http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vlkIys9GHYQ
It appears that an introduction is in order. This is Su Dong-cheng. He is one of the top people trained by Hong Yi-xiang. He left to open a school in Japan in the early ’70’s. His training background includes taiji, xingyi, and bagua, mostly from Hong’s school.
The taiji that he shows in this clip is a heavily elaborated Chen Pan-ling form. The reason that he does it in this manner is to emphasize waist turning and to maximize the power aspect in every single move. In other words, he makes everything that is hidden in the form explicit. That’s one reason that his short performance here is such a rare thing. This version of the CPL form is rarely seen in public.
It never ceases to amaze me the number of people who will complain about how useless the garden variety IMA are and then turn around and complain that what an accomplished IMA fighter is doing doesn’t look like …well…the garden variety IMA. Actually, I guess I’m getting used to it, because I can laugh a bit about it now. 
Su is one of those rare people that lives in a world that few of us can imagine — he fights pretty much as a way of life. I’ve heard from sources I trust very much that Su has had about 300 challenge matches, mostly in Japan and Taiwan. I have heard that he also challenged some *very* well-known people, only to have those people wisely back down. Smart move on their part.
Another story I heard was that a student asked Su about knife fighting and Su whipped out a knife that he had in his pocket and cut his forearm. He then held up his bleeding forearm (already scarred many times) and said “Can you take this? If not, don’t ask me about knifefighting.” Su is not your average “taiji for health” kind of guy.
So pay careful attention to how he does the material in the clip above. His performance of the IMA in this clip give a lot of ideas about how to do forms in a way to maximize power and prepare your body for fighting. Contrary to popular belief, forms training is useful, especially when done in the fashion shown above. That was the reason I posted this clip.
More on Su to come including a review of his DVDs.
23 responses so far ↓
1 wujimon // Jan 31, 2007 at 7:38 pm
wow.. if you didn’t mention he was doing some Chen Panling, I would’ve never known. He also seems to do xingyi a bit differently than what is normally seen too. I’ve heard a lot about Su Dongchen, and what I like is that he gets down to business. He shows the ‘why’ and the ‘how’ and makes it accessible. Kind of reminds me a lot of Wai Lunchoi and Chen Zhonghua. Cool!
2 chessman71 // Jan 31, 2007 at 7:58 pm
The version of CPL taiji that he shows is elaborated, that’s why few recognize it. He takes everything that is possible in the form and makes it very explicit. Naturally, that’s fantastic for training. Every little detail and opportunity to train something in the form is exploited to the fullest extent. That’s what makes his stuff so good. But then, few teachers so clearly show that kind of stuff, so most people don’t know what they’re seeing when they look at this.
So you’re right. He makes everything accessable.
3 tim // Feb 1, 2007 at 10:22 am
Dave,
How are Su’s students as fighters? I had heard he was fielding an MMA team or something like that.
4 zatoichi // Feb 1, 2007 at 10:57 am
I’m looking forward to the DVD reviews! I tried reading some of his translated essays a couple yrs ago with alot of difficulty..especially since I wasn’t familiar w/ alot of his terminology. It’ll be interesting to see if you felt he could clearly articulate his concepts on his DVD’s.
There was one Su Dong Chen clip I saw a long time ago that I haven’t been able to find on youtube or anywhere else. there’s a japanese karate practitioner who does a segment of a kata, then Su Dong-cheng repeats the exact same kata, and then demonstrated how to apply the kata. When I saw it I thought “damn! this guy has some serious balls to go to Japan and do something like this. Basically telling the japanese…I can do your kata, look better doing it, and unlike you I know what these moves mean”
5 chessman71 // Feb 1, 2007 at 8:35 pm
Yes, Su did do that on one DVD I believe. It may be one that I have. I have 5 and haven’t seen every minute of all of them. He has the ability to take the forms and bring out all sorts of stuff hidden in them. And he can get away with it because he’s beaten most of the guys in Japan. So nobody can call him on it. Haha!
