Histoire Du Baji Quan à Zaozhuang - Part 2 - Sub fr + eng

"Gathering the treasures of south Shandong, protecting the essence of human affairs, collecting the imprints of time, displaying the local traditions of the living world ..." "Experience the whole life" "Don't let culture be covered by dust ..." ZaoZhuang’s prosperity comes from it’s coal resources. The spreading of BajiQuan in ZaoZhuang has close tides with the development of the local mining industry. In 1878, the ShanDong Yi county ZhongXing Mining Bureau was founded. This started a new age of local industrialised mining. At the beginning of the last century, the country faced turbulent times, internal and external conflicts, bandits and thievery ran rampant. As the scale of the production gets expanded, the ZhongXing co. often suffered from the violent assaults of bandits and local warlords. In 1908, in order to protect it's normal order of production, the ZhongXing co. established a Patrol Police Bureau, Mr Yang HouQi, the head of the Police Patrol Bureau invited a group of Martial art teachers from HeBei CangZhou, to teach BajiQuan in the mining police squad. In 1931, on the recommendation and invitation of the CangZhou Baji masters Han HuanChen, Li GuangJun & Zuo ShangChen, Wu XiuFeng, the 6th generation head of the HeBei CangZhou Wu family Kaimen BajiQuan arrived in ZaoZhuang city in ShanDong and established a place in the mosque to teach students. *** ChangDian, nicknamed "the Baji King of ShangHai city" and tremendously famous in ShangHai, the vice captain of the railway guerilla force brigade Mr *** ZhiSheng and *** JunHui, the father of Mr *** ShouLi were all one of these students. Back then he(my father) started training when he was young, the ground floor of our mosque is higher than 1 meter, 1.5 or 1.6 m high, or even higher, when he was 12 or 13 years old, my father could backflip down from the platform, he had very strong skills. *** JunHui started learning BajiQuan from Li GuanJu since his childhood. By Li’s introduction, he later became one of Wu XiuFeng's students. Being a naturally bright and assiduous student, he quickly became one of the best among his kungfu brothers. In 1984, *** JunHui founded the XingHua Martial Art school at the ZaoZhuang mosque, He started to formally accept disciples, and to spread the art of Baji quan. Thus the upsurge of practising BajiQuan reached a period of intense activity. Among the residents living around the old ZaoZhuang street, about eight out of ten have learned BajiQuan. Back then, I wanted to learned as well.... Because initially in the family, there were a lot of disciples training with my father. Since childhood, you venerated your father ? yes ! Most of notable kung fu practitioners in ZaoZhuang have done some training with my father... I have been influenced by them, From the age that I start to remembering things, I was influenced by all the people who came in my family to train with my father. Under the influence of a strong atmosphere of martial art training, *** ShouLi got inspired by his surrondings since his childhood, and he was deeply fascinated by Baji KungFu. After tens of years of non stop efforts, He has finally mastered Six Harmony BajiQuan, Xiao Jia, Dan Da, Baji DuiJie, LuoHan XiangLong Quan, TanTui, Cha Quan, WuHuQunYang Dao, Six Harmony Spear, etc. More than 40 fist and weapon forms. In the previous competitions held in ShanDong province, *** ShouLi successively won the first place in unarmed taolu, second place in spear, four times first prize, three times second prize. There is one thing I cannot forget, this is the most regrettable : I did not fully listen to my father ... I still bear that thing in my heart ... My father said at those times : among all these fighting styles, BajiQuan is the best one ! You can't go running everywhere, can't go out playing games and having fun, do more training and try to master this art. The forms that you train, not matter how many, they are the easy part. The single exercises which are inside, this is the real essence. At the end of the 70s, my father said this to me : all these people turning around, training here and there, in the end they all come back to train with me ... He was uncertain that these things would be lost afterwards, there are things that even myself could not catch fully ... In order to improve and promote the traditionnal BajiQuan of ZaoZhuang as an outstanding local fighting style, under the guidance of Mr *** ShouLi, the ZhaoZhuang Baji people, frequently go to the birthplace of BajiQuan : Mengcun, near CangZhou in Hebei, in order to exchange ideas and learn. They also pay a visit to Wu LianZhi, the descendent of the 6th generation school head Wu XiuFeng. Aiming to strenghten the exchanges about martial art studies, on march 10th of 2008, at ZaoZhuang mosque, several hundreds of BajiQuan practitioners from the Hui minority held a solemn welcoming ceremony to welcome the internationaly famous martial art master from Hebei CangZhou, the 7th