Wujiquan

Discussion in 'Internal Martial Arts' started by marian85, May 24, 2011.

  1. marian85

    marian85 Valued Member

    Hi, I'm living in China studying chinese language and wujiquan. Wujiquan is a rare style even in China very few people know about it and even less practise it. I would like to introduce wujiquan a little:

    Wujiquan is an ancient taoist internal martial art. If we want to track its source we have to begin with the book “Yijing”, in which it is said:”Wuji-taiji-liangyi(two principles)-sixiang(four directions)-wuxing(five fazes)-bagua(eight trigrams)… From the view of martial arts it means: wuji-taiji-xingyi-bagua. According to the tradition this system was developed by the taoist ancestor Zhang Sanfeng, later on it was systematized by Dong Haichuan. Wuji is one of the five taoist arts that were thought only in the family. According to Mr. Wu Zhenshi, this art was past down in his family in one generation only to one male decendent, to his time it was six generations.
    Wujiquan basic level cocntents wuji jiashiquan (无极架势拳), danshi lianhuan zhang (单势连环掌), zuhe lianhuan zhang (组合连环掌). The intermediate level consist of two big branches, one is Bagua pai(八卦派), the other one is Hunyuan pai(混元派). No metter which you study bagua or hunyuan, you have to learn wuji moral principles (无极武德说), wuji neigong (无极内功), wuji medical practise (无极医道术) and wuji art of pressure points (无极点穴术). Advanced level contents miansizhang (绵丝掌), yunpanzhang (云盘掌), sixuanzhang (丝旋掌), huanyingzhang (幻影掌).
     
  2. inthespirit

    inthespirit ignant

    Thanks! Got a vid of some of the practice methods? Do you do any two man practices?
     
  3. marian85

    marian85 Valued Member

    Hi, videos coming soon. As to two men practises, from the first day of training we do tuishou(push hands), later on add some other excercises including aplications and free sparing.
     
  4. inthespirit

    inthespirit ignant

    Ok thanks! Look forward to the vids!

    Also, it sounds quite simmilar to Taiji. In your experience, is it similar? Does something specific set it apart?
     
  5. marian85

    marian85 Valued Member

    Hi, it sounds similar to taiji because taiji is included in wuji, so is xingyi and bagua, and many more. Taiji is born from wuji, that means wuji includes taiji,. I didn't realy study taijiquan, but in my experience there are some differences between wujiquan and taijiquan, lets pick up tuishou for example, in wuji tuishou the practitioners have to learn to use the natural strenght of their bodies first, that means you push with all you got, than slowly when you finaly can resist to be pushed away you can start to be a little softer. The natural strenght of body is limited so you need to practise neigong to increase the strenght, which is very important, because, only if you can resist oponents strenght you can redirect it and use it against the oponent.
     
  6. inthespirit

    inthespirit ignant

    Ok, thanks Marian!
     
  7. 47MartialMan

    47MartialMan Valued Member

    I don't know if the Tai Ji practitioners will acknowledge that Tai Ji is born from Wuji.

    Wuji sounds like a hodge podge that someone created from studying some other arts.

    This is not to belittle it, but I don't think that it has anything "new" to offer, which wasn't done before.

    This all said, it is comforting to know or study a family tradition
     
  8. marian85

    marian85 Valued Member

    Hi, the root of wujiquan is Yijing(易经). Yijing says Wuji borns taiji, taiji borns "two principles", "two principles" borns "four directions", ...(无极生太极,太极生两仪,两仪生四向...)。
    Wujiquan was past down in my grandmasters family for six generations, it was not "created from studying some other arts", many of the things tought in wujiquan are unique.
    From my own experience, the one thing I didn't find elsewhere,and I have been looking for a long time, is neigong(内功), everybody claims to have it, but almost nobody really has it. Common excuses to cover that the "master" doesn't have it himself are for example that you are not ready yet to study neigong,...(by the way also a common excuse for not teaching you push hands) And how do you know if someone really has neigong? For someone who is not a beginner in martial arts, I recomend to try free push hands or free sparing with him, as for the beginners I'm not sure there is a way to find out, I guess it takes some experiences, both bad and good.
     
  9. El Medico

    El Medico Valued Member


    Well,we know what traditional histories can be like.Chang,San-feng has been discredited since the 1930s or earlier as the founder of any martial systems.I doubt Tung had anything to do w/this system.(See below).

    Everything is created from what has gone before. Not to say that your system was created from HI,PK,& TC,but if there are identifiable things from those systems contained in it then that's where those particular things came from. "Ancient" is a commom claim in CMAs.The truth is all systems around today date from around the 1500s at the earliest,the majority are of later vintage than that.


    Tung,Hai-chuan was known to teach Lo Han and PK.If he "systematized" this system I must ask why he didn't teach it to his major disciples,such as Yin,Cheng,or the two Mas,among others? There's no mention in the history of his disciples of any of them being taught anything other than the aforementioned two systems that I've ever come across. Do you have any knowledge/sources otherwise?

    Who did your teacher's family get it from? Was an ancestor a disciple of Tung? If so,what was his name? Tung's disciples are a matter of record.




    Good for you if you found someone teaching nei-gung as opposed to ch'i-gung breathing exercises! It's not so much that people don't have it-(tho' most don't)- as the problem of so many of those who do don't teach it,except maybe to family members or top disciples. As I like to say,what were once basics are now secrets.

