Liu He Ba Fa

ggg214

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I was always under the impression that this is why it was considered an amalgam of the three arts and yet slightly superior to those individually. It seems to be an attempt to make up for the deficiencies that each of those three arts have individually while saying something possibly unique in it's own way.

In any event, thanks for the info on this. LHBF is fascinating.

these words of you may bring more conflict from three arts practitioners. i do understand that you believe LHBF is the best of the best, as i have the same experience when playing taiji. but later i found out that there is no perfect thing in the world, even your loved LHBF and my Taiji. if so, you don't need to higher your LHBF by lower down other arts.

i have heard of LHBF in my living place, but until now i don't have a chance to meet with them. so i am so glad to find this topic in this forum, and talking with you. as you said your six harmonies is different from taiji or xingyi, with my short experience in taiji, i know taiji has specific requirement to achieve its own six harmonies, as chen style's 八面支撑 (Xue: plz help me to translate these words!). how dose your style do in training, if you are allowed to give us some hints?

and do you have some experience in application with other arts, as push-hands(i have been told by my master that LHBF also play push-hands) etc?
 

Formosa Neijia

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these words of you may bring more conflict from three arts practitioners. i do understand that you believe LHBF is the best of the best, as i have the same experience when playing taiji. but later i found out that there is no perfect thing in the world, even your loved LHBF and my Taiji. if so, you don't need to higher your LHBF by lower down other arts.

First off, I don't even study LHBF. It's next on my list. I've just talked with the local teachers about it. But I have done xingyi, bagua, and taiji for a while and I know that each of the arts have weaknesses. It's just the nature of the game. Nothings perfect. It seems that perhaps LHBF is an art that tries to rectify those deficiencies. That doesn't mean that LHBF is perfect or that it's necessarily a superior art, just that perhaps its goals are only attainable to people that have already studied the other three arts already. That's why I'm interested in it.

So it's unnecessary to see my statements as "putting down" other arts. And perhaps "superior" is a poor choice of words.

with my short experience in taiji, i know taiji has specific requirement to achieve its own six harmonies, as chen style's 八面支撑 (Xue: plz help me to translate these words!). how dose your style do in training, if you are allowed to give us some hints?

and do you have some experience in application with other arts, as push-hands(i have been told by my master that LHBF also play push-hands) etc?

The Chinese you quoted is ba mian zhi cheng -- prop up the eight sides. Whether or not that requirement in Chen is an equivalent to one of the six harmonies being discussed will depend on how the group that uses it interprets it into physical motion and energetically.

Yes, I have done PH for years and with many different arts.
 

oxy

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The six harmonies I posted are related to Xingyiquan and do not necessarily have anything to do with Liu He Ba Fa.

Not knowing Liu He Ba Fa I wold not know if there was anything similar to the XIngyiquan 6 harmonies.

But for the record I do know that Liu He Ba Fa (6 harmonies 8 methods) is not saying the samething as Xingyiquan 6 Harmonies

My reply was to JadeDragon3.
 

oxy

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When I did xingyi a lot I also had a very forward feeling of intent and I felt at the time could roll over most anything that stood in my way. But my taiji teacher showed me that always having the yi (intent) pull you forward makes you pretty vulnerable to arts like taiji that value yielding. By yielding the xingyi intent could be swallowed whole and used against him if the xingyi guy isn't careful.

That feeling I get is not pulling me forward, just pulling me into motion. You may have heard the phrase, the mind moves, the body follows. That's basically LHBF intent but we are a bit more anal on that point. For example, the mistake we really go after is people looking at their hands, or their arms, or their feet, or the ground in front of them when they're doing the form. Because your mind is no longer leading, but following your body.

Let's say you want to pull someone down. What you try to visualise in your mind is first an expansion outwards, then a quick implosion. In my LHBF practice, the body's own trained muscle memory follows by itself. I can't do it regularly, but that's the kind of effect you want. When you look forward and not at your body parts, your external connections are learned by your muscles and you get a mental image of your body shape and you are well on your way of developing intent.

It seems to me (correct me if I'm wrong) that LHBF may blend the forward energy and intent of xingyi with the knowledge (possibly from taiji?) that only using such intent can be used against you. Therefore LHBF opens up a wider range of options.

I mentioned vertical circles earlier. In LHBF, the you draw the vertical circle by first going up, then forward, the down, then back to yourself. The size of this circle varies. And sometimes you start from the bottom of that circle. Sometimes you step (Xingyi style) when you do the push up and forward and sometimes when you do the pull down and towards yourself.

