Great post, I must say. Lots of meat.
I Just watched a video of Xingyi dragon style and although the rear foot does lift it is completely different in the direction of force than anything I have seen so far in LHBF. The direction of power is going to the front and downward at about 45 degrees and then comes up with a kick.
Xingyi 12 animal, the first one is Dragon.
In short, it seems the majority of stances of Xingyi are in the 4/6 (or a similar stance with more weight on the back foot) position rather than bow (7/3) stance. Since in LHBF, we twist the back foot when we move from 4/6 to 7/3 and vice versa almost in equal numbers, the 7/3 step is more prominent. When we train in Praying Mantis (we use it to introduce LHBF principles because we didn't know about the LHBF 12 animals back then) we do a 7/3 Xingyi step which makes the direction of power for the back foot around just a little bit backwards from vertical. But in LHBF or Praying Mantis when we do the Xingyi step in the 4/6 stance, then the direction of power is actually as you say for Xingyi.
But while watching the video I thought of something that could be a problem with the comparison being made between Xingyi and LHBF. I have ONLY trained Hebei style and I do not believe I have ever even seen Shanxi or Henan styles (and there are others I have not seen) so there may be a different step there I am entirely unaware of that may be similar to what you are talking about. I would very much like to see the YouTube video you plan on posting.
I think the difference you pointed out earlier might be spot on. There just doesn't seem to be a common bow Xingyi step in Xingyi. But now that I know about this, I'll try to concentrate on the 4/6 part of LHBF for the video instead.
It is the belief of some internal Martial artist that you start at Xingyi, then go to Bagua and finally Tai Chi. I do not agree that this is necessary but that can at least explain in part why some Internal stylist know greater than one internal style.
I have also heard this and I similarly do not agree with that belief either. But there are who take Xingyi after Taiji because the footwork is not adequate for them.
Also many lack patience to train the (average) 3 years (if you train 7 days a week – longer if you train less) to become effective with Tai Chi so they go to Xingyi that I believe it is said 2.5 years. Not that it is less effective or inferior to Tai Chi it is just easier to understand the direction of force and application. Philosophically they tend to have at least one big difference; Xingyi uses attack as defense where Tai Chi generally does not.
Of course there are those who lack patience. I realise how my earlier post sounded. I didn't mean all those who took Taiji and Xingyi did so for the same reason. But many feel Taiji footwork to be inadequate. As you said, that's probably down to the difference in philosophy and not "one is better". I would, however, say that one style is necessarily better depending on what each individual wants and how their way of thinking is better suited to one style.
To say that Chen Zhenglei is showing a disconnection for power transference is not correct, and does show at least a lack of knowledge about Chen Zhenglei and CHen,
I really need to expand on my comments. In my reply to East Winds at least, that what I actually meant was that from the LHBF perspective that Chen Zhenglei shows disconnection. I agree that I know little of Chen like how you know little of LHBF. My point was that there are philosophical differences between LHBF and any kind of Taiji and it was a mistake (what East Winds earlier proposed) to say that "proper" LHBF should have identical theory to Taiji. From all the Chen style videos I have seen, yes they're all pretty much the same so that must mean it's quite standard.
The example I used earlier would be the Single Whip posture. In the other Chen video you posted, his torso was facing the camera with his arms stretched out to the side. The different philosophy in LHBF would dictate that his body be facing towards the left of the camera. I would prefer the LHBF way. No doubt you would prefer the Chen way. Objectively speaking, there probably isn't a "best way". They are different and the "best" way would be different under a different philosophy. And for East Winds to criticise LHBF philosophy (ie, the Wu Yi Hui -> Chan Yik Yan -> Choi Wai Lun (and my father's teacher) lineage) because it is different to his idea of Taiji and Taiji = LHBF philosophy is wrong.
Also, I did not mean that Chen Zhenglei showed disconnection throughout the whole video (from the LHBF perspective). Much of what happened after the Single Whip is at least reconcilable with LHBF (ie, his torso faces the direction of force).
Chen Zhenglei Traditional Chen style
Certainly, he looks better than a lot of other Chen stylists I've seen. I sound like a broken record, but again, from the LHBF perspective there still some disconnection. For example, like in the first push (the one with both hands and the feet move together) his hands move by themselves and are not totally synchronised with his feet moving together. This has a lot to do with my unfamiliarity with Chen, but the point was that Taiji and LHBF are not completely interchangeable.
