I’ve been learning the huleijia material for a whole month now and these are my impressions.
Many people have trouble understanding huleijia, especially the first time they see it, because huleijia explicitly starts with a type of external training. Now let’s be clear here: I’m not talking about external training as in karate or something like that, nor am I talking about weight lifting. What I mean is that huleijia has “external” practices that are specifically meant to build certain attributes into the body itself that are needed to do the style. This is a type of “bodybuilding” but it isn’t the type that people normally think of. I’m trying to build a “huliejia body” at this point.
But the training at this stage doesn’t necessarily incorporate the ideas of yi, qi, or other abstract principles that people normally associate with IMA training. Again, I’m mainly training to mold and shape my body.
This stands in direct opposition to a lot of other taiji training in that the “internal” aspects are trained right away, with the “external” part supposedly coming at a later time. I rarely see people get there BTW.
So huleijia training is completely different from some taiji, like Yang, etc., but does bear some resemblance to Chen style because some Chen schools also train the “external” aspects of the internal first as well. In fact, I would say that most Chen schools do that.
Since huleijia is meant to specifically work the body, it also uses some segmented movement that (again) stands in direct contrast to most taiji that people are familiar with. Last week, I was taught part of the form that uses a clock-wise shoulder roll to fajing. The shoulder roll is eventually done with the whole body, but in order to correctly train the movement, the shoulder roll is isolated at this stage because the movement is a bit unusual. If students tried to do the roll with the whole body, the shoulder development needed to do the move correctly would likely never happen.
This type of segmented training seems necessary with most of the huleijia moves because the style demands that you move in ways that stretch the body (at least at this stage of training). Again, because of this developmental aspect, huleijia visually appears very different from other taiji, even to the point of being disjointed. Well, IT IS disjointed, at least for a while. It’s actually supposed to be, at least a bit.
To my understanding at this stage, huleijia develops the parts before it puts those parts back together into a whole.
I’m also noticing that my teacher’s version of huleijia isn’t as unusual looking as some other teacher’s. We still seem to manifest some degree of peng and zhong ding in all the moves across the different frames, unlike some other versions I’ve seen.
Finally, my teacher keeps saying that “huleijia hen lei a!” which means “practicing huleijia is very tiring.” I can attest to that! The workout is quite a bit more intense that the regular Chen style workout that I’m used to because of the aspects mentioned above.
Maybe that’s one reason that huleijia specialsts tend to be skinny? 
8 responses so far ↓
1 Orz // Oct 16, 2006 at 3:14 pm
Good article!
but in you opinion, could you explain what are the differences between Zhaobao Jia and HuLeiJia? Are they both the same or totally different? Do Zhaobao Jia and HuLeiJia belong to Chen Style Taiji?
Each Taiji should be“internal”, “external” part is the very basic training.
what do you mean “huliejia body”, is it hard because the body-movements are difficult? What about the“internal”training?
According to Taiji Fist-Bible(Quanjing), each posture and movement of Taiji visually should be - Big becomes small, small become nothing. What about “huliejia body”?
2 chessman71 // Oct 16, 2006 at 5:50 pm
Orz,
Zhaobao and huleijia are obviously related since huleijia came from zhaobao. And as much as it will get me in trouble with the mainland crowd, I would say that both came from Chen style. The way I learn it is that huleijia is a frame of Chen. That’s not a popular view on the mainland.
When I say “huleijia body” I’m describing the degree of flexibility, power, etc. that should be built into the body by the training. Long term practice of huleijia will build into the practicioner’s body the attributes that the form specializes in. Long distance runners look different from sprinters, for example. The style develops your body.
The huleijia works much like what you described at the end of your post. From big movements to small, and then to none.
Thanks for the comment.
3 Orz // Oct 16, 2006 at 6:41 pm
but according to Adam Hsu’s research in 1990, the inventor of Huleijia was Li Jingyan(李景延), Huleijia didn’t come from Chenjiagou (Chen’s Village). In fact and from the history of Chen-family(people lived in Chenjiagou), they hardly ever taught those people not of the same surname. So who taught Li Jingyan(李景延)Huleijia? Who invented Huleijia? Why the theory of Huleijia is totally different from Chen Taiji theory and also some-parts are against the Chen Taiji-bible(fist-bible)?What do you think?
4 chessman71 // Oct 17, 2006 at 5:26 pm
Orz,
Wait a minute. I though Hsu was a slick salesman and a good self-promoter?
If you search the blog for “huleijia” you’ll see many posts on this subject. In short, huleijia was brought here to Taiwan by at least three people, all of whom considered it part of Chen style. I don’t get into academic debates about origins, i think they’re a waste of time. But in those posts about the founders of Taiwan Chen style, I do address some points about the origins. For example, there’s a lineage chart in their somewhere that shows the connection to the Chen family.
Bascially, I’m too involved in figuring how it works to worry about where it came from. Training huleijia is tough. Finally, my teachers all see it as part of Chen style, so for us IT IS PART of Chen as we train it. Everything else is a bit academic for me.
But if you’re doing research into it, I’d love to hear about it.
