Origins

<body topmargin=0 leftmargin=0 marginheight=0 marginwidth=0> <table cellpadding=0 cellspacing=0 border=0 height="100%"><tr> <td valign="top" width=160 BGCOLOR="#333333" TEXT="#F7F7FF" background="0d3dedc2ddualp.gif"> <div> <B><IMG SRC="150691e0.gif" border=0 width="105" height="30" ALT="Baguazhang Characters" ALIGN="BOTTOM" HSPACE="0" VSPACE="0"></B></div> <div> <A HREF="id21.htm" TARGET="_top" TITLE="Introduction"><U>Introduction</U></A></div> <div> <B>Origins</B></div> <div> <A HREF="id23.htm" TARGET="_top" TITLE="Development"><U>Development</U></A></div> <div> <A HREF="id24.htm" TARGET="_top" TITLE="Founders Bio"><U>Founder's Bio</U></A></div> <div> <A HREF="id39.htm" TARGET="_top" TITLE="Family Tree"><U>Family Tree</U></A></div> <div> <A HREF="id15.htm" TARGET="_top" TITLE="Masters"><U>Masters</U></A></div> <div> <A HREF="id30.htm" TARGET="_top" TITLE="Systems"><U>Systems</U></A></div> <div> <A HREF="id31.htm" TARGET="_top" TITLE="Sets"><U>Sets</U></A></div> <div> <A HREF="id32.htm" TARGET="_top" TITLE="Weapons"><U>Weapons</U></A></div> <div> <A HREF="id48.htm" TARGET="_top" TITLE="Featured Articles"><U>Featured Articles</U></A></div> <div> <A HREF="id4.htm" TARGET="_top" TITLE="Discussion Room"><U>Discussion Room</U></A></div> <div> <A HREF="id57.htm" TARGET="_top" TITLE="Tea Room"><U>Tea Room</U></A></div> <div> <A HREF="id40.htm" TARGET="_top" TITLE="Members Rooms"><U>Members' Rooms</U></A></div> <div> <A HREF="id29.htm" TARGET="_top" TITLE="Baguazhang Teachers"><U>Baguazhang Teachers</U></A></div> <div> <A HREF="id78.htm" TARGET="_top" TITLE="Photos"><U>Photos</U></A></div> <div> <A HREF="id28.htm" TARGET="_top" TITLE="Baguazhang Links"><U>Baguazhang Links</U></A></div> <div> <A HREF="id63.htm" TARGET="_top" TITLE="FreeForAllLinks"><U>Free-For-All-Links</U></A></div> <div> <A HREF="id5.htm" TARGET="_top" TITLE="Free Email Service"><U>Free Email Service</U></A></div> <div> <A HREF="id3.htm" TARGET="_top" TITLE="About Us"><U>About Us</U></A></div> <div> <A HREF="id64.htm" TARGET="_top" TITLE="Search Engines"><U>Search Engines</U></A></div> <div> <A HREF="id65.htm" TARGET="_top" TITLE="Contact Us"><U>Contact Us</U></A></div> <div> <A HREF="id67.htm" TARGET="_top" TITLE="Email Mailing List"><U>Email Mailing List</U></A></div> <div> <A HREF="id54.htm" TARGET="_top" TITLE="Search Engine"><U>Search Engine</U></A></div> </td> <td valign="top" BGCOLOR="#FFFFFF" TEXT="#080000" background="0d464643.gif"> <div> <B>BAGUAZHANG CITY</B><FONT SIZE="2" COLOR="#000000" FACE="Times New Roman" >     |     </FONT><FONT SIZE="2" COLOR="#0000BF" FACE="Times New Roman" ><A HREF="index.htm" TARGET="_top" TITLE="BAGUAZHANG CITY"><U>home</U></A></FONT></div> <bR> <div> Origins</div> <div> The true origins of Baguazhang are lost in the mists of China's. We can break up Baguazhang's Origns into two streams, the first is its philosophical roots. The second, is its physical gensis. In other words, when it was created in form that we are familiar with today.