6 Chris Bates // Feb 4, 2007 at 9:49 am
I visited Su in Tokyo several times about 20 years ago when I was training with Master Hong. I beleive that he emphasizes (makes externally apparent) the source of power for each of the moves in these teaching vids for the sake of the Japanese mentality in Budo training. Starting with Gichin Funakoshi, karate systems were simplified for mass transmission. This meant making movements big and obvious (which is contrary to needs of survival and predatory conflict). Problem I observed with his Japanese students is that they magnified his magnification to demonstrate to him that they had received the teaching, and when they do forms it became really overly exaggerated. I have not seen any of his students in the USA so can’t comment.
Su himself though is subtle and incredibly powerful. I recall him demonstrating the stomping accompanying Lower Horse form in Hong’s Xing-i. The whole room shakes.
7 chessman71 // Feb 4, 2007 at 2:08 pm
Chris,
Hello and welcome to the blog. Thanks for your comment on Su. Few people have met him and fewer still seem to understand what he is doing.
To elaborate on your point a little, where the power comes from is hidden in most forms found in most martial arts, not just the JMA, IMO. Especially taiji.
The strength of Su’s material is that he takes what is hidden there and brings it out so you can train it. Having trained it, you can then hide it a bit and become subtle. But not even knowing it’s there means you never train it and then have nothing to show for it. Unfortunately, that seems to be where most people are at, hence their reaction to Su. Oh, well.
8 Chris Bates // Feb 4, 2007 at 7:41 pm
To respond, I must call upon some rather old material. Donn Draeger was always very careful to distinguish between martial arts or fighting arts and martial ways, the former being systems designed for increasing survivability on the battlefield, the latter being designed for philosophical pursuit/mind body integration/contest etc. An academic paper by Dr. Geoff Willcher that I sent Draeger which rather impressed him, used the tools of ethology (the study of ritualized behavior) to understand this better. There are essentially two types of conflict animals, including humans, engage in: predatory and dominance. Predatory conflict results in the death of the prey or the withdrawal of the predator and is not rule bound. Predators hide their intention and their weapons. Dominance conflict is rule bound, is used to establish hierarchy, is overt and highly visible and rarely results in the death of the animal that submits.
Many martial arts in the past 100+ years have been adapted for contest, or dominance conflict. In order for the judge to see who has scored a point, the point must be visible. This is especially the case in kata or forms for karate or sport wushu and in point sparring, including kendo. So to say that in most MA the power is hidden, we need to be talking about traditional arts, combative arts, fighting arts in Draegers definition. MMA contests to a conclusion, which are less rule bound and less dependent on scoring points and more on destroying the opponents capacity to continue fighting, are an exception. Taiji, too, as you point out is an exception, and one in which its subtleties are so obscure and internal that once mastered it disappears from the surface.
I totally agree with you that it is an educational pleasure to see Su so explicitly reveal the whole body linkages that lead to his power. And to see him move through these postures in such deep stances! My key point was that his students in Japan magnified this back to him so the forms became exagerations.
9 tim // Feb 5, 2007 at 1:07 am
Chris,
Thanks your posts are very informative. I was just talking with a law enforcement officer about the differences between pseudo-predatory and affective violence. He was talkign about the challenges he faces in a corrections setting– there’s inmate posturing-violence , then there’s the guys who ambush the guards during a pat down or transport. Totally different.
A question about Hong Yixiang and his Tang Shou Dao– how much of the throwing etc was judo bsaed, and how much was shuai jiao? I seem to remember reading that he and his brothers had practiced judo as young men.
Would it be fair to say that the Shaolin/bagua/xingyi/taiji phases of the training were each designed to strengthen a particular range of motion ?
10 Chris Bates // Feb 6, 2007 at 12:02 pm
Your friend in corrections should have their training supervisor contact Ellis Amdur. He is well known in these circles for the training he provides to law enforcement, correctional and mental health professionals in dealing with violent behavior.
his website is http://www.ellisamdur.com/
11 tim // Feb 8, 2007 at 11:12 am
Chris,
Thanks for the info.
12 chessman71 // Feb 8, 2007 at 1:19 pm
I noticed from his website that Ellis Armdur is now training BGZ and xingyi. very interesting.
13 Chris Bates // Feb 8, 2007 at 8:02 pm
Hong Throwing Methods - Hong told me that he felt the circulation in his legs had been damaged by the judo he trained when conscripted into the Japanese military during WWII. As for the derivation of the throws he used, I never got the impression they came from either judo or shuai jiao. They were built in tripping sweeping and throwing methods that follow from the bridging and off balancing inherent in his methods.
