Wang Shujin or Chen Panling?

— by Marnix Wells (PhD – SOAS)

As a post-graduate student of Chinese, I first became interested in Wang Shujin [Also known as Wang Shu jin, Wang Shu Chin] (1905-1981) through the writings of Robert Smith, alias John Gilbey (author of spoof “Secret Fighting Arts of the World,” 1963).

In late 1968, at Shibuya, Tokyo, I joined the taiji quan (tai chi chuan) school of Wang’s ex-deputy instructor and interpreter Zhang Yizhong, originally from Shanghai, known as ‘Cho sensei’ who had fluent Japanese. Cho taught standing meditation, Chen Panling’s taiji quan, pushing hands, dalyu, sanshou, and Chen Panling’s 24 ‘walking-stick’ (gun), but declined to teach Xingyi (Hsing I) (hsing i) or Ba gua (pa kua).

I was welcomed to Cho’s dojo by Bruce Frantzis of New York, who had just returned from a two-week stay with Wang in Taizhong, Taiwan. Bruce, a karate black belt, enthralled us with his account of how effortlessly Wang had repelled his kick and punch assault and felled him with a downward palm strike. Verbal communication had been in Japanese, with Wang’s Taiwanese housekeeper as interpreter. Years later, Wang complained to me that he was offended by this ‘ingratitude’ on the part of a student. Bruce claimed that Donn Draeger had advised him that Wang would be insulted if Bruce failed to attack! Wang certainly had an amazing reputation in Japan for taking power punches to his rotund body and even kicks to his pillar-like legs. ‘Qi’ (chi) would be Wang’s only comment. The character for ‘Wang’, a common Chinese surname meaning ‘king’, is pronounced ‘o’, meaning ‘great’, in Japanese, allowing ‘Ô sensei’ to be construed as ‘Great teacher’.

In 1970, year of the Ôsaka Expo, I returned to Taiwan for the summer break. There I met Liao Weishan (Liao Waysun), then a student at the Political University and luminary of the Sunday taiji quan pushing hands arena at the Legislative Yuan. Liao came from a rural background of Springing Crane (Zong He), in Xiluo a traditional martial hotbed of southern Taiwan. Liao, a native Taiwanese, spoke like a radical firebrand, critical of the ‘internal martial arts’ scene, under the mainlander KMT government aegis, of which Zheng Manqing [Chen Man Ching](then teaching in New York) was the presiding if absent deity. Liao covertly challenged the prevailing mythology of invulnerability and the miracles of ‘softness’. He agreed to train me in jing ‘energy’ through hard pushing-hands, and guide me on a tour of internal masters in Taiwan.

In Taizhong, central Taiwan, we called on Wang Shujin who kindly took us to see the training at nearby Caotun, home of his top student Wang Fulai. That evening, in a spacious farmyard, I witnessed an impressive parade by students of Xingyi (Hsing I) and Ba gua forms, while Wang sat in an armchair fanning himself. While Wang’s own short-range power was palpably awesome, I was surprised, on ‘crossing hands’, to find his students’ pushing hands to be ineffective. At first ‘polite’ (keqi), they genuinely had to struggle under pressure. What was the secret of Wang’s power?

From 1972-74 and 1978-84, I obtained salaried appointments in Taibei (Taipei), and was accepted by Wang as a student. I had already learnt Wang’s taiji quan from Zhang Yizhong in Japan, so Wang taught me Five Fists Xingyi (Hsing I); and Eight Part Ba gua, both open-handed and double-sword. At Wang’s invitation, I paid the fee and performed a traditional baishi ‘prostration to teacher’. This turned out to mean nine bows, kneeling on a comfortable prieredieu, rather than kowtows on the floor, to a portrait of Bodhidharma, with three to himself, meaning I am formally Wang’s student. Foreigners who share this honour, whom Wang occasionally mentioned, are, I understand, messrs Rottman in Canada and Sato (‘Zuoteng’) in Japan.