</div> <div> We have not many ancient documents about chinese martial arts. We can find documents about military preparing, about power men, about fights, but it is hard to find documents about styles. It occurs by several reasons. First, there were many styles, and common people usually said simply "martial art". Second, there wasn't such a profession - "master of wushu". We know that some man knew martial art if he taught many students or if he worked, for example, as caravan guard. Third, most chinese were illiterate, and it was hard to has written history. So usually we know the history of the style by oral transmission. Very often such a history has legendary and fictional elements. Baguazhang has a similar situation. </div> <div> <B>Feng Keshan Legend</B></div> <bR> <div> In many books we can read that Feng Keshan knew baguazhang. Feng Keshan was a leader of peasants rebellion of the Teaching of Heaven Order, which took place at 1813 in Yi, Lu and Yu districts of Hebei province. This proposition is based on the text from the book "Lan Yi Wai Chuan", published in 1818: </div> <div> <I>Feng Keshan from Huaxian county of Henan province from the childhood was a strong man. Tang Henglao from Zhuzhaocun village taught him martial art. Feng Keshan was skilled in cavalier archery and spear-fencing. At </I><I><B>ding-si</B></I><I> year of the ruling under the motto "Jiaqing" Wang Xian from Jining of Shandong province taught Feng Keshan hand-to-hand combat methods. Feng Keshan studied well, could defeat several dozens men. At the second month of the spring of </I><I><B>geng-wu</B></I><I> year the husband of the sister of his wife - Niu Liangchen from Huaxian county - saw that fist methods of Feng Keshan have "step of eight places". Liangchen said: "Your step like is coordinated with eight trigramms". "How did you find it?" - asked Keshan. "I study `kan' trigramm", - said Liangchen. "I - `li' trigramm", - said Keshan. "You - li, I - kan, we are two, our trigramms are in opposite palaces, each trains what he trains", - summed up Lianchen.</I></div> <div> (translation - S.L.Bereznyuk)<FONT SIZE="2" COLOR="#000000" FACE="Arial" > </FONT></div> <bR> <div> "Step of eight places", "li trigramm" and "kan trigramm" was enough for most authors to say that Feng Keshan knew baguazhang or something similar. But at 1980s Han Jiangzhong - master of <B>meihuazhuang</B> style - decided to research this question, because "step of eight places" is one of the basic stepping methods in meihuazhuang. He worked in archives, and found documents of investigation, including records of interrogations of captured rebellers. Tang Henglao (Feng Keshan's teacher!), in particularly, said: <I>"I am 61 years old, was born in Zhuzhaocun village of Huaxian county, my wife from Du family, elder son - Tang Huiyuan, seconf son - Tang Kuiyuan. I sold drugs for living, studied meihuaquan. At the first month of the fifth year of ruling under "Jiaqing" motto Feng Keshan asked me to teach him martial art..."</I> So, Feng Keshan studied <B>meihuaquan</B> (i.e. <B>meihuazhuangquan</B>) from Tang Henglao, not baguazhang. ANother rebeller - Li Yide - said during interrogation: <I>"... during second day Song Yuelong and Feng Keshan came to me, we again tald about methods, about high level, middle level, low level..."</I> Certanly, baguazhang has three levels of training, but all methods of meihuazhuang are divided on high-level methods, middle-level methods and low-level methods. Records of interrogations of other rebellers show, that "eight trigramms", "li trigramm" and "kan trigramm" are connected with theretical and religious base of rebellion, not with the combat methods. So, it can be considered as proven, that Feng Keshan has no connection with the history of baguazhang. </div> <DIV ALIGN="LEFT"></DIV> <div> Yin-yang baguazhang of Tian Hui</div> <div> V.V.Malyavin's book "baguazhang, or the palm of eight trigramms" says: </div> <div> <I>At the beginning of 1980s some Tian Hui from Beijing said, that he is inheritor of "real" baguazhang, which existed in Shanxi province since XVI century. But it turned out, that his claims weer fake, and his baguazhang - usual baguazhang in his own interpretation.