I trained deeply with Kao Fang-hsien before he passed on and I joined Hong. He was a champion wrestler and greaduate and instructor at teh Qingdao Kuo Shu academy. His throwing interpretations int he forms he taught me were clearly influenced by shuai jiao.
14 chessman71 // Feb 8, 2007 at 8:28 pm
Chris,
You trained with General Kao? Wow! I was just about to write a post about him and Sun Bing Quan.
I would love to buy you a cup of coffee sometime and chat, BTW. Can I reach you at the email address you posted over at Empty Flower?
15 ghettoracer // Feb 22, 2007 at 5:31 am
Umm, I will have to double check with Mr. SU but, it is correct that Hong Yi-xiang is his first teacher. But he has learn from several other masters. I don’t think he learn all of it from Hong Yi-xiang. If anything, Hong Yi-xiang was simply the first teacher. Hong Yi-xiang is Mr. SU’s dad’s “brother”. I don’t know how you say it, bai-bah-tsu. Meaning they were not born brothers, but they made vows to the heaven and earth to become brothers.
16 ghettoracer // Feb 22, 2007 at 5:32 am
“I don’t know how you say it, “bai-bah-tsi”.” What I meant was, I don’t know if there is such a word for bai-bah-tsi brothers in English.
17 chessman71 // Feb 22, 2007 at 12:36 pm
All of Su’s material is grounded in what he learned from Hong. Al of the forms in the clip I posted on youtube come from Hong. If you had spent years learning that material as many of us have, you would know that.
I see you drawing lots of conclusions both here and over at EF that, frankly speaking, you aren’t qualified to do after TALKING with Su laoshi for a few days. An empty cup will go a long way.
18 A martial art must be effective against any opponent." « Taiji.quest.ion // Apr 19, 2007 at 10:33 pm
[...] http://formosaneijia.com/2007/su-dong-chen/ [...]
19 alain // Jul 2, 2007 at 4:59 pm
Hi, who has really worked with SU ? I just saw him during his next stage in Paris, last week, but i worked for 4 years with one of his students, Philippe Grange in Bordeaux (France) It’s an exceptionnal method of training, not based on technics but on principles, exercices etc. wich allows you to progress very fast. And it’s never finished…
20 Mike // Oct 20, 2008 at 1:50 am
Hello everybody,
MASTER SU DONG CHEN is back .
France Seminar from 8th november to 11th november in MARSEILLE.
So book your plane ticket right away….
for more information about the event: http://www.naikaken.fr
21 JonQ // Oct 23, 2008 at 2:20 am
Hi guys, well I am Jon Q. Master Su lived with me and my father for good year or more. My Dad was helping him to get his paperwork together so maybe he can stay here. In return he taught me the a lot of his Art. This is probably 6 to 7 years back now. I have not seen him since he went back to Japan, and I’m not sure if he’s coming back. I know Master Su personally but unfortunately I do not speak Chinese or Japanese. My father is the one who translated a lot for me. If anyone can let me know where he is now, like an address or phone # to reach him please contact me. Most everything on these postings are correct about Master Su. I have not learned to much of his past teachers or anything like that. Back then all I was concerned about was “does it really work?” and Yes it does. His strategy is amazing. I have not seen him for years can someone please contact me. Thanks
22 JonQ // Oct 23, 2008 at 2:24 am
hey alain,
If your looking for someone to teach principle and show you how to even practice these principles, Master Su is your man. If you really want to learn something, I suggest you take a translator with you. Master Su is a very down to earth person. Very funny too.
23 Abi Moriya // Nov 8, 2008 at 12:15 am
Hi all
I had the plessure of training with Su a few times, both in Israel and Japan. I would like to share my feeling from a conversation we had in Tokyo. Su gave an exellent analysise of the martial arts (to my surprise in English). I wish he would share his theories’ not only his fighting skills.
Next year ; 2009, we will host both Luo De-Xiu and Su Dong-Chen in Israel, so we”ll have a small reunion of Tang Shou Tao…
All the best,
Abi Moriya, classmate of Chris at Hong’s class in the 80’s…
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