Whichever way you do it, you must do the complete circle. So the forward energy and intent is only half of the circle. And I know that this may have arose from the my use of the word "pull".

I was always under the impression that this is why it was considered an amalgam of the three arts and yet slightly superior to those individually. It seems to be an attempt to make up for the deficiencies that each of those three arts have individually while saying something possibly unique in it's own way.

I tend to think that it's considered an amalgam from how it looks.
My teacher, when he lived in Hong Kong, would practice in Victoria Park everyday. And he's been approached by people saying that it looks like Taiji, but then it also looks like Xingyi, but then etc etc.

From my discussions with Xue Sheng, it seems you can understand quite a lot about LHBF even if you only know a bit of Bagua and a good deal of Xingyi, so I don't think LHBF has a lot of uniqueness.

The thing with LHBF, and all learning, is that you should be thinking about it even if you're not in class time. And you should be getting a feel of things besides your main art. Right now, I'm learning Taiji at the place I work and adding to my understanding of LHBF. And I learn to understand the Taiji form from a LHBF perspective. If you take responsibility for your learning and your intiative to learn on your own, then any art can appear to have uniqueness because they're thinking further ahead of others.
 

ggg214

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First off, I don't even study LHBF. It's next on my list. I've just talked with the local teachers about it. But I have done xingyi, bagua, and taiji for a while and I know that each of the arts have weaknesses. It's just the nature of the game. Nothings perfect. It seems that perhaps LHBF is an art that tries to rectify those deficiencies. That doesn't mean that LHBF is perfect or that it's necessarily a superior art, just that perhaps its goals are only attainable to people that have already studied the other three arts already. That's why I'm interested in it.

So it's unnecessary to see my statements as "putting down" other arts. And perhaps "superior" is a poor choice of words.
all right if you don't mean to put down other arts and thank you for translating the words.

in your post, i find out something interesting: after training with taiji, bagua etc., you know their weakness. in fact, i think nowaday taiji has kinda of weakness, such as too soft to use in a fight and so on. would you like to share your point about the weakness especially in taiji?
 
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Xue Sheng

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I would have to strongly disagree with that.

In Western terms, much of what either versions of the liuhe discuss could only be understood through what is known as spirituality. The concepts of wuji, taiji, sancai, sixiang, wuxing, liuhe, etc. are a type of Chinese science to be sure, but it's holistic nature makes it very different from Western science. From that perspective, it would most assuredly require a spiritual bent.

We often forget that traditional Chinese thinking is very, very different from contemporary Western thinking.

As to the link to Ms. Zorya, I would simply suggest a better source.

Oxy has pointed out many times now that there are two versions of the liuhe being discussed in the thread. Liuhebafa simply has it's own way of describing those concepts -- a way IMO that goes a bit beyond the more commonly thought of liuhe that lie at the basis of some more familiar arts like xingyiquan.

I don't quite follow why the strong disagreement to this?

I all fairness it could depend on how someone defines spirituality which gets into an area I do not wish to go since it can vary greatly from person to person and becomes a very personal thing.

However with that said I do not consider the 6 harmonies as being spiritual, but that is my take on them. Others may see the balance they talk about as spiritual, I simply do not. I Also think you would be hard pressed to find a traditional Chinese Martial Arts Sifu from China, Taiwan, Singapore, etc. that would talk about the spirituality of the 6 harmonies. But I have not talked with them all so it is possible that some do, just not in my experience.

the SIX HARMONIES

I was trying so VERY hard to be diplomatic too :D

I tend to approach all CMA from a Chinese way of thinking that is what all my sifus have been or it has only been a 1 generation separation. I do not see the 6 harmonies as spiritual that is all.

Although I am a westerner I tend not to approach this from a western POV. Could also by half my family is not Westerner by marriage and my wife is a TCM OMD from China so my views tend to be influenced by her as well.

Also could be I have read WAAAAAAY to much Chinese stuff to be considered healthy too :uhyeah:

as I said (and to note I hate quoting myself)

I all fairness it could depend on how someone defines spirituality which gets into an area I do not wish to go since it can vary greatly from person to person and becomes a very personal thing....

...Others may see the balance they talk about as spiritual, I simply do not. ...

If you are approaching this form a western perspective I have no doubt it is seen as spiritual (this tends to irk me and I could go more into why but then that is stuff of another rather flamatory post and I have grown a bit since my first post at MT and I now try diplomacy more today than frontal assault, well... that and moderator warnings :D). I am not approaching this from the western POV and to be honest I do not believe Oxy is either but I would not speak for Oxy.

