Little Nine Heaven

isn’t little nine heaven one of the names that people claim taijiquan used to go by? along with “soft boxing” and “cotton boxing”?

for info in english try http://www.xisuigong.com
this is the web site of master carl kao he was a senior student of master chiao chang hung

Samson,
No, I’ve never found a trace of splashing hands, nor do I expect to. Needless to say, I don’t believe that it was ever learned here, despite the origin story. I’m personally convinced the art is Polynesian in origin and was further developed by Lefiti. Regardless of its origins, it looks great. I mean that.

Chiao was fairly widely known by many people back at that time. But he seems to have taught few. The few that he did teach seem to have taught few in return.

The TSD groups of Hung and Hsu are almost completely dead. There is only one branch of the Hsu school open and none from Hung. The people I talked to had no info on Chiao.

Hey Dave

Re. Chiao, I am fairly certain he was the source originally of the shi suei nei going that Hsu Hong Xi was infamous for. He taught this system of nei gong to numerous people including the Hong brothers. He was a great friend of Chen Panling and the Taiji he practiced personally was CPL’s. In addition to L9H he was also a master of XY and Bagua as well as some northern style heavy on qinna (don’t remember the style). He did not regard L9H as the best of the systems he taught, rather he thought he owed the system the duty of preserving it, because this is where he learned the nei gong from - and indeed, some parts of L9H only make sense if you consider the special iron shirt that the nei gong developed (ie. the 18 Ground Maneuvers). Chiao was one of Hsu’s more influential teachers (not martially though, rather in nei gong and Daoist “bedchamber” arts). McNeil was Hsu’s only american student to attend the funeral, and this is what caused Chiao to accept him as a student. L9H is an interesting system, I don’t know everything about it but have seen plenty of it. It is fairly modular like Xing Yi.

Re. Splashing Hands: I think Tiny (Lefitti) learned something from some southern system in Taiwan and superimposed his stuff on it. He later added forms from southern systems, learned from Ark Wei Wong, his teacher in the US. It should also be said that Tiny was close to the original circles of Hawaian Kempo, and that Splashing Hands has some similarities to the original sets of techniques. I too heard the story from both Sifu McNeil and from one of his senior students (Jim Doty) that Chiao had recognized the system at a public presentation that McNeil’s students put together for him. So, who knows?

I am fairly certain that Chiao was one of the most influential MA’s in Taiwan in his days, as he moved close to the circles of the most well known teachers, taught and learned from most of them, and put a lot of them together. I would love to have more info in english on him.

(caveat: I am student of Sifu McNeil)

Interesting - I guess there wouldn’t be any practitioners of this style on the mainland - but are there references to this style in old texts, perhaps?

I wonder what this style looks like - any videos out there?

Also, what is xisuigong exactly? From my rudimentary Chinese, I think that it is hanging weights from the testicles? I guess that this would good for the health and power then?

I read somehwere on a message board several messages by another student of Lefiti who clearly said that it was Polynesian in origin. My guess is in line with what you guys have said here. Lefiti combined his native arts with stuff he learned both here in Taiwan and later with Ark Wong.

The fact that it likely isn’t some long-lost system done by shaolin guards then learned whole here in Taiwan isn’t a slight against the system. Instead, I see it’s probable origin as a sign of Lefiti’s martial genius.

IMO, he put that awesome system together himself. Just because it isn’t ancient doesn’t mean it isn’t good.

I appreciate the info on Chiao. I’ve looked at the websites given many times. Thanks for those. My interest now is in tracking down some remnants of L9H and the neigong. As you can tell from the above, at least one teacher is still teaching L9H here in Taiwan and there are at least one book and video available of Chiao. If I get my hands on those, I’ll try to post some pics.

BTW, I don’t know if you guys saw this or not. Qiao is in this picture with his friends:
http://formosaneijia.com/2007/a-meeting-of-the-masters/

It’s pretty much a who’s who of Taiwan IMA.

Enjoy.

the fighting system has two parts, 17 animal forms and 18 ground techniques. the 17 animals are more like bagua. they are practiced individualy. the ground techniques are wrestling and takedowns. in addition to the boxing, xiaojiutian also makes use of a specialized sword style consisting of 5 basic techniques. adding the xisuigong gives the complete system. the system is very practical and combat oriented with no showy forms. it has similar energies as xing i and bagua. two person practice is the primary mode of training with both boxing and sword.
(i’m a 35th generation disciple of xiao jiu tian under master kao)

grand master chaio always insisted that his xisuigong was of pure taoist origin. i’ve seen some exercise sets called xisuijing of shaolin origin but they were very different from grandmaster chaio’s version. although the san ching temple were master chaio learned xiaojiutian is on yiwulu mountain in liaoneng, this mountain has over 100 temples both buddhist and taoist so there could be alot of cross training and termanology.

