Cai’s Quan in Zhongshan City
    The traditional Zhongshan Cai's Quan was one of the five famous Quan schools in Guangdong within the period of the Republic of China(1912-1949)(The five Quan schools include: Hong’s Quang, Liu’s, Cai’s, Li’s and Mo’s). Though Cai’s Quan has been spreading over China more and more narrowly day by day, it is still practiced popularly in Zhongshan City, Guangdong Province.
    Many weapons of Cai's Quan have still been kept nowadays. Most of its successors are still trying their best to pass down the Quan and, keep on with the variety of the Quan as a special kind of Chinese traditional Kung-fu though they are all busy in their working.
     The fighting with cudgels in Cai's Quan is a part of its weapon practicing. In this issue, we would like to first introduce some of its weapon training. Its characteristics, experiences of the Quan successors and other detailed information will be issued in succession.

Application of Eight Techniques & Five Elements in Wu’s Tai Ji(II)
    The technique of Cai(pulling) is to hold your opponent’s wrist by your hand, or grasp his elbow and pulling it down. The strength of pulling is just the opposite of that of thrusting. Doing pulling technique well is the basic requirement for practicing Qin Na (the skill of capture), which derives from the pulling technique. Therefore, applying pulling technique, concentrate your strength on your ten fingers. Contacting your opponent, you need to exercise the skills of raising, drilling, dropping and turning. (Raising is horizontal, dropping is vertical, raising and drilling are to traverse, dropping and turning are to hit, raising and dropping are in circulation). Clip your opponent's wrist and pull it down swiftly and accurately. Thus, it is hard for your opponent to avoid your attacking in confronting. This is to make his force against himself.
    In practicing, you should stand straight in front of your opponent with both your hands across on each other Practice Tui Shou (pushing hands) repeatedly for three times applying the methods of warding off, moving leftward and rightward, thrusting and pressing. Step on with your fight foot rightward for half a pace, have your left foot backing for a step. Lower your left waist and crotch. Have your left hand holding onto your opponent's wrist while you are circumvolving your right arm handing with the skills of moving and pulling, and then squat down your body. Playing pulling technique, keep your body straight and balanced and have your waist sinking down with your chest held open and your back straight. Meanwhile, have your shoulder relaxed and your elbows holding down. Hold your Qi down in your Dan Tian (an acupoint located in your navel). Sent off pulling strength quickly, suddenly, and variably.
The technique of swing is a movement of handing outward in circumvolving in practicing Tai Ji Quan. It is to retroactively spin being a very important skill. No matter what movement your opponent would do, you can adopt it in defending your face, chest, or both sides of your body. Applying such method emphasizes both lightness and messiness. You should change your minding and moving accordingly between actual movements and the emptiness agilely. Using the center of your palm as an axis, stick your opponent's arm or shoulder and twist your arm to let your opponent lose his balance.
The detailed operation is as follows: while your opponent is pulled, he will attempt to melt your attacking force and try to lean against you. You should first relax your chest to melt his leaning force. Then circumvolve your arm to grasp his arm under his armpit with the other hand pressing on his crotch. You should be agile and brave sending your force out from the humerus of your arm, revolving your palm to move on with a complete strength swiftly and skillfully.
    The technique in elbowing is considered to be the most dreadful and evil one among the eight techniques. As the terms describes," at far distance, handing are the most functional weapon; while at a close distance, efficient attacking is with your elbow". You should be acting quickly and powerfully in applying elbow technique. Doing elbowing will be efficient only in a shorter distance between you two than using handing but getting more sudden and fast in violence indeed. Elbowing technique includes lifting-elbow, hanging-elbow, holding-elbow, rolling-elbow, press-chest elbowing and hitting-rib elbowing etc. If your opponent moves leftward or rightward, you may use elbowing counter-attacking him. In taking Tui Shou (pushing hands), you could separate his hands and, hit his chest or other parts by your elbow.
    The detailed operation is as follows: while your opponent is swung in an inferior position, he is intending to relax his shoulders, sway his right arm twisted upward, and draw back his right waist and crotch to attack the middle part of your body. You should grasp his arm, hold his wrist, sink your waist down and hit his chest by your elbow. Keep neither too close nor too adhesive. When you two have been touched, make your elbowing suddenly in violence letting him get unexpected.
    The technique of leaning to lean against your opponent's chest by you shoulders in a quite close distance.
The detailed operation is as follows: use your elbow hitting his chest. He would intend to round his chest and circumvolve his left arm to melt your attacking force. You should step forward entering into his space between his feet, hold your arm upward with one arm leaning at his shoulder or chest and the other one pressing on his abdomen. Applying this method, you should get it as swift, sudden and violent as thunders and lightning. Only when you doing well in leaning with your shoulder, quivering with your waist, hitting with your crotch and stepping with your feet, with sudden and powerful attacking, can you do this posture efficiently.
    As it is said by my great master:
    Lean with your shoulder and chest would be quite sudden and violent, Lean and hit by crotch and knee will be very useful. Forward or back off depends on your actual situation and reaction, be smart to adopt measure, There's no worry if your opponent is probably skillful.
Each of the eight techniques is to practice the movements of your upper body. Keeping skillfully practiced, you will have the circulation of the eight kinds of your strength ceaseless with inter-locking associations. Each kind of your strength together with the countermeasure movement responded can be applied and reflected in the practice of Tui Shou (pushing hands). Master Wang Zongyue ever said, "Practicing the Quan day by day for years, you will get understanding your strength being much more skillful, and then enter the supreme stage of applying freely and naturally". This is to explain that, in order to comprehend the strength of yours and your opponent' well, one need to be skillful in controlling the knowledge of concerned Quan rules and principles and reaching an advanced stage in playing Tai Ji.
    "Wu Xing" (five basic elements as metal, wood, water, fire and ground founding the earth) refers to the movements of the lower part of your body in fighting. It is named, "moving forward, stepping backward, noticing leftward, watching rightward and firming yourself steady at the center". Only when the footwork is agile, can your body be the same. With your agile body, the exertion of the eight techniques done by your upper body can bring its function well into playing the Quan. Thus, Wu's Tai Ji Quandemands "keeping your body stands up-ward straight, with your forces supported from eight directions". When you are stepping forward, your moving foot should be sticking on the outer side of your opponent's front foot to control his next movement. Have your third stepping forward sticking at the space between his feet under his crotch forcefully. Your footwork need to be performed forward or backward in a straight line. The same is with the moving to the left or to the fight. When you are fully familiar with your footwork, you can change the directions and sequences in stepping completely at your will either forward or backward with all the exertions of warding off, moving leftward and rightward, thrusting, pressing, pulling, swinging, elbowing and leaning with your hands, arms, elbows, shoulders and body. Exert them by your intentions with your minding focused, and your breathing natural. Send your strength out from your inner spirit enabling your hand movements to be swift and rapid so that it will be quite hard for your opponent to melt your attacking force as well.
    The "eight techniques" and "five elements" are to master the attacking methods through Tui Shou and Ting Jin (use the mind to feel his forces and his Qi) directly applying them in practical actual combating.