Also my followup post that appears to have been done right about the same time as yours that clarified that I was talking Xingyiquan Liu He not Liu He Ba Fa. I can't talk Liu He Ba Fa, I do not train it and no little about it beyond what I read here on MT

I made the initial error when I saw liu he and assigning it to Xingyiquan because that is my experience with it. I was not thinking Liu He Ba Fa at the moment even though I had originally started this post to find out about Liu He Ba Fa, that was my bad, sorry :asian:

And I still do not see Xingyiquan Liu He as a spiritual practice. I have said this many times before Eastern and Western thought is very different on such things. Westerners tend to compartmentalize and Eastern tend to look at things as all one part of a whole it all tends to be intrinsic. And I still believe you would be hard pressed to find a traditional Chinese Martial Arts Sifu from China that would talk about the spirituality of Liu He.
 

Formosa Neijia

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I was trying so VERY hard to be diplomatic too :D

I do not see the 6 harmonies as spiritual that is all.

Sorry. Didn't mean to seem undiplomatic.

My response would be that things like xin and qi aren't going to be felt outside of contexts that would normally be considered spiritual by us Westerners. That's because we have no other context for it. We often forget that there's no separation between matter and mind in Chinese thought -- something that is taken for granted in Western culture.
 
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Sorry. Didn't mean to seem undiplomatic.

My response would be that things like xin and qi aren't going to be felt outside of contexts that would normally be considered spiritual by us Westerners. That's because we have no other context for it. We often forget that there's no separation between matter and mind in Chinese thought -- something that is taken for granted in Western culture.

Agreed
 

Rabu

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Look for similiarities,
but understand the differences.
- Rob

People in the same style, practiced under different teachers may have very different experiences with their respective art.

Even so far as to have different understandings of what would otherwise be 'cornerstone' practices.

Given that there appears to be differences of opinion about apparently baseline curriculum, then understanding the differences while allowing for similiarities would be wisest.

It seems that, even though uncomfortable as some of the conversation has been, this is occurring.

Liu He is a common understanding among CMA practitioners. How it is expressed and how it is taught may differ greatly.

I would agree that attempting to use online resources can muddy the waters more than not.

Either way, I liked the mans movement, regardless of whether its truly 'liu he ba fa' or not.

I have had the chance to work with and see Wei lun Choi previously and see similiarities. Sadly, I have not studied the art enough nor practiced similiar arts enough to note and understand the differences you try to point out.

Best of luck in all things,

Rob
 

DrakeS

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There are no similarities between what Weilun Huang performs, and what Wai Lun Choi taught until he retired. Aside from them being Chinese. ;) Not in mechanics, nor intent. One is a fighter. One a performer. <<shrug>>

D.
 

Formosa Neijia

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There are no similarities between what Weilun Huang performs, and what Wai Lun Choi taught until he retired. Aside from them being Chinese. ;) Not in mechanics, nor intent. One is a fighter. One a performer. <<shrug>>

D.

Well I don't think I would go that far. Huang has a pretty good rep for being able to use his Yang style:

I don't care so much for his LHBF but that doesn't mean everything he knows is worthless or anything.
 
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DrakeS

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Well I don't think I would go that far. Huang has a pretty good rep for being able to use his Yang style:

I don't care so much for his LHBF but that doesn't mean everything he knows is worthless or anything.

Quite frankly a push hands demonstration is not fighting on any level, and does not prove your point. However, I will agree that the ability to fight does not exclude Mr. Huang's ability to transmit information. I've been told that he's a fine teacher.

D.
 
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Formosa Neijia

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Quite frankly a push hands demonstration is not fighting on any level, and does not prove your point. However, I will agree that the ability to fight does not exclude Mr. Huang's ability to transmit information. I've been told that he's a fine teacher.

D.

And fighting wouldn't necessarily show that he has any internal skill. So shall we dance? We can go round and round on this issue forever. I'm making NO comment about Choi, I have lots of respect for him. But actually you can tell a lot by how someone does push hands. And in the IMA community PH is THE acceptable way to test people's skill.

So I'll disagree with you that the clip shows nothing of Huang's fighting ability.
 

DrakeS

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And fighting wouldn't necessarily show that he has any internal skill. So shall we dance? We can go round and round on this issue forever. I'm making NO comment about Choi, I have lots of respect for him. But actually you can tell a lot by how someone does push hands. And in the IMA community PH is THE acceptable way to test people's skill.

So I'll disagree with you that the clip shows nothing of Huang's fighting ability.

Fair enough. We agree to disagree. ;) Part of life, no?

D.
 

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