Ed,
Not to upset anyone, but I wouldn’t get too excited about any of CMA’a so-called “ground techniques.” They don’t tend to be what people nowadays would consider to be effective ground grappling.

Times and needs change.

The 18 Ground Maneuvers are (mostly) counter throwing or counter grappling methods, but they are generally applied as you fall, so they also include lots of falling techniques - and it generally helps to have trained the Iron Shirt stuff before you practice this!

My teacher (James McNeil, a brother of Carl Kao uner Chiao) told me that the only time EVER that Pan Win Chow (his Chen Taiji teacher) had gone easy on him and not required him to do his most when doing the form was on the day after the first day that Chiao taught him 18 Ground Maneuvers… on hard cement! As he says, he was hurting from every inch of his body.

The Animal Forms are Forms in the same sense that Xingyi Animal Forms are, that is, they are very short, containing 1-3 moves or so, sometimes only one simple, fast move, as in Dog. They are drilled separately for power and competence, trained in partnership for applications skill, and then they are also done on a circle, sequentially for the flow.

Also, the sword is somewhat different from the standard Jian. It’s a large straight, two handed sword, sort of like a Da Jian, less pointy, and with a part of the blade near the handle being “wavy” (and bloody heavy, too). Chiao’s way of telling one of his students that he was now certified to teach was to have one of these swords made for the student after the one he owned.

Apparently, 10 people were certified to teach it, two of them are in the US: Carl Kao and James McNeil. It would be interesting to track down the others.

Samson, one of the things my teacher told me is that when Tiny came back to the US he got a letter from his teacher, telling him that Ark was the only person knowing the system in the US and he should continue learning from him. The fact is that at least the one long form I learned (Splashing Hands has quite a feew short forms, and 5 long forms), called Small Cross Combination, was taught by Ar and comes from some southern systemk. I have NO doubt about it because I have seen Ark doing it on video (you can find the video somewhere in Youtube). The “Combination” part, though, is not shown by Ark and is apparently the “hidden” or secret part of the form (and essentially consists of doing the usual wushu movemenys, large and ample and very cirulcar at moderate to fast speed, as fast as you can while compacting them and changing the footwork into something that resembles the drills of Splashing Hands… and what might come out in an actual fight under pressure).

I don’t discount the possibility that SH existed as a legitimate old system. But I am sure that even if this was the case Tiny adpted forms he learned from Ark too SH, and did a lot of work on the system. The part about Chiao recognizing it is quite intriguing, though.

Having said this, SH is a great systm and I believe it actually can do what it is said, mythically, to be able to do: teach a crash course of effective techniques in a relatively short space of time.

Best

Umm…no. That’s anshenpao from the HeBei xingyiquan system that Zhang Zhung-feng brought to Taiwan. Yes, obviously it has small shuffle steps, all xingyiquan does.

You do know that this is the Zhang Zhun-feng of Gao style baguazhang fame, right? He taught Hong Yi-xiang and others.

Sorry, but no splashing hands here.

One of the reasons that Sifu James McNeil teaches the basic curriculum of SH to all his XY students is that SH looks like XY speeded up. It doesn’t have the root or structure, but it definitely has the footwork, and the fact that SH insists on relaxation especially in the arms and shoulders makes it a good match for a complementary art to XY. That and the fact it has such a short and modular curriculum (like XY). They fit well together.

Best

It’s too bad that you can’t read Chinese, because that’s exactly what I link to above, in Chinese of course.

His book is long out of print, but I’m tracking it down. The above shows the locations of it so far. His video is with a qigong research group. The only I don’t have it yet is that it’s about US$75. And it’s VHS.

But I’ll likely get it eventually. Naturally, I’ll let everyone know if I do. Stay tuned.

Try cutting and pasting the URL’s I provide above into your browser. You’ll have to find someone that speaks Chinese to help you from there. Some of those webpages are long and complex. You might try to paste the Chinese characters for Chiao’s name in your Google toolbar and use the highlight function on that page. That should help you find where on the page his name is.

Good luck.

just found this post.
i think it should be pointed out that carl gou was the best of hsu hong chi,s ba kua students.