Barry Wicksman of New York, fellow student under Zhang Yizhong, Allen Pittman of Atlanta, Robert Smith’s student, and I were the only foreigners to pay homage at Wang’s funeral and interment in spring 1982. Wang had died on 11 August 1981, but his body was preserved in a great lotus-shaped coffin, until an auspicious date for the interment, on a fengshui sited mountain, under the arrangement of Wang’s old housekeeper. The town ceremony was dominated by members of the Yiguandao, a unified Confucian-Buddhist-Daoist sect, then technically illegal in the Republic of China, of which Wang was Taizhong leader (zhangli). The event was distinguished by a strident and tearful diatribe against the deceased, read from a long paper by Ms. Wang Lan, national congress woman for Tianjin, the north China port, Wang’s hometown. Ms. Wang alleged that she had originally helped Wang, her fellow townsman and constituent, then an impecunious noodle vendor, to go to teach in Japan, but that on his return Wang never again made contact. No member of the congregation interrupted the lady’s intercession against Wang’s departed spirit, or refuted her embarrassingly public charges.

I got to know Wang personally during his last ten years, and studied with him, usually on weekend visits. Outside in the alley a giant pair of his unmentionables hung out to dry like a flag. Wang, a kindly gentleman, sporting gold Rolex watch, had female servant-acolytes serve visitors fruit juice and nuts, or vegetarian noodles. Wang had had a Ba gua circle set in the concrete floor of his two-story apartment block for practice at home. Every morning before 6 a.m. Wang would carry his mynah birds in their cages, suspended from his massive arms, and walk to Twin Hearts Park. There by the concrete Music Circle, Wang led his students in standing meditation, five minutes in each of six hand postures, before doing the moving forms, and a little pushing hands.

Wang did not like to be photographed in action. He gave little explanation of movements, though he did briefly demonstrate applications. His favorite techniques were the ‘relaxed’ fingers jab and the belly strike. Wang was a man of few words. Faults listed by him include activities consider harmful to qi. For example: “After practicing one ought not immediately go to the toilet, or talk.” Wang opposed ‘skipping grades’ (liedeng) in study, and considered ‘love of winning’ (haosheng) a sin. He advocated practice of standing, correction of posture in accord to ‘body law’ (shenfa). He was a firm proponent of the non-aggressive soft principle, not pure softness, but rather a blend of hard and soft, symbolized by Yijing (I Ching) hexagram 63 ‘Completion‘ (jiji) which alternates yin and yang. Wang kept a photograph on his desk of his wife and children, left behind on the mainland in Tianjin, and worshipped a devotional image of Guanyin (Kuan Yin), Buddhist ‘goddess of mercy’, in an upstairs shrine.

In 1979, to my astonishment, Wang showed me his private medical report, dated 6 April. Perhaps he wished to prepare me for a shock. I decided to copy down details for the record. It read, in part: age 75, height 170 cms, weight 115 kgs. It mentioned diabetes, overweight, slight breathing difficulty, rheumatism, knee problems (several falls). After all, the idol had feet, not of clay nor stone, but of normal flesh and blood. During the following year, Wang developed a huge tumor, resembling a small football, round his left ankle. I wondered whether the kicks Wang sustained in Japan were in some way responsible. For several months he endured the insertion of a drip tube in an attempt to counter it. Finally, in despair, Wang stopped the treatment and reverted to Chinese herbal medicine. It was a sad sight to see him propping his leg on a stool, swatting at flies.

Accounts of the origins of Ba gua itself, and of Wang Shujin’s distinctive style of it, are contradictory. Dong Haichuan (1796-1880) is universally credited as the founder of current Ba gua lineages, but these are far from uniform. Sun Lutang, who combined it with taiji quan and Xingyi (Hsing I), was the first to publish a book on the subject. Sun Lutang and Wu Tunan indicate that Dong was expert at Lohan Boxing, a Shaolin form which he first taught at Prince Su’s palace. Xiang Kairan actually states that Dong came from the Shaolin Temple. It is possible that Dong was also influenced by the Ba-pan ‘Eight Circling’ boxing of Anhui. However, evidence of earlier styles using the name ‘ba-gua’, the eight trigrams used to mark compass points, does not prove a connection with Dong Haichuan’s art. The style practiced in Taizhong by both Wang Shujin and Chen Panling is not a style I have seen outside Taiwan, though both studied with famous masters in Hebei.