    Pushing/sparring won't prove anything unless you're good enough yourself to tell if an individual has it.There are many people w/very good ph skills w/no nei-gung training. And if an individual is that good he can tell just by looking if someone has it or not when the other guy pushes w/someone else or just does things solo.


    Sounds interesting at any rate,keep us posted.Welcome to MAP.
     
  10. marian85

    marian85 Valued Member

    Hi, thank you for the welcome. As for the traditions (Zhang Sanfeng) I think they are to be looked upon as traditions nothing more nothing less. Chinese culture is full of traditions and legends. Anyway no metter what system of cma, none could have been made by only one man, or during one life time. For me personaly it's not important if something was found by Zhang Sanfeng or Old Wang or whoever, the important thing is that it is working.


    When I said that wujiquan wasn't "created from studying some other arts" I ment it wasn't made by someone who has studied taiji and bagua, etc. and than mixed them together and named it wujiquan. Of course wujiquan couldn't be made from nothing, something must have been before.


    As to Dong Haichuan, according to my great master, Dong during one of his many journeys around China also came to todays Liaoning province and thougt someone wujiquan. Who that was, is not clear so is not clear how it came to his family. But it was kept in secret, in every generation only one male child was thougt the system, other people in family didn't even know about it. I also don't know why Dong didn't teach wjq some of his major desciples.
    Bagua zhang is one of two branches in wjq, the other one is hunyuan zhang, today most of the desciples of wjq focus only on one of them. There were many wjq manuscripts in my great masters family but they were destroyed during war, luckily he had to memorize all of them, and later was able to rewrite some, but is not enough to be used as an hard evidence.

    I totaly agree what you said about neigong.
    I also agree about ph and sparing, for someone with no experience is almost imposible to tell if someone has it, because there are realy people with good ph skills without neigong. In my experience if you practise neigong(not necessery for years, one year is enough) and do ph with someone you usualy can tell if he has it or not.
     
  11. marian85

    marian85 Valued Member

    Hi, I asked my master today about Dong Haichuan. He told me that Dong during his stay in Liaoning province past wjq down to one of my great masters ancestors called Wu Qixian (吴七仙). Before I was gathering the information from a copy of manuscript my great master wrote, some things are not stated there.
    As for Dong Haichuan and systematizing wjq, master told my that he only systematized Bagua branch, not the whole wjq. My mistake I understand it wrong before(the beauty of chinese languange).

    Thaks to El Medico for his questions, they helped me cleared some things.
     
  12. marian85

    marian85 Valued Member

    Promised videos:
    Master Yu performing wujiquan health excercise
    http://v.youku.com/v_show/id_XMjc1NjAyNzUy.html

    Master Yu performing wujiquan zuhe lianhuan zhang(组合连环掌)
    http://v.youku.com/v_show/id_XMjc1NTA5NTU2.html

    Master Yu and desciples wujiquan free push hands
    http://v.youku.com/v_show/id_XMjc1NjA1MDA0.html

    Master Yu and desciples wujiquan free push hands2
    http://v.youku.com/v_show/id_XMjc1NjA2NDI0.html

    Master Yu's desciples wujiquan free push hands
    http://v.youku.com/v_show/id_XMjc1NjEwMjA0.html
     
  13. Ben Gash CLF

    Ben Gash CLF Valued Member

    I always love the confusion this causes, typically used somewhat nefariously by Wuji schools for their benefit. The statement is true but irrelevant. In Taoist theory the concept of Taiji comes from the concept of Wuji. It does not mean that Wujiquan is the source art for Taijiquan. I remember many years ago the local Wuji school had a poster where the largest line was "From Wuji comes Taiji".
     
  14. marian85

    marian85 Valued Member

    Hi, you can or you can not believe that wujiquan is the source of taijiquan, it is up to you. It is not my intention to persuade anyone. I personaly believe wujiquan is the source of taijiquan, but that is not realy important and it's not why I study it.
     
  15. Ben Gash CLF

    Ben Gash CLF Valued Member

    What are you basing that belief on???????
     
  16. inthespirit

    inthespirit ignant

    Thanks for the vids Marian. Is that you in them? Where abouts in China is it? Looks interesting!
     
  17. marian85

    marian85 Valued Member

    First of all, I don't have reason not to trust my master, also we have here a few people who practised taijiquan for many years, they say lots of things that are in wjq are missing in tjq. Anyway I have no hard evidence, so it is up to anyone to decide.
     
  18. marian85

    marian85 Valued Member

    Hi, glad you like it. It is me in the videos, I'm curently living in Dalian, so is my master. Btw what are you practising?
     
  19. Ben Gash CLF

    Ben Gash CLF Valued Member

    Unless your teacher is 400 years old, I'm assuming he wasn't there? So therefore he's only retelling something he's heard and believed, your trust in him doesn't make the the information accurate. TCMA are full of origin legends that are unlikely to be true, for example most southern styles mention at least one of the 5 elders.
    Surely if Taijiquan came from Wujiquan, it would be Taijiquan that had things Wujiquan didn't?
     
  20. inthespirit

    inthespirit ignant

    If you don’t mind, I'm always a bit curious in such cases. Are you working down there too? Did you move specifically there to train?

    I mostly practice I Liq Chuan these days. A few bits here and there from my previous studies too.
     

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