True Lineage of Chang Chuan ( Longfist)

bowser666

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Does anyone have or know where to look up the Lineage of Shaolin Chang Chuan? The full lineage from the Shaolin Temple up to Modern day. I am a practitioner of the style and would love to know where I fall, and also My Sifu fall in the lineage. Just a curiosity thing for me.

P.S. I don't necesarily mean ancestral lineage but rather who taught who and so on down the line :) Thanks for the help in advance.
 

Xue Sheng

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That is a tuff question that you are best starting with your sifu and asking about your lineage.

My Xingyiquan sifu's lineage is legitimate but there is a gap between one of his teachers and another. My Yang Taiji sifu knows his lineage all the way back to the Chen family. My sanda sifu knows his teacher but I am not sure if he knows who all his teacher's teachers were. My Wing Chun sifu knows his lineage to at least Yip Mann but then he is a student of one of Yip Mann's sons.

Lineage in CMA ranges from easy to hard, clear to cloudy, true too false. And my very first CMA sifu has all of those and it is a matter of trying to figure them out.

And asking who taught who could give you thousands of names. My Taiji comes from Yang Chengfu to Tung Ying Chieh (Tung Ying Chieh also has a Hao lineage as well) and both had a lot of students so asking for who taught who gives me a lot of people that have nothing to do with me. But I too am interested in know who all those people were/are.

The best I can do is an over view of Changquan and a bit of its history.

Sorry I could not be of more assistance I wish you luck in finding what you are looking for.
 

LanJie

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If you do not mind my asking who is your sifu? and where is your school?
Is your style long fist i.e. the style that Dr. Yang Jwing-Ming in Boston, MA teaches or a Northern Style of Kung Fu.
Regards,
Steve
 

Formosa Neijia

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Does anyone have or know where to look up the Lineage of Shaolin Chang Chuan? The full lineage from the Shaolin Temple up to Modern day. I am a practitioner of the style and would love to know where I fall, and also My Sifu fall in the lineage. Just a curiosity thing for me.

P.S. I don't necesarily mean ancestral lineage but rather who taught who and so on down the line :) Thanks for the help in advance.

There's not "a" style of chang quan. It's a catch-all term for a collection of related arts like hong quan, cha quan, hua quan, another hua quan, and taizu quan. There are different strains of those substyles so there are many different lineages.

Hint: they didn't come from Shaolin, either. The name gets associated with them in loose ways that muddles the situation. For example, cha quan is a Muslim style.
 

Jin Gang

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Does anyone have or know where to look up the Lineage of Shaolin Chang Chuan? The full lineage from the Shaolin Temple up to Modern day. I am a practitioner of the style and would love to know where I fall, and also My Sifu fall in the lineage. Just a curiosity thing for me.

P.S. I don't necesarily mean ancestral lineage but rather who taught who and so on down the line :) Thanks for the help in advance.

What those other guys said. You'll have to be much more specific. There is no single lineage of shaolin longfist, that term describes dozens of styles. Most likely, your teacher will know the lineage of your school. Once you get all the names from him, you can cross reference those with lineages of other schools to see if there's any common threads. It's doubtful anyone besides your teacher or someone else from your school will know the lineage of your style.
 
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bowser666

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Ah well I do have a Lineage from my Sifu and it is on my schools website. I was just curious as to if there was a full Lineage transcript ( I would imagine it is massive) I also believe my Sifu has travelled to Boston many time to train with Dr. Yang Jwing-Ming. www.swyi.com and click on lineage. I suppose that is probably the best lineage that I am going to get though.
 

Xue Sheng

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Ah well I do have a Lineage from my Sifu and it is on my schools website. I was just curious as to if there was a full Lineage transcript ( I would imagine it is massive) I also believe my Sifu has travelled to Boston many time to train with Dr. Yang Jwing-Ming. www.swyi.com and click on lineage. I suppose that is probably the best lineage that I am going to get though.

It appears to me you have a pretty good lineage going on the page already here.

It appears most of your teacher's training comes from Taiwan but has links back to mainland and Hebei which was and is a big CMA province, as well as links to other areas and sifus throughout China and some a pretty damn impressive. Of course it is difficult at times to tell how much or how long anyone of these guys trained with the person they are claiming lineage too.

What is it you are looking for a direct link to the ShaolinTemple?
 
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bowser666

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Well yeah I guess back to teh Shaolin Temple. I know it is probably impossible to obtain easily. I would have to research lots and put in a lot of time. That was one of the things that impressed me a lot about my school, was in fact, the lineage. I look forward to studying where I am for many years to come and hope to be able to one day pass it on to others. I was just curious as to where my school fits in the whole lineage aside from what has been given from my Sifu. Sorry if I sound redundant but I greatly appreciate all of the help :)
 

Xue Sheng

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Well yeah I guess back to teh Shaolin Temple. I know it is probably impossible to obtain easily. I would have to research lots and put in a lot of time. That was one of the things that impressed me a lot about my school, was in fact, the lineage. I look forward to studying where I am for many years to come and hope to be able to one day pass it on to others. I was just curious as to where my school fits in the whole lineage aside from what has been given from my Sifu. Sorry if I sound redundant but I greatly appreciate all of the help :)

Lineage links to the Shaolin temple, IMO, are generally over rated and mostly fake. I have seen a few Changquan guys that were damn impressive and not form Shaolin I have seen some monks form shaolin that put on a good show... but it was just that... a show.