You may have forgotten to read some of these posts… I am your kungfu brother and ECoughlin your kungfu cousin, and we probably have been training for longer than you think, so some humility and respect would be advised. Also, you might learn to write your Master’s name correctly. It is McNeil, not McNeal or McNeail.

Little Nine Heaven may very well be the oldest Daoist system around, but the truth is that we had only one man’s word for it, Grandmaster Chiao. He may have been telling the truth from his perspective, but also, the fact is that even he lost total contact with his teachers and the lineage, the temp+le had been abandoned after the War. So we don’t have much to go on, and there is ZERO outside confirmation of the information he supplied. I don’t practice L9H, but I am of the opinion it si probably an old system - the flavour is old. But we can only believe, we have no proof. Saying “I think that…” rather than “It is so!” is not a mark of disrespect, it is a mark of humility and intelligence.

Finally, if you are so close to Master McNeil, then you know he thinks very well of Splashing Hands and still teaches it to most of his students. Why are you dissing the system? It is great and it is very practical. It doesn’t have to be this or that, you can have both. The fact that Xingyi is probably a more sophisticated system than L9H (my opinion, of course) doesn’t take away from L9H. And the fact that L9H is probably more sophisticated than SH does not invalidate SH.

I also care, you don’t have a monopoly. You may also have noticed that I post under my true name, unlike you, so you can simply ask Sifu about me.

Best regards
José de Freitas
Portugal

I have been a student of Lao tzu McNeil for 28 years. I met Master Chaio twice, once in Taiwan, once when he was training Lao Tzu here in the states. If anyone knows the true origin of Splashing Hands it is him. He is the one who told us the name of the system and the origin. It was called Tiny’s style when I learned it and Tiny called it Haumea Lefitis’ street fighting kung fu. As far as I am concerned, I believe Master Chaio. I am also one of very few people who actually learned the L9H system from Lao Tzu McNeil and continue to train with Lao Tzu today. I just got home from his house. I was searching the net for info on Master Chaio and saw this site. For the most part I think these forums are verbal jerking off using time you guys should be training, but I couldn’t let this go without comment from someone who is informed. Also Hsu Hung Chi’s BaGua was something made up by some Austrailian guy and is not an original system, unlike Master Chaio’s style which can be traced in a direct lineage. I also learned and practice this Dragon style BaGua with Lao Tzu, all the animals not just walking the circle and one animal done incorrectly like some people out there claiming they know it. All I got to say further is watch out who you believe and what they claim. Also learning a form and being able to apply it against someone really trying to kick your ass and kill you are two very different things.

As I keep reading this stuff I cannot believe the “knowledge” you guys have. Wow! Jose from Portugal, I think I met you down at the school in Rainbow. For a guy who doesn’t know L9H, for you to say that L9H is not as “sophisticated” whatever that means, as Hsing-I is ridiculous. Hsing-I is an awesome style and the first one that my brother and I learned when we started with Lao Tzu McNeil back in 1980. But the fact of the matter is there is a reason why I practice L9H, BaGua and Chen Tai chi every day and Hsing-I, Splashing Hands and Tzu Men Chen twice a week. Tai chi because it is the Ultimate and benifits every other style, and L9H and Dragon BaGua because nothing else generates power from a short distance and I mean no distance necessary, like these bad ass styles. I have been in many real fights and I am lucky to still be alive. I know what it takes to win and these styles have it. The techniques in L9H especially are the most brutal, yet elegantly simple I have ever seen and my brother and I went to many, many schools before we settled on Lao Tzu McNeil. I lost my way and was temporarily distracted for a few years but I am back with a vengeance and will never quit again. He is the man and no matter what anyone says about him he saved my life from involvement with gangs and drugs. I will defend him and the systems he teaches against anyone and their bullshit. Most of his detractors are people who either never met him or backed out of challenging him, lucky for them. There is a reason why Master Chaio offered to make him his successor and gave him the L9H sword. If you want to go beyond and transcend space and time go to him and not some guy who learned the basics at a “blackbelt” course.

If you read this Bill Brizendine, email me. It has been a long time, dude.

I am a student of Sifu McNeil’s, and I just wanted to say great stuff guys. I am really glad someone is doing some research in this arena with an unclouded perspective. Keep up the good work!

James,
Good luck with the school. It sounds like an interesting curriculum. I would suggest that you post this material over on the teacher request forum at rumsoakedfist.com

Let us know how it goes.

James,
Yes, he is a little eccentric but he also seems very interesting and I’m valuing that more and more as I get older myself.

Let me know if you get a website up and running and I’ll add you to my links page. Take care.