Chen Bu-Fu

<title>Chen Bu-Fu</title>

== Lineage
* Teachers: 
* Students:

== About
Chen Bu-Fu is not commonly found in the normal lineage charts so I had to do some digging. Apparently he is the link between old-style (before the five forms were merged) Chen style and Tongbeiquan.

Video: "[[https://youtu.be/guUn8BH7pNM|Wuji Tongbei Chan Quan (Hongdong Tongbei) / Chen Taiji 108 Posture Long Fist]]"

Reads: This is the complete, original, Chen family 108 posture Long Fist form performed by a master of the Wuji Tongbei Chan Quan system.

This form is believed by members of the Chen Family to be the form that was used as the basis for the creation of the long form of Chen Taiji by Chen Wangting. 

This form has also been claimed by some to be part of the original martial arts brought from Shanxi by Chen Bu, the founder of the Henan branch of the Chen family in the reign of Ming Taizu.
The Hongdong Tong Bei tradition traces back to Chen BuFu, 12th generation descendant of the Henan Chen Taiji family.

Around the year 1780 he killed a government official and was forced to flee. Leaving Henan he traveled to Shanxi province's Hongdong county in Linfen prefecture where he had relatives living. Hongdong was the original home of the Chen family before they were relocated to Henan during the early Ming land clearances.

Changing his name to Guo Yongfu he sought a job teaching martial arts to the son of a local official.

The style he taught became known as Wújí Tōng Bèi Chán Quán (Wuji Connected Through the Back Reeling Boxing) otherwise known as Hongdong Tongbei. It's a mixture of early Chen family martial arts and local Shanxi TongBei. However the core set remains the original Chen family 108 longfist form.

When Chen BuFu fled to Shanxi and established the Wuyi Tongbei Chan Quan tradition he passed this form on to his martial descendants. Small frame Taiji master Chen Liqing traveled to Shanxi in the 1970's to learn the form from the Wuji Tongbei Chan Quan masters and return it to the Chen family curriculum:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=guUn8BH7pNM

salcanzonieri wrote:

<blockquote>Hongdong Tongbeiquan is a mixture of the old Chen TJQ style that Guo brought there and the local Hong (red) Quan that they already practiced. The old Chen TJQ was basically considered to be Tongbei Quan (which itself came from mixing Taoist 13 Postures into Shaolin Long fist routines).

(interesting thing about Hongdong area in Shanxi is that Dong Haichuan’s ancestral hometown was originally Hongdong County in Shanxi, and also the ancestral home of the original Chen family of Chen Taiji Quan fame and that of Dong Cheng (董成), founder of Henan province (河南) Tongbi and Tongbei Quan - 通臂 / 通背拳. )

A Chen 12th generation inheritor left Chen Village and went to Hongdong in Shanxi, the ancestral home of the Chen family (and of the Dong family!). This Chen Bufu is believed to have committed a crime while aiding some people. He relocated to Hongdong and changed his name to Guo Yungfu. According to a boxing manual kept by Xu Kuisheng, Guo Yongfu learned the Hongdong Tongbei style from Ji Junsheng. According to the late Meng Naichang (based on his analysis of Hongdong Tongbeiquan text Zhong Yi Quan Tu Gao Ben - The Illustrated Book of Zhong Yi Boxing - published in 1936), the 108 Long Fist set was brought by Guo Yongfu (native of Henan, lived during Qianlong period) to Hongdong. The set is considered to be ‘Long Fist Boxing in 108 Postures’ lost in Chenjiagou. The comparison of ‘General Song of Boxing Classic’ recorded in Chen style manuals and names of movements of Chen style Long Fist Boxing and those of this Tongbei Quan are almost identical. In 1975, Chen Liqing, from Chen village, visited Hsu Fong Qin Hsu in Shanxi and recovered the form.<cite>RSF thread http://rumsoakedfist.org/viewtopic.php?f=6&t=7633</cite></blockquote>

More info: (from the op, marvin8):

<blockquote>According to the book "Scholar Boxer" by Marnix Wells, the Tongbei Boxing of Hongdong district in Shanxi preserves records that relate this style to both Qi Jiguang’s Boxing Classic and Taiji Quan’s old name of “Long Boxing”.

Hongdong Tongbei contains ‘108 manners’, its special characteristics are “the advancing hand always coils, adapting forms more than enough, entering sideways, evasions angle for surprise”. 

The Hongdong Tongbei Quan (also called Winding Coiling Fist) of Hongdong County, which is different than Dong’s original Tongbei Quan (but related to it in many ways), also has a 108 posture Long Fist routine. The Chen old frame (Lao Jia) Taiji at one time contained a Chang Quan (Long Fist) routine of 108 postures, but was later considered ‘lost’. The technique names of these two sets are very similar, if not the same. Some people of the 8th generation of Hongdong Tongbei Quan cited in their quanpu manual that, “During the Qianlong Emperor (1736-1795), in Su Baozhen village there was a martial art called Da Xiao Hong Quan - Big and Little Red Fist boxing (In Shanxi, Hong Quan was a very popular style.). One day, a wandering man called Guo Yongfu criticized this art. There was a fight and he won; after that, he taught a boxing he called Chang Quan (Long Fist).” In fact, his real name was probably Chen Youfu from the Chen village, he had changed his name to Guo (maternal side’s maiden name) because he was hiding from Henan authorities (he accidently killed an official there). Hongdong was where the Chen village ancestors were originally descended from and he had retreated there where he was being protected by some local authorities. 

The ‘108 Long Fist’ is a system of its own, containing the major routine, a sub-routine, weapon routines, & sparring exercises. The major routine has 108 forms. First 54 forms called "Heaven Star", Remaining 54 forms called "Earth Star". Heaven represents "Yang" & Earth represents "Yin". There are 36 elbow skills, 37 drop-throwing skills, 7 dodging methods, 72 grabs, 24 leg skills, and 24 hand methods. The Sub-routine has 32 regular methods and 27 winding hand methods. This branch of Tongbei is a mixture of an ancient version of Chen Taiji Quan and their local Da-Xiao Hong Quan. But, since Chen Taiji Quan was derived from Dong Cheng’s Tongbei Quan, it closely resembles it in many aspects.<cite>marvin8</cite></blockquote>