is the winner.....
> To bad Xingyiquan does not have any immortals in their history. :angel:



Well they might....but they are spending to much time training and fight to talk about it.... you have loads of time to talk when you go slow or walk in circles


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## clfsean (Oct 24, 2011)

Eh... just do Luk Hop Kuen... best of all three worlds (so I'm told & have heard) and therefore you should out live the planet...


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## Xue Sheng (Oct 24, 2011)

Hey...Ip Chun is 87 and still training so..... Wing Chun anyone


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## mograph (Oct 24, 2011)

What about the secret art of Xue Fu?


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## Flying Crane (Oct 24, 2011)

mograph said:


> What about the secret art of Xue Fu?



You beat me to it.

Hey Xue,  let us know when you kick off, then we'll know how long Xue Fue people live.

Of course I am Number Two! in Xue Fue!  So I'll send out a bulletin as well.

Going back to the original post, how do you list those "averages", me wonders out loud.  Average length of life of any taiji practitioner?  Or just the famous ones?  'Cause there's a WHOLE LOT of them out there and I'm not at all sure how you could track and tabulate them.

I think this is just looking at specific examples of those who got famous.  It in no way is an accurate way to measure a realistic average lifespan.


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## Xue Sheng (Oct 24, 2011)

Flying Crane said:


> You beat me to it.
> 
> Hey Xue,  let us know when you kick off, then we'll know how long Xue Fue people live.
> 
> Of course I am Number Two! in Xue Fue!  So I'll send out a bulletin as well.



You know we can't actually tell them how old we REALLY are :EG:



Flying Crane said:


> Going back to the original post, how do you list those "averages", me wonders out loud.  Average length of life of any taiji practitioner?  Or just the famous ones?  'Cause there's a WHOLE LOT of them out there and I'm not at all sure how you could track and tabulate them.
> 
> I think this is just looking at specific examples of those who got famous.  It in no way is an accurate way to measure a realistic average lifespan.



Actually all I can find not just famous, but I will admit itis much easier to get the dates on the famous guys.

In reality the averages are meaningless, famous or not, without knowing their family history and studying their life style beyond the fact they trained CIMA it is really not much more than a number.

But I will say that in a discussion with my sifu about Taijiguys dying young he said he felt it was that many of them did not believe in doctors and fully believed all they needed to stay healthy was their Taijiquan


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## Flying Crane (Oct 24, 2011)

Xue Sheng said:


> You know we can't actually tell them how old we REALLY are :EG:



and methinks we'd better not tell them when we are dead!


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## mograph (Oct 24, 2011)

Xue Sheng said:


> But I will say that in a discussion with my sifu about Taijiguys dying young he said he felt it was that many of them did not believe in doctors and fully believed all they needed to stay healthy was their Taijiquan.


Oh yeah, I've heard that before. I know of one overweight woman who proudly announced to the class "Tai Chi gave me this body!" EastWinds knows this kind of person.

The idea of Tai Chi's replacing doctors and common sense health practice reminds me of the old joke about the devout guy who did everything he could to convince God to let him win the lottery, when God finally answered him with _"Hey, help me out a little -- buy a ticket!"_

Some Tai Chi people let themselves go, and expect that Tai Chi will save them. They should buy a ticket.

(There's nothing wrong with Tai Chi, but there's a heckuva lot wrong with Tai Chi _cultism_.)


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## Xue Sheng (Oct 24, 2011)

mograph said:


> Oh yeah, I've heard that before. I know of one overweight woman who proudly announced to the class "Tai Chi gave me this body!" EastWinds knows this kind of person.
> 
> The idea of Tai Chi's replacing doctors and common sense health practice reminds me of the old joke about the devout guy who did everything he could to convince God to let him win the lottery, when God finally answered him with _"Hey, help me out a little -- buy a ticket!"_
> 
> ...



Very true, but my sifu was not talking about people training it today, he was talking about the old guys that are no longer with us. Now if you look at Yang Chengfu he was very heavy... but Chen Fake was not nor others of the Yang family before and around the time of Chengfu and many that died young back then were not over weight... but when they got sick... it was not the doctor but Taiji they turned to... or at least that is why he feels they died so young.

But there are multiple reasons any of these guys may have died young, disease, Cultural Revolution, war, fighting, boxer rebellion, etc. However there does seem to be more older Bagua guys than anyone else. However without further study into the men themselves all you can really say is that they were more well known, or they were more willing to talk or maybe they had more money or maybe the ate better or they just had better genetics or maybe it is Baguazhang

But there is a crossover group as well and I have not yet looked at that. Crossover meaning those that trained Bagua and Xingyi or Bagua, Xingyi and Taiji and I have not even looked at Yiquan yet and I know Wang Xiangzhai live to 78


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## Xue Sheng (Oct 24, 2011)

Flying Crane said:


> and methinks we'd better not tell them when we are dead!