5 Orz // Oct 17, 2006 at 6:32 pm
Zhaobao taiji lineage：
張三丰→雲遊道人→王宗岳→蔣發→邢喜懷→張褚臣→陳敬伯→張仲禹→張彥→陳清萍(Chen Qingping)→和兆元(He Zhaoyuan)→和慶喜→鄭梧卿→宋蘊華→關榮光
│ └→紀昌秀→張萬珠／張萬強
└→張敬芝→陳英明→王慶升
Li Jingyan(李景延) was a student of Chen Qingping(陳清萍), junior fellow apprentice of He Zhaoyuan(和兆元) - the inventor of He Style Taiji.
Although Chen Qingping(陳清萍) married with a girl from Zhaobao-Town, and became a son-in-law lived in the wife’s home and assumed the role of a son. Chen-Village people and their offspring thought he was a member of Campbell clan.
But according to the history of Zhaobao-Town, Chen Qingping(陳清萍) began to study Zhaobao Taiji with his teacher - Zhang Yan(張彥) in Zhaobao-Town, it was nothing to do with the Cheng-family.
Briefly, student of Chen Qingping(陳清萍), He Zhaoyuan(和兆元) invented He Style Taiji, and another student of his, Li Jingyan(李景延) invented Huleijia.
Book of master Chen Zhenglei “陳氏太極拳志” mentions: “其功夫純正，拳法精絕。後以保鏢為業，江湖上有[鐵胳膊李盾]的美稱。…對師傳拳架從動作、身法、步法、練習方法乃推手技巧諸方面進行再創造發展，創立了一套風格迥異的太極拳套路，俗稱太極忽雷架。” It means even Chen Zhenglei agrees Huleijia was invented by Li Jingyan(李景延).
6 Klaus // Oct 20, 2006 at 2:35 am
The question is what “invented” means. Taking bits and pieces of something he already has learned and making his personal blend out of it like Yang and Wu did, or some day waking up inventing brandnew movements all from scratch ?
7 chessman71 // Oct 20, 2006 at 7:41 am
Klaus,
Bingo. Can we really believe that huleijia was “invented” totally from scratch without any outside influence? And so close to Chen village? Seems to stretch the imagination a bit too far.
And yet, Orz’s comment still has value. Teh current Chen family’s take on this is interesting to note.
8 Orz // Oct 20, 2006 at 3:36 pm
Klaus:
What I said “invented”mean “unique” and “independent”(individual). From the theory of Huleijia, those squares-with-circles principle, triangles-leverage principle and gunfire principle are very different from the theories of Chen, Yang, Wu, Sun - the silk reeling principle. So in my opinion, Huleijia is nothing to do with Chen, Yang, Wu, and Sun. Nowadays, more and more CMA historians proved this point of view. If you ask me, any influence? Well, you can only say Huleijia relates to Zhaobao Taiji or those martial arts before Taiji Quan, such as: Shaolin Quan (少林拳), Taizhu Quan (太祖拳), Chang Quan (長拳), Hong Quan (洪拳) and the ancient internal training - Dandao (丹道). According to the historical research of Zhaobao-town, the invention of Zhaobao Taiji had nothing to do with Chen Style Taiji, and except for the marriage of Chen Qingping (陳青萍), people in Zhaobao-town hardly ever communicated with the Chen clan, although Zhaobao-town is “only” 6 Chinese miles (3 kilometers) away from the Chen Village.
According to another unofficial version of Taiji Quan history, people said Jiang Fa (蔣發) learned Taiji Quan from the student of Zhang Sanfeng (張三丰) http://220.175.6.234/moviepic/20063271153343.jpg and Jiang Fa (蔣發) passed it on to the people lived in Zhaobao-town and the Cheng-village.
One of the most famous CMA magazines - Shaolin & Taiji (少林與太極) http://www.21wulin.com/files/taijiqiu/sltjtaijiqiu1.jpg , in the fifth issue of 1992, there was an article - the history of Huleijia (太級忽雷架源說) by famous Huleijia master “Chen Qinglei” (陳慶雷) from Chenjiagou (the Chen-village), he said Huleijia is neither a wide-frame nor a small-frame, it’s flexible middle-frame. But a few years later, another article wrote by him, Chen Qinglei referred Huleijia to small-frames of Chen Style Taiji. (It was conflicting with what he wrote previously) And if it belongs to small-frames of Chen Style Taiji, what is the reason to give it an individual term called Huleijia?
We know Huleijia came from Zhaobao Taiji, and the Chen clan declared that Zhaobao Taiji belonged to Chen Style. But on the most famous Zhaobao Taiji website in mainland China - Taiji Tuishoudao (太極推手道) http://www.idea2real.com/taiji/ , both the introduction and the English intro-video on this website http://www.6rooms.com/watch/47246.html , don’t mention that Zhaobao Taiji relates to Chen Style Taiji, not even a word.
Again, under the lineage of Huleijia, who invented Chen style-Huleijia in Chenjiagou (the Chen-village)? If the answer is unknown or unsure, why do those people declare Huleijia belongs to Chen Style Taiji? Illogical!
Leave a Comment