Chen certainly looks more dynamic (in the body movements but not footwork) than LHBF. I would still say it's a difference in philosophy. One of the main principles (the "Eighth Method") is "Conceal. Develop the ability to conceal [your technique, power, and intent] before you manifest [your attack]" so that in the end, the LHBF from "looks" pedestrian. The drawback of this is that it makes it very hard for students to learn because they can't see. This is why starting from my father's teacher, one of the recently developed teaching methods require the student to actually touch the teacher's abdomen, back, calves, heels, etc so they can feel the movements that they cannot see.
But there are applications and reasons (such as anatomy) to move your foot on occasion. As well as moving power from the foot to the upper body, Tai Chi is not supposed to be ridged. It is also possible that is what is going on with the LHBF clips I have seen so far since I do not train LHBF so I have no way of knowing, but I am trying to understand.
Anatomy is definitely a part of the reason. But it's not the only reason, as far as LHBF is concerned. Since it is more comfortable to change the angle of the back foot to accomodate the angle of the torso, why not use that transition to generate force as well? That's one of the mentalities of LHBF is to use what's there to the fullest. Otherwise the back foot would be wasted if it turned only for anatomy.
The thing is, every video I have seen of anyone from the Chan Yik Yan lineage features the same foot turning (although I must say some may have forgotten to teach it properly). Certainly Choi Wai Lun has it in his LHBF forms and in his LHBF 12 animals form. My father and his teacher has it. His teacher's other students and their students have it. Chan Yik Yan was the one to spend the longest time learning from Wu Yi Hui too but I haven't seen their forms.
And the “Other guy” you are referring to is Tung Ying Chieh who was one of the students that Yang Chengfu allowed to carry on Yang Style that was NOT a member of the Yang family. His ability is or I should say was extremely high. Not to mention he was my teacher’s teacher so I may be a bit overly sensitive here and I will not comment further.
I am sorry if the way I said "other guy" seemed insensitive. I mean no disrespect.
I am equally willing to admit that I have an apparent incredible lack of understanding about LHBF and I am beginning to believe that if I wish to understand it I will need to train it and there is a class near me that teaches form and form only but I have do not have the time to dedicate to it and my free time becomes even more precious starting this week.
From what I read in your posts, your personal understanding of Taiji would make it very easy for you to make the transition into the Chan Yik Yan lineage of LHBF. But I agree that it would be a waste of time to learn the "form only" LHBF. The biggest problem you will have in searching for an LHBF school is one that doesn't have the philosophy that LHBF = Taiji. Even in those schools, despite teaching power and energy and martial applications, you would still wind up learning the "form only" LHBF since you have already learnt those Taiji theory. You would be better off creating your own Taiji form instead.
I don't subscribe to the theory that LHBF was created from the other three internal styles. But whatever the LHBF history actually was, the fact is, as you know, that LHBF contains principles present in the other three. If I were to classify them, it would be: footwork from Xingyi, escapism from Bagua, and Taiji for the arms. But even then, there is a lot of LHBF specific philosophies in those areas too (some from the actual way they amalgamate). To learn LHBF where the instructor eliminates all the other internal principles from other styles and completely replaces them with their version of Taiji, then there's no point in learning LHBF. You would be better off learning Taiji. If I had to, I would say the Helen Liang video is a perfect example of how some teachers threw away all the other principles for Taiji.
Also as a note and question on my observation of the class near me and this is going to sound REAL strange coming form a Tai Chi guy, but are all LHBF forms taught at such a slow speed in the beginning?
Unfortunately, this is a good example of amibuity in the english language.
What do you mean by "taught at such a slow speed"? Do you mean that the teacher was teaching his students to perform each posture very slowly? Or do you mean that the teacher taught very little in one class?
To answer the first possible question: it depends.
My father once saw a guy in Hong Kong's Victoria Park (famous for its many people practicing some kind of martial art) who performed the form REALLY slowly. I mean he would move his posture inch by inch.
In one of the LHBF videos on Youtube (the one by John Chung Li) the guy takes a long time too.
Each teacher teaches different speeds. My father's teacher would teach a reasonable speed but would also tell his students (the more advanced ones) that you should sometimes practice a faster (but less intention), smaller stanced form to get a feel of the flow. People often gets confused by the term "Water Boxing" because they normally take a few (inappropriate) lines from the Dao De Jing where it says that water can be soft and yielding at times but can come down on you like a ton of bricks. That certainly is present in LHBF and is a mentality that is best suited to slow speeds. But we hold the fluidity of water to be just as important, so anything that doesn't allow us to move smoothly is wrong.
