Taiwan Chen style

I wasn’t planning a post on this, but it came up on this thread at Empty Flower (EF) and it’s been buggin’ me for quite a while. Here’s the info I have gathered regarding the six men that brought Chen style taiji to Taiwan. I was a bit surprised at what I found. Take a look:

L to R: Guo Qing-shan, Pan Yong-zhou (Pan Wing Chow), Du Yu-ze, Wang Jin-rang, Wang Meng-bi.

L to R: Wang Meng-bi, Guo Qing-shan, Du Yu-ze, Wang He-lin, Pan Yong-zhou (Pan Wing Chou)

As you can see, each picture only has five of the six. Wang He-lin isn’t in the first one and Wang Jin-rang isn’t in the second one.

The six people that brought Chen style to Taiwan are:

Du Yu-ze — lao jia and hu lei jia (17th generation same as Chen Fa-ke, highest level person to bring Chen to Taiwan)
Guo Qing-shan — xiao jia
Wang Jin-rang — zhaobao hu lei jia (he taught Xiong Wei)
Wang Meng-bi — lao jia (Chen Fa-ke’s student, teacher to Tony Yang of the Wu Tang group)
Wang He-lin — lao jia (also Chen Fa-ke’s student)
Pan Yong-zhou (Pan Wing Chou) — lao jia and zhao bao hu lei jia (teacher to James McNeil and others)

I almost can’t believe this. Three out of the six people that brought Chen style to Taiwan did the zhaobao/hu lei jia. What kind of coincidence is that? That’s just unreal. Was zhaobao and huleijia that popular in old China?

Here are some sources:
http://163.17.222.10:81/taiji/htm/2-3.htm (good lineage tree — doesn’t quite match page below)

http://www.chen-taichi.org/Intro/movenames.htm (Pan’s curriculum)

http://www.taichi.org.tw/Circulation/at_taiwan.htm
(a list of the six, what they studied and who they studied from, may contain errors — doesn’t quite match lineage tree)

Various thoughts:

As far as the names go, BE VERY CAREFUL! It gets real confusing. What we know as xiao jia is called xin jia and what we know as zhao bao and/or huleijia is being called xiao jia.

Regarding the linear nature of the forms, the Du lineage seems to practice them (at least the laojia) in a very linear way. All my pictures of Du have him in reaaallly extended, open, linear postures. Too much for my taste and I practice this lineage, too. My particular branch seems to have picked up more circular/spherical dan-tien movement from somewhere. Not sure from where yet.

Those of you through the Wu Tan lineage may have an added baji influence to the Chen. I’ve been told 5-6 times that Chen style is exactly the same as baji by Wu Tan people. That would accentuate the linear tendencies already there.

One of my magazines lists Du as doing FIVE forms: yi lu and er lu from lao jia, and yi lu (also confusing called lao jia) and er lu from zhaobao/huleijia, plus a “chang quan” form from zhaobao/huleijia. I have no idea yet what the chang quan is. (edit: actually, this became clearer upon reflection. The yi lu and er lu are xiao jia, and the “chang quan” is likely misnamed– it should be the huleijia. My teacher has said that all of our material comes from Du and he does all three: lao jia, xiao jia, and hu lei jia.)

On a side note, McNeil’s version of Pan’s material looks more linear than other students of Pan. I’m not sure why. Maybe crosstraining by him or them? Who knows.

Finally, either xiaojia or huleiji is usually taught in between the yi lu (sometimes called lao jia) and er lu (pao chui) here in Taiwan. The idea is that xiaojia and zhaobao/huleijia help the transition bewteen the yi lu and er lu because they are basically the yi lu done all over again, but with more faijing. So they act as a bridge between yi lu and er lu.

Most of the groups I know of (Du’s, Pan’s, etc.) do that. Wang Meng-bi and Wang He-lin’s groups may be an exception since they “only” (haha) studied lao jia.

Also, Xiong Wei (post 1, post 2, post 3) learned his version of the zhaobao/huleijia material from Wang Jin-rang, not Du. So that would naturally explain why it doesn’t look exactly like Adam Hsu’s version.

Finally, I had no idea that the zhaobao/huleijia was this important to understanding Taiwan Chen style. I had assumed that the students of the six men crosstrained with each other and that explained the popularity of the zhaobao/huleijia frame. Instead, Du Yu-ze, Wang Jin-rang, and Pan Yong-zhou all studied that material separately, from completely different teachers. They then brought their version of the style here to Taiwan. Amazing.

But some crosstraining does seem to have taken place. I have heard (shockingly) that the the six got along fairly well. That almost never happens. The only teacher who I have been able to confirm as having taught the real xiao jia (not the zhaobao/huleijia that gets called xiaojia here in Taiwan) seems to have had his material preserved by the students of the other teachers, especially Du. I’m now fairly certain that my teacher’s xiaojia must have come from Guo. (edit: wrong on my part — our xiao jia did probably come from Du. See the point about Du’s five forms above.)