Wang’s preface to his 1978 book “Ba gua Connected Palms”, which he inscribed for me, relates anecdotes of Dong Haichuan, reputed founder of Ba gua zhang. Here is my synopsis of Wang’s own narrative. Dong is said by some to have been born in (Hebei) Wen’an county and by others in Tongzhou. Becoming addicted when young to gambling, Dong ran away to Peking (Beijing) and then roamed south, reaching Mt Émei, holy mountain of Sichuan (bordering Tibet). There he met two Daoists Gujizi and Shang Daoyuan who taught him Ba gua circling and corrected his posture, telling Dong to circle a tree until the tree began to chase him, inviting him to help himself to rice from a store and water from the stream. After seven years hard practice, he had worn a path three foot deep, and suddenly felt the tree start to lean towards him. He reported this to his teachers who were delighted and taught him eight words on revolving, telling him to circle two trees [n.b. to practice the 'dragon swimming' double circle] as before. After two years, the trees chased him. For two years more they taught him palm law changes and weapons. Finally, he was told to go home, and compete at all martial arenas along the way. Since Dong always won, the reputation of Ba guazhang began to spread among the ‘rivers and lakes’ (jianghu), meaning the social underworld and martial arts circles.

On reaching home, Dong found his parents were already dead. At Peking, Dong by day roamed Heaven’s Bridge market, by night sleeping in Heaven’s Altar Park, where the emperor performed annual sacrifices. One day the martial instructor, from Prince Beile [n.b. Beile is just a Manchu title for 'Lord']‘s palace, Hou Zhenyuan, nicknamed ‘Shaker of East City’ came to the Altar. Seeing Dong’s rough dress but ruddy face and bright eyes, Hou spoke with him, and challenged him to a duel on a 6 by 8 foot mat. Dong expelled Hou from the mat three times in succession. Hou then introduced Dong to work in Beile’s palace, where Dong became martial instructor to the Prince. As Dong’s fame spread challengers came from far and wide but were always defeated. Thieves stole objects from the palace, leaving notes for Dong to come and win them back. This continued for ten years. Eventually Dong, after implication in a case, was punished by castration, becoming known to all as ‘Dong Old Eunuch’. He chose, as successor to his art, Yanjing Cheng, ‘Spectacles Cheng’ [Cheng Tinghua d. 1900], who used to prepare glasses prescriptions for the palace. Dong died at ninety. Disciples erected his tomb stone outside the city’s West Gate. [n.b. After the 'Cultural Revolution', Dong's tomb was rebuilt in the Western Hills, where it remains an object of pilgrimage.]

Wang’s preface describes his youthful progress of study, under three famous teachers, and his career of teaching in Taiwan and Japan. Again, in what follows, I reproduce Wang’s exact written testimony, confining my own comments strictly within brackets. In 1923, age 18, Wang entered the school of famed Zhang Zhaodong (Zhang Zhankui 1860-1940, third generation student of Dong Haichuan) to study Ba gua and Xingyi (Hsing I). [cf. Smith: Masters and Methods p75: "Wang replied that he had studied under Chang from 1929 to 1938.”] From 1924 to 1925, Wang concentratedly studied hunyuanzhuang ‘All-round Stance’, a style of zhanzhuang ‘post-standing’ meditation, under ‘teacher junior-uncle’ Wang Xianzhai (presumably Wang Xiangzhai 1890-1963, founder of Dacheng quan (Yiquan or I Chuan), who put standing before forms. Sawai Kenichi in Tokyo used it to develop Taikiken.). From 1929 to 1930, Wang studied under ‘teacher senior-uncle’ Xiao Haibo, aged over 90, who had trained on Mt Luojia, fifty li from Mt Émei in Sichuan. [n.b. Wang told me that Xiao Haibo used to walk the circle while holding iron balls.]