</I> </div> <div> <B>Mysterious Daoist</B></div> <bR> <div> According to the most popular version, Dong Haichuan studied baguazhang in Jiuhuashan mountains in Anhui province from some taoist. In the book of Yang Junming, Liang Shouyu and Wu Wenqing "Baguazhang" it is said that the name of this taoist was Dong Menglin, nicknames - Bi Deng Xia and Bi Cheng Xia. He taught baguazhang to three students - Dong Haichuan, Li Zhenqing and Bi Yuxia. </div> <div> ANfortunately, this book says nothing about the sources of this information. According to geneaolgical trees, published in this book, non-Dong's lines of transferring the tradition are: </div> <div> 01 Li Zhenqing</div> <div>       02 Ren Zhizheng</div> <div>       02 Xiao Haibo</div> <div>       02 Xu Jingtian</div> <div>       02 Liu Baozhen</div> <div>          03 Hei Liu</div> <div>          03 Liu Laoqig</div> <div>          03 Guo Yunshen</div> <div>             04 Wang Shutian</div> <div>             04 Guo Zhenya</div> <div>             04 Zhang Xiangyu</div> <bR> <div>  01 Ma Yongcheng (Bi Yuesia)</div> <div>        02 Song Weyi</div> <div>            03 Guo Qifeng</div> <div>               04 Li Jinlin</div> <div>                     05 Guo Shufan</div> <div>            03 Zhang Xian</div> <div>               04 Li Yingang</div> <div> But in this case why, for example, Guo Yunshen fought against Dong Haichuan, if he already knew what is baguazhang? Guo Zhenya in his book "Bagua dao" wrote, that student of Liu Baozhen and his teacher was Guo Mengshen (his father), not Guo Yunshen. Also he wrote, that Liu Baozhen was Dong Haichuan's student... </div> <div> <B>Dong Haichuan</B></div> <div> <TABLE BORDER="0" CELLPADDING="1" CELLSPACING="1" WIDTH="31" BORDERCOLORLIGHT="#C0C0C0" BORDERCOLORDARK="#808080" FRAME="VOID" RULES="NONE" ALIGN="BOTTOM" HSPACE="0" VSPACE="0" > <tR> <tD VALIGN=CENTER HEIGHT= 16 WIDTH="7"><IMG BORDER="0" SRC="1x1.gif" HEIGHT="16" ALIGN="bottom" WIDTH="7" HSPACE="0" VSPACE="0"></tD> <tD VALIGN=CENTER WIDTH="7"><IMG BORDER="0" SRC="1x1.gif" HEIGHT="16" ALIGN="bottom" WIDTH="7" HSPACE="0" VSPACE="0"></tD> <tD VALIGN=CENTER WIDTH="7"><IMG BORDER="0" SRC="1x1.gif" HEIGHT="16" ALIGN="bottom" WIDTH="7" HSPACE="0" VSPACE="0"></tD> </tR> </TABLE></div> <div> Written history of baguazhang begin from Dong Haichuan, so usually he is called as the founder of baguazhang. There exist different opinions about the year of hes birth - 1779, 1797 and 1813, but all agree that he died at 1882. Most sources write that he was born at Zhujiawu village of Wenan county of Zhili (now - Hebei) province, but several sources claim that he was born at Hongdong county of Shanx province. Since childhood he loved martial arts, travelled through all the country for fiding hidden masters, and on Jiuhuashan mountain in Anhui province he met taoist, which taught him an art of "rotating the palmes during circle walking". At 1862 Dong Haichuan arrived to Beijing. Finally, he became a servant of Great Prince Su. According to legend, occasionally prince found that his servant is a master of martial arts, and Dong had to begin to teach his art. It was a beginning of spreading baguazhang. </div> <bR> </td> </tr></table></body>