My video is 7 minutes, which is faster than my father's time which averages about 12. 9 if he's doing it fast. You might have heard of the designations "Si Hing" and such and that "Si Hing" is the martial arts equivalent of older brother. My "Si Bak", which would be the equivalent of "uncle" does it even more quickly, but he does the fast version I told you about before.
If you meant the second possible question:
Let's just say it took my father 16 years of learning, re-learning, re-learning the same form over and over for him to feel capable of teaching. I only learnt for 2 or 3 years (over the whole course of my life so far that is) which is why I'm only an assistant instructor.
As to Tai Chi lacking energy in Hong Kong, What styles and what were they learning? I cannot comment unless I know more and I can only comment on Yang, Chen and to a much lesser extent Wu.
In Hong Kong, the dominant style should be Yang, I think.
My comment was specifically about the footwork energy as the reason why many take up Xingyi at the same time or Bagua at the same time. Either way you look at it, I have not seen any Taiji video that displays mobility as much as Bagua or Xingyi.
This is a bad example, but it's easier to understand: push hands. Push hands is good for sensitivity training and yielding and all that. But in all push hands video I have seen, the other person loses because their footwork and/or leg structure is appalling. In many cases, I could see multiple opportunities for someone to close the gap with a Xingyi step and in doing so lock the arms of the other person. As I've said, it's a bad example because it doesn't seem push hands is supposed to be teaching about footwork and leg structure.
Again, I stress that people have different philosophies in regards to their own bodies and martial arts, so they feel Taiji as lacking in leg structure and footwork because it doesn't click with their philosophies. Pure Taiji works for some while it is incredibly lacking for others. From the LHBF perspective, most Taiji styles have poor footwork. Just like how from the Taiji perspective LHBF must look like it doesn't root.
I am trying to keep this post as a way of understanding another style and not disrespecting LHBF or Tai Chi is anyway. I do understand we all can get very sensitive about our chosen art but I am trying to keep this civil in order to understand better.
If at any time you feel I'm getting too disrespectful, tell me, as I can't see everything in what I say.
I have another question; Why do you feel that Liu He Ba Fa is so rare today?
LHBF is not as rare as it seems. Only good LHBF is rare.
Either way there are a lot of people who really only teach "Taijibafa". If you show them even my video, they would surely say the same thing about me. And there's really no reason for you to believe EITHER of us.
There is no single reason I have heard that really is more convincing than any others.
There is a theory that Wu Yi Hui was the one who invented LHBF and attributed it to Chen Tuan and Li Dong Feng to gain recognition. If he was the first that means we still have less than a century of existence.
Another theory is the closed door theory that LHBF was sparingly taught and only to those who were willing to pay. That is supposedly why Wu Yi Hui and his lineage before him only taught LHBF in the Qing court until it fell to the revolution.
Yet another theory (one that is more related to Chan Yik Yan's reputation in Hong Kong) is that only those who were adept (often to the level of "master") at other styles before would seek out LHBF to learn. In that sense, my father was lucky to be even redirected by Chan Yik Yan to one of his students.
Yet another theory is that a lot of LHBF teachers dishonestly immortalises their art deliberately making student's learning harder than it really needs to be. Unfortunately, I have to say Chan Yik Yan is partially guilty of this because he would not show any posture more than three times. He even complained to my father's teacher about him teaching everything he knows to his students instead of doing the "three times maximum" thing. This makes it rare because most students don't want to put up with such strictness and I don't blame them.
Again, though, I must say that LHBF is much more common than people think. For example, I was quite surprised to hear that you had a teacher near you. My father was quite suprised to find out there is one in our state that we have never heard of. I was also suprised that there was one in Sydney. I've seen all the LHBF promotional websites on the internet, since there aren't a lot. And all of them makes a very cliched promotion that "LHBF used to be so secretive and rare" which unfairly boosts the feeling of its rarity rather. They also make the illogical proposition that LHBF is rare and secretive there it must be good. What would people like us who have a better understanding of the martial arts scene when they read this? I would automatically think that they are probably con artists. I would not be surprised to hear that LHBF teachers have lost students because they promote the art beyond what it actually is. If you went to an LHBF school and find that all they really teach is Taiji principles using a different form and yet the teaching staff claims the art to be super-duper, would you waste your time on them anymore?
Personally, I don't feel it's rare. But that's because I don't want LHBF to be diluted with "forced" popularity. Unfortunately that has already happened.