Finally, Wang remarks, without further explanation: “I had originally studied a Si-lian quan ‘Four Connections boxing’ form, whose hands and movements identical to Chen taiji.” After coming to Taiwan, in 1951 Wang chanced to meet Chen Junfeng [i.e. Chen Panling] in Taizhong (where the provincial government was first based). Comparing notes, they experimented to create a ‘Chen style’ of taiji quan.

[n.b. Wang Shujin acknowledged to me that Chen Panling had taught him taiji quan and the 24 walking-stick; but claimed in return he had taught Xingyi (Hsing I) and Ba gua to Chen Panling. Wang appears to equate 'Chen style' from the 'Chen Village', (Henan) Chen Jiagou, with Chen Panling's own composite brand of taiji quan. Authentic Chen style taiji quan was virtually unknown in Taiwan then, and it is unlikely that Wang knew much about it. Robert Smith ("Martial Musings" 1999, p255) relates how even Rose Lee, who grew up under a famous master in Peking, told how she, while fleeing from Japanese c.1940, had observed Henan villagers practicing taiji quan, but seemed unaware of Chenjiagou's very existence. Indeed, Chenjiagou was not opened up to the world before the late 1980s. In 1983, when a Shaolin Temple visit still required a police permit, I was denied access there. My first trip to Chenjiagou, several years later, took eight hours on mud roads from Zhengzhou!]

Wang then explains the meaning of his name Shujin, literally ‘tree gold’, by ‘establish metal’:

To establish virtue and the Way’s righteousness is Reason’s Teaching (lijiao); Metal and stone covenants record my vow.

['Reason's Teaching' is also the name of a sect.] Wang became a vegetarian and practiced meditation and Buddhism, practicing boxing in leisure time after business. In the summer of 1948, Wang passing through Shanghai, Wang escaped from Qin i.e. the communists, by coming to Taiwan, where he first established the Chengming Guoshuguan ‘Sincerity Bright National Skills Academy’, teaching Xingyi (Hsing I), Ba gua and later also taiji quan. Altogether he had several hundred students from all over Taiwan, of whom some regrettably gave up. In the autumn of 1959, Wang traveled to Japan where an old friend Wu Botang introduced him to Toyama Izumi, president of Nippon Jodo Association [n.b. spiritual art of stick-fighting], where Wang was invited to be instructor of taiji quan, also teaching Xingyi (Hsing I) and Ba gua, for eight years. In 1963 at the invitation of the Gojuryu Karate Association’s Tokyo Chuoku karate dojo, Wang took a disciple [i.e. Zhang Yizhong] from Taiwan as assistant teacher, and taught for two years. In 1966, Wang made his third trip to Japan, to teach for two years at Tokyo Minatoku’s Korinji temple. By 1976, Wang had made altogether 8 trips to Japan, teaching over 1200 students, including overseas Chinese, Japanese and other nationals visiting Japan, of whom there were karate, judo and aikido students, some of over ten years’ experience. Wang reckoned his student total, including Taiwan, at over 1800 students. Wang concludes that, of the three ‘internal arts’, taiji quan symbolizes the virtue of humanity [n.b. I extrapolate this word, which appears to have been inadvertently omitted]; Xingyi (Hsing I): courage; and Ba gua: wisdom.

Wang’s ‘Ba gua Connective Palms‘ system consists of 8 part movements, as follows:

1. Single Change Palm
2. Double Change Palm
3. Kite Flies to Heaven
4. Yellow Dragon Turns Body
5. White Snake Spits Out
6. Great Roc Spreads Wings
7. White Ape Presents Peaches
8. Whirlwind Palms.