generation BaJiQuan leader Wu LianZhi and his delegation. Together they commemorated the 77th anniversary of the 6th generation grand master Wu XiuFeng coming to ZaoZhuang mosque to teach BajiQuan. Our ZaoZhuang BajiQuan relatively speaking is an old type of baji. Long ago when this old BajiQuan arrived here from HeBei province, it didn't have any of the later improvements. Nowadays, the Baji practiced by many, including Wu LianZhi in HeBei, have all been later improved. When Mr Wu LianZhi came here, he saw our ZaoZhuang Baji, the old Baji that we are practicing, he had tears in his eyes... He and five or six students shouted together : Oh ! this is old Baji ! They felt very touched seeing that.. KaiMen Baji - 2nd part For this movement here, the hand should be here, when pushing out with the palm, the hand comes out from here, This hand pulls, it pulls backward, the force is very strong. You see ? Go ! In a blink of an eye, *** ShouLi has already entered in his sixties. Like his father before him, martial arts have already merged in his blood, becoming a indispensable part of his life. Besides the endless pursue of the art of Baji, the age increase has also raised naturally a bit of sense of urgency in *** ShouLi's life ... In May of 2005, the ZaoZhuang BajiQuan research association was formally established, *** ShouLi got elected as the first president of the association. My biggest aspiration is also my duty : that someday one of the disciples, one of the students, will follow my way of training and pass on the unique characteristics of BajiQuan ... This is very important ... BajiQuan has another name called "squat down Baji", it is now called Wu family KaiMen BaJi in our country, this is its full name now ... Our Shifu is from MengCun, in CangZhou, HeBei it's Wu LianZhi, the vice chairman of the Chinese WuShu association, he is also a 7th generation inheritor, we two are 8th generation inheritors. In ZaoZhuang, we are the only two persons who really have a formal disciple certification. When people talk about BajiQuan, they all raise their thumbs in approval; there are nothing more to say about its Kung Fu ... Everybody admires it ... Now Mr *** is over sixty years old, it's just the right time to bring up disciples, it's the best time to pass on the heritage of ZaoZhuang Baji, to carry forward our ZaoZhuang Baji, our old baji ... Do you all come here to train everyday ? Yes ! Approximatively how many people do come ? Hmmmm, it varies ... Normally it's no less than 20-30 people ... Some are still attending school, some are working, and some are merchants ... They are free at different times ... And there are different age groups ? Yes , the young ones are only 5 - 8 years old, Older people are over 50-60 years old. These are all weapons, right ? Yes ! What are they called ? This is Crescent Moon shovel This is Spring & Autumn halberd ... What is he practicing now ? This is Da Baji form. Watch where your hand goes ! How many years have you been training martial arts ? Hmmm, more than 30years ! I studied all the time with my brother (*** ShouLi). What do you think you gained most from training BajiQuan? Training BajiQuan, is mainly training one's courage ... Not being afraid of any situation, face danger fearlessly, strenghten your body and become healthy ! Enhance self confidence ! It is good in both work and life, a strong body and mind ... Baji allows people to have self-confidence ! We learned from our teacher filial piety toward our elders ... More importantly, we learned how to behave ourselves, how to handle things ... What we learn from our master the most important is to carry it forward ... BajiQuan leads us ZaoZhuang citizens to get fit together ! In order to allow a better transmission of traditionnal BajiQuan, which is an outstanding martial art style, the new central office for cultural development of ZaoZhuang city has lauched a series of protective works, such as : investigate and clarify the historical course of the birth and develoment of the traditional Wu family KaiMen BajiQuan, finding out the detailed status of its lineage, branches, current state etc. All the materials investigated have been arranged and classified and put on record using databases and multi-media. Interviews were perfomed of representative inheritors of traditionnal Wu family BajiQuan, and their martial art performances were recorded ... "Scholars have TaiJi to pacify the world, warriors have Baji to stabilize heaven and earth" Among the world of Chinese martial art, which is wast as the sea and unfathomable, BajiQuan with its deep philosophical content, its rich cultural connotation, its unsophisticated practice style, ant its practical fighting system is greatly favoured by the martial art fans from all over the world ... In ZaoZhuang, as the second hometown of BajiQuan, we bear the responsability to further transmit and develop traditionnal BajiQuan, which is a living testimony engraved with the seal of the essence of Chinese martial arts ...