Exactly


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## Flying Crane (Oct 24, 2011)

Xue Sheng said:


> Very true, but my sifu was not talking about people training it today, he was talking about the old guys that are no longer with us. Now if you look at Yang Chengfu he was very heavy... but Chen Fake was not nor others of the Yang family before and around the time of Chengfu and many that died young back then were not over weight... but when they got sick... it was not the doctor but Taiji they turned to... or at least that is why he feels they died so young.
> 
> But there are multiple reasons any of these guys may have died young, disease, Cultural Revolution, war, fighting, boxer rebellion, etc. However there does seem to be more older Bagua guys than anyone else. However without further study into the men themselves all you can really say is that they were more well known, or they were more willing to talk or maybe they had more money or maybe the ate better or they just had better genetics or maybe it is Baguazhang
> 
> But there is a crossover group as well and I have not yet looked at that. Crossover meaning those that trained Bagua and Xingyi or Bagua, Xingyi and Taiji and I have not even looked at Yiquan yet and I know Wang Xiangzhai live to 78



I dunno, tho.  these numbers don't sound so impressive to me.  Both of my grandfathers, and one grandmother lived to 90 or older.  I've got numerous other relations (some more distant than others) who lived well into their 90s.  None of them did this kind of training.

I think the human body has a lot of potential, and there are a lot of variables that come together in one's life to ultimately decide how long one will live.  78 just isn't that old, in my opinion.  To talk about truly long life, and attribute it to something like martial arts training, I think I'd need to see consistent lifespans in the 90s or older.  Otherwise, we are just talking about the fairly ordinary lifespan range that many people reach, anyways.

Of course these numbers may seem more impressive a couple hundred years ago, when medical knowledge was less well developed.


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## Xue Sheng (Oct 24, 2011)

Flying Crane said:


> I dunno, tho.  these numbers don't sound so impressive to me.  Both of my grandfathers, and one grandmother lived to 90 or older.  I've got numerous other relations (some more distant than others) who lived well into their 90s.  None of them did this kind of training.
> 
> I think the human body has a lot of potential, and there are a lot of variables that come together in one's life to ultimately decide how long one will live.  78 just isn't that old, in my opinion.  To talk about truly long life, and attribute it to something like martial arts training, I think I'd need to see consistent lifespans in the 90s or older.  Otherwise, we are just talking about the fairly ordinary lifespan range that many people reach, anyways.
> 
> Of course these numbers may seem more impressive a couple hundred years ago, when medical knowledge was less well developed.



Well there is currently a Bagua guy in Beijing that claims to be 116 and he may actually be 116 and a Taiji guy got to 105. But the average numbers based on the life expectancy of today is not all that impressive but in the 1800 it was...or at least I think it was.... I really should look up the average age of Chinese males around the same time periods that most of these guys lived


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## CrushingFist (Oct 26, 2011)

Xue Sheng said:


> Well there is currently a Bagua guy in Beijing that claims to be 116 and he may actually be 116 and a Taiji guy got to 105. But the average numbers based on the life expectancy of today is not all that impressive but in the 1800 it was...or at least I think it was.... I really should look up the average age of Chinese males around the same time periods that most of these guys lived


 My grandma is 97yrs old currently no diseases thanks god. She has never practiced MA lol, but she grew up in the country side and farming and house wife was all she did.


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## Xue Sheng (Oct 26, 2011)

My Great Grandmother was 97 and chasing trespassers out of her yard, in the country, with a shotgun


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## yak sao (Oct 26, 2011)

When you look at the average life span of say 100 years ago, you have to consider the infant mortality rate. So many died in infancy and childhood that it brought the average life span way down.

Whether tai chi, pa kwa, hsing i, wing chun or any of the other martial arts add even an extra minute to your life, I look at the quality of life they bring.
I remember being at a tournament something like 30 years ago and they had this 85 year old Chinese woman come out and perform her tai chi for the audience. She was in the top of the bleachers. She kind if trotted down the bleachers, walked out to the middle of the gym, went through her form, bowed to the audience, smiled and trotted back up the bleachers and sat down.
For all I know, she's still around somewhere and practicing tai chi.


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## yak sao (Oct 26, 2011)

And then there's George Burns. who lived to be 100. He was always seen with a cigar and a drink. Someone asked him the secret of his longevity and he told them that if he knew he was going to live this long, he would have taken better care of himself.


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