There are a lot of impressive people there in your lineage already and you have a lot to go on there that could lead you to more information if you do the research. Maybe you will find your link :asian:

But as Formosa Neijia has already said

Hint: they didn't come from Shaolin, either. The name gets associated with them in loose ways that muddles the situation. For example, cha quan is a Muslim style.

A true lineage Link to Sun Lutang is pretty impressive however he is not Shaolin or Long Fist. A link to the Central Kuoshu Institute in Nanking isn't so bad either.

EDIT:
Nanjing's Central Kuosho Institute Curriculum
 
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bowser666

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I did look into Sun Lu Tang as well as Chiang Jung Chiao and they are Baquan masters. ( Tai Chi I think) and some very interesting info on both of them. I will definitely be looking more into others in my lineage as well as it is very neat to learn where part of my instruction comes from.
 

Xue Sheng

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I did look into Sun Lu Tang as well as Chiang Jung Chiao and they are Baquan masters. ( Tai Chi I think) and some very interesting info on both of them. I will definitely be looking more into others in my lineage as well as it is very neat to learn where part of my instruction comes from.

Sun Lutang was Xingyiquan, Baguazhang and Hao style taijiquan and he is the founder of Sun style Taijiquan
 

Formosa Neijia

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Ah well I do have a Lineage from my Sifu and it is on my schools website. I was just curious as to if there was a full Lineage transcript ( I would imagine it is massive) I also believe my Sifu has travelled to Boston many time to train with Dr. Yang Jwing-Ming. www.swyi.com and click on lineage. I suppose that is probably the best lineage that I am going to get though.

I'm reluctant to say too much on this because IME people like things to sound mystical and arguing with that is pointless. But here goes.

One, you have a lineage any time you study with a teacher. But there is no "one" lineage for changchuan. As I already informed you, the term "changchuan" refers to several different martial arts under one umbrella term. So there is no "full lineage transcript" as you mention.

Second, the term shaolin gets thrown around a lot. That doesn't mean the art in question came directly from the temple. I've looked at your curriculum page and most of what's listed are common forms here in Taiwan. (I've lived and trained here for 8 years.) Nothing whatsoever wrong with that! They're good forms, likely better than what you'd get elsewhere. But they aren't official "shaolin" forms. They're possibly shaolin derived, but that's it.

Third, Chen Sui-cai was mainly known for hongquan, if I remember correctly. The more commonly seen name for that style is "hung gar" although the characteristics of the hong quan in Taiwan is slightly different from the more common Hong Kong version. I trained this style for a while and it's good stuff. Stick with it.

Fourth, the long fist that you possibly got through Fan Chi-sau was from the Nanjing Guoshu Academy, meaning that it's a mixed group of stuff they put together. Many elements of various long fist systems went into it, so there's no real lineage associated with it, per se. The lineages that have been derived from it tend to be grouped around the teachers that learned there and taught it -- like Han Qin-tan, a famous long fist teacher that came to Taiwan.

Anyway, enjoy the training.
 
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bowser666

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I'm reluctant to say too much on this because IME people like things to sound mystical and arguing with that is pointless. But here goes.

One, you have a lineage any time you study with a teacher. But there is no "one" lineage for changchuan. As I already informed you, the term "changchuan" refers to several different martial arts under one umbrella term. So there is no "full lineage transcript" as you mention.

Second, the term shaolin gets thrown around a lot. That doesn't mean the art in question came directly from the temple. I've looked at your curriculum page and most of what's listed are common forms here in Taiwan. (I've lived and trained here for 8 years.) Nothing whatsoever wrong with that! They're good forms, likely better than what you'd get elsewhere. But they aren't official "shaolin" forms. They're possibly shaolin derived, but that's it.

Third, Chen Sui-cai was mainly known for hongquan, if I remember correctly. The more commonly seen name for that style is "hung gar" although the characteristics of the hong quan in Taiwan is slightly different from the more common Hong Kong version. I trained this style for a while and it's good stuff. Stick with it.

Fourth, the long fist that you possibly got through Fan Chi-sau was from the Nanjing Guoshu Academy, meaning that it's a mixed group of stuff they put together. Many elements of various long fist systems went into it, so there's no real lineage associated with it, per se. The lineages that have been derived from it tend to be grouped around the teachers that learned there and taught it -- like Han Qin-tan, a famous long fist teacher that came to Taiwan.

Anyway, enjoy the training.

I certainly appreciate that information, i had come across alot of that info after my first few initial posts, and my thought was to look into pre-Taiwan lineage, but as you said , and i totally agree, the lineage is far too jumbled for me to discover short of making it a Thesis :p Thanks for all of the info. One other note I discovered was that Modern Longfist , was a mix of quite a few older styles of Kung Fu that were blended into one style ( Longfist) . I am finding the history pretty interesting as I make my way along my search.
 

Formosa Neijia

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I certainly appreciate that information, i had come across alot of that info after my first few initial posts, and my thought was to look into pre-Taiwan lineage, but as you said , and i totally agree, the lineage is far too jumbled for me to discover short of making it a Thesis :p Thanks for all of the info. One other note I discovered was that Modern Longfist , was a mix of quite a few older styles of Kung Fu that were blended into one style ( Longfist) . I am finding the history pretty interesting as I make my way along my search.

Yes, the history is good. and I'm glad that I could help. But doing the training is the main thing, not reading history books. Spend your time working out and being the best student you can be. That's the way to honor your teacher and the hardships he faced in training in Taiwan.

:)

Good luck to you.
 

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