Wang used to say that the form is fixed by tradition, but its variations are infinite. In other words, once the basic system is mastered, it is up to each individual by his own experience to adapt and interpret it, while retaining the essential structure. Wang lists eight key-words that encompass the energies involved. Presumably they are intended to correspond to the eight words supposedly taught to Dong Haichuan by the two Daoists on Mt Émei. Wang links them individually to the eight trigrams and also to the eight movements. Yet the connection seems far-fetched and unconvincing to me. Wang did not speak of these matters when teaching. The eight words, which I find may be better understood in pairs, are: tuituo dailing, bankòu pijin. I translate them as: push-raise, carry-lead, shift-hook, chop-advance. In this way, I would interpret them as: deflect, draw in, pin down, and counter attack, analogous to the four phases of taiji quan pushing hands: ward-off, pull-back, squeeze and press.

Wang’s prowess as a martial artist, possessed of tremendous short-range power, is not in doubt. Yet there are serious problems with his account of the Ba gua transmission. Wang does not name a source for the account of Dong Haichuan, which is inspirational, but questionable in detail. The picture it sketches of bodyguard-cum-instructors to the late Qing nobility, competitions and the mat contest, has an interesting plausibility. We may be grateful there are no miracles to beggar our belief! The story of Dong’s punishment could be a rationalization of becoming a eunuch, then not uncommon, to secure a better position in the palace. As to Wang’s own training, he gives only an outline chronology, bereft of detail, yet not without apparent discrepancies. For example, Zhang Zhaodong’s Ba gua, transmitted to Jiang Rongqiao, and still practiced in Peking’s Heaven Altar Park, bears scarce resemblance to Wang’s system. Curiously, Wang deigns not to name his ex-chief disciple Zhang Yizhong. He refers to his old mentor Chen Panling, ‘teacher elder-brother’ (shixiong), but only to claim credit for contributing to Chen Panling’s taiji quan form. Vital pieces of the picture appear to be missing from Wang’s story.

Chen Panling (1892-1967), Wang’s senior, died the year before I first reached Taiwan. Robert Smith describes Chen in Master and Methods pp68-69: “During World War II he was made deputy chief of the Central Boxing Association at Chungking, where he also headed a commission to collect, edit and publish material on fifty-five forms of wu-shu…[in 1960] Chen was… the highly respected head of the Chinese Boxing Association in Taiwan…” Chen’s sons Yunchao and Yunqing continued their father’s arts, which they maintained their father had taught to Wang Shujin, whom he had befriended. Around 1980 I met Allen Pittman who had come from Robert Smith to study their Ba gua form. On inspection, it appeared virtually identical but more clearly defined than the form Wang taught. Chens’ disciple Lei Xiaotian had published Chen’s Ba gua and Xingyi (Hsing I) forms, including a group photograph of the 9.9 Health Memorial Day (9 symbolizes strength in the Book of Change), dated 1957, in which Wang appears, as if a leading disciple, standing directly behind Chen Panling, who is seated in the center front in the position of teacher.

Lei Xiaotian notes that Chen was born in 1892 at Xiping, Henan, and joined the anti-Qing uprising at Kaifeng in 1911, becoming a member of the Guomindang (KMT). During the anti-Japanese resistance, Chen had secret assignments behind enemy lines, and in 1938 was involved in ‘making the Yellow River into a battle-line’. [n.b. This elegant phrase must refer to blowing the Yellow River dykes to delay the Japanese advance, an action which unfortunately also cost incalculable Chinese civilian lives.] Chen was an educator and hydraulics engineer who had many peacetime river channeling schemes, which sadly he never had the opportunity to realize. Chen’s position in the government allowed him to travel to Japan, a difficult thing from Taiwan then when martial law prevailed, and I consider it likely he also aided Wang in this.

Chen’s preface to Taiji Quan teaching material, 1962, says he learned Shaolin from his father; Xingyi (Hsing I) from Li Cunyi (1849-1921) and Liu Caichen; Ba gua from Tong Lianji and Cheng Haiting (i.e. Cheng Youlong (1875-1928); taiji quan from Wu Jianquan, Yang Shaohou, Ji Zixiu, and Xu Yusheng, and in 1927-28 ‘Chen style’ at Chenjiagou. Chen records that the Nationalist government at Nanking established a Central ‘National Arts’ (guoshu i.e. martial arts) Academy, with branches throughout China, to organize training and hold regular examinations. In the 1930s a Chinese martial arts demonstration team toured Southeast Asia and performed at the 1936 Berlin Olympics.

