I was involved in a discussion about tongbei taiji — a hybrid style of these two great arts — a while back and this is the ino that I came across. I hope to have more info on this interesting style in the future.
“Zhang Duen Xi(張敦熙) is another famous practitioner of Tong Bei Quan(通臂拳) who taught in Taiwan. He also taught a form of Tai Ji Quan (通臂太極)that was heavily influenced in its style by his experience in Tong Bei Quan.”
I got it from this site: http://www.kongfu.org/english/En_KongFu.htm
Students of Zhang are few and far between. The whole tongbei group here is in serious decline. If you can read Chinese, the only two or three teachers I’ve found that *might* teach it are:
http://my.so-net.net.tw/yong_an/Mantis2/tonpeKF.htmhttp://www.wutan.com.tw/tnit/tnma/page02.htm
The “big” tongbei org is here: http://www.tongbei.org.tw/
7 responses so far ↓
1 mo // Jan 30, 2007 at 10:26 pm
hey dave,
i actually know someone in beijing who teaches tongbei, and within the system is a form called tongbei taiji. now i don’t know whether it’s only a form or if it has other specific training methods. since you’re going to beijing soon, you can get in touch with tomasz, he posts on the EF forums sometimes. he trains tongbei with this teacher.
2 chessman71 // Jan 30, 2007 at 10:29 pm
Mo,
Yeah, I think I saw about that over at EF. This may be something different, I’m not sure. This was specifically described as a combination form of these two styles. But who knows? Maybe it’s the same. Maybe I cna check it out soon. Thanks for the tip about Tomasz in Beijing, though.
3 aboroth // Jan 31, 2007 at 7:27 am
I’ve been thinking of buying this DVD for a while now because of PlumPub’s praise for the teacher and material shown.
When I saw your post I thought this might be related: “The creator of Yang Style Tai Chi Chuan was Yang Lu Chan. Yang had three sons one of which was Yang Jian Hou, a very famous practitioner. Yang Jian Hou taught a well known expert, Zhang Ce who combined his knowledge to create the style known as Tai Chi Wu Xing Tong Bei Quan (Grand Ultimate Five Elements Through-the-Back Boxing).” (http://www.plumpub.com/sales/dvd/dvdcoll_TCpushhands.htm)
4 chessman71 // Jan 31, 2007 at 12:37 pm
I have that VCD. It’s pretty good, actually. It’s funny because the teachers accent is so thick I can’t understand a word he says. His student doesn’t have such a think accent. So I watch it sometimes to get used to the accent. The student doesn get thrown down several times, and then, right in the middle of taping, he starts asking some challenging questions. The teacher is put on the spot and has to answer. It’s a nice unscripted part, which is rare for these videos.
However, I didn’t see any obvious influence from his tongbei training on the push hands, but I didn’t watch the whole thing. Just seems like solid Yang style to me. Hope you enjoy it.
5 tomasz // Feb 28, 2007 at 1:01 am
hey man
my teacher do tongbei taiji as a hybrid of two styles tongbei and taiji, we have two forms yilu and erlu which are done in taiji flavor but with tongbei taste. contact me if you want
best
tomasz
6 Frédo // May 21, 2007 at 3:11 pm
If you write 通臂, it should then be spelled Tongbi and not Tongbei, which is written 通背, unless they pronounce it differently in Taïwan :-p
7 chessman71 // May 21, 2007 at 7:11 pm
Fredo,
Good point, but yes, they write it both ways here. It’s really confusing. One group uses tongbi and another uses tongbei.
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