Lei records the lineage of Chen Panling’s Ba gua as: Dong Haichuan > Cheng Tinghua > (son) Cheng Haiting > Chen Panling. Lei notes Chen’s Ba gua double sword ‘of unknown origin’, and Ba gua stick from (third generation) Tong Lianji. From Lei’s book on the subject, it is evident that Chen’s Ba gua and Ba gua double sword Ba gua are almost identical to the forms that Wang taught me. Here are the eight Ba gua movements of Chen Panling’s ‘Dragon Form Ba gua Swimming Body Palms‘:

1. Single Change Palm
2. Double Change Palm
3. Up and Down Change Palm
4. Green Dragon Extends Claws
5. White Snake Spits Out
6. Great Roc Spreads Wings
7. Ape Monkey Presents Peaches
8. Eight Immortals Cross the Sea

The movements exhibit some variation in names, but on inspection are virtually identical. It may well be that Chen Panling made use of Wang’s experience to supplement his own, and even that they co-operated in forming a composite form, as Chen admits he did with his taiji quan. If so, there seems little doubt that Chen’s was the guiding and deciding hand. Lei also lists eight key-words which I pair: banlan, jiekòu, tuituo daining, translating as: shift-deflect, intercept-hook, push-raise, carry-twist. Again these are substantially the same as those of Wang, albeit in a different and less dynamic order, and lacking ‘chop, advance’. Wang clearly had the better grasp of functionality. Lei further provides a phase analysis of the movements into four: chuan ning ling zou, which I translate: penetrate, twist, lead, run. They describe a circular motion, but are deficient in any hint of the point of applying power. Lei describes two kinds of ‘standing Ba gua’, merely “for beginners to check posture”. One is the position of walking the circle with one foot suspended, the other like the turn with both feet and legs together. Indeed, Wang Shujin’s standing meditation, feet parallel shoulder-width apart, appears absent from traditional Ba gua and Xingyi (Hsing I). It surely derives from Wang Xiangzhai, who studied at the Shaolin Temple.

I conclude that both Wang and Chen offers a concise and tightly organised system of Ba gua movements, containing promising insights into the secrets of Ba gua as a martial art. Nonetheless critical and comprehensive analysis, irrespective of individual personalities involved, coupled with practical experimentation, is absolutely necessary to assess and improve functionality. Practice of forms alone, from my observations, does not yield advanced results, and strictly ‘pure lineages’ in my judgment are either bogus, or deficient, and often both. Chen Panling’s method evidently was to blend the best techniques into forms learnt from different teachers. Wang power came from posture, developed mostly through standing meditation. Only thus can external and internal become one.

Bibliography

Chen Panling: Taiji quan jiaocai, ‘Taiji quan teaching material’, Zhenshanmei, Taibei, 1963.

Lei Xiaotian ed., Chen Panling: Xingyi (Hsing I) quan: shi’er-xing, ‘Xingyi (Hsing I) boxing: twelve forms‘, Zhenshanmei, Taibei, 1976.

Xingyi (Hsing I) quan: wu-chui, ‘Xingyi (Hsing I) boxing: five fists‘ Zhenshanmei, Taibei, 1979. Longxing Ba gua: Youshen zhang, ‘Dragon Form Ba gua: Swimming Body‘, Zhenshanmei, Taibei, 1979.

Longxing Ba gua: Shuangjian, ‘Dragon Form Bagua: Double Sword ‘, Zhenshanmei, Taibei, 1981.

Smith, Robert: Masters and Methods, Tuttle,1974. Martial Musing, Via Media, 1999.

Wang Shujin; Wang Fulai, Wang Kangmin ed.: Ba gua Lianhuan zhang, ‘Ba gua Connective palms‘, private, Taizhong, 1978.

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