Application of Chen Fa’Ke’s & Wang Ziying’s Tai Ji Quan(Ò»)
    The technique of "Chan Fa" (method in twisting) in Chen Fa'ke style Tai Ji Quan could be seen clearly in some of its movements whatever. In doing "Liu (six) Feng (to block) Si (four) Bi (to close)", you should emphasize practicing twisting technique in different circumstances with any or all processes of your defense-attack or attack-defense. Apply the twisting technique of your body as well as your hands, arms and legs. Practicing these movements, you would train your agile reaction and huge speed. You will know well how to apply twisting technique to exert your forces correctly attacking your opponent in various actual situations. As for its last attacking movement named "Feng Bi" (completely closing), if you could apply it to the point, it is very fierce and getting able to hurt the opponent badly. When Chen Fa'ke taught me these movements, he practiced in a very powerful and vigorous way scaring me heavily then.
    Nowadays many people have practiced these movements in performing forms for the purpose to have them healthy. It is another kind of practicing, but it should not be regarded as Kung-fu practicing method passed down by Chen Fa'ke.
    In Actual fighting, when my opponent is attacking my chest with his left fist, I will turn my waist leftward slightly and twist his left wrist with my left hand while my right hand grasp the back of his left elbow. I will keep turning my waist leftward and pull his left arm out with my left hand moving downward, outward and upward. Meanwhile, I will grind his elbow downward and forward with my right hand, which makes his left rib totally expose to me. Then I attack his left ribs horizontally with my right hand in the front and, left hand covering my right wrist.
                                   

Analysis of Strength & Force in Playing Shao Lin Barehanded Quan
    Under the instruction of my teacher, Master Zhu Tianxi, in practicing martial arts for many years, I have developed some personal comprehensions in managing strength and forces in playing Shao Lin Barehanded Quan as well.
    Shao Lin Barehanded Quan includes any or all free attacking movements being simple and applicable to actual combat either in attacking or defending. You should practice them as Quan Da Yi Tiao Xian (hitting in a straight line) since the shortest and faster way for hitting your rival violently to win him should be a beeline in an actual combat.
     Practicing the Quan, I was taught usually in comparing the Quan moving in a circle for defending by Hua Jin (melding or neutralizing the hitting sent by my rival) and a straight line for counterattacking (a swift hitting). These two are the essentials of Shao Lin Quan indeed. Many people may mistake it only as a kind of Wai Jia Quan (external forms of martial arts). That is not quite tree in fact Practicing and playing Shao Lin Quan, you are required to move swiftly and to hit violently but still put much emphasis on your internal aspects in combining your motions with stillness, your hardness with softness, and, slowness with swiftness. You could hit either hardly as striking a bronze bell or softly as puffing some cotton, either swiftly as storming a tempest or slowly as an old monk dragging with his crutch. In actual fighting, you should hit in hardness before your rival is attacking but in softness after he is sending his force with your strength and force sent out and thrown back flexibly. Your arms should be bent and rolled inward and outward freely but neither absolutely bent nor absolutely straight. "Your body and arms should be moved both in rolling" without any clumsy stiffness. Your fist can be moved in rolling like a spiraling aiguille to attack your rival more powerfully, and your body moving so could neutralize the coming attacking as a rolling ball does.
     There is a most important but controversial saying in the scripture of Shao Lin Quan that the Quan movements should be "neither absolutely bent nor absolutely straight". Most people have commonly misunderstood the saying as to attack with your arms bent fixedly throughout the Quan practice. However, there is another saying, "an inch longer, the more powerful, and an inch closer, the more dangerous". As my teacher explained it to the point, "neither absolutely bent" means being probably straight, and "nor absolutely straight", nearly bent. The two aspects reveal the main essence of Chinese traditional Kung-fu, in that one's internal strength is displayed in practice and actual combat by stretching, closing, seizing, and relieving. This is indeed a flexible process in which one's internal strength could be delivered with his muscles stretching or withdrawing with intent. I have a deep comprehension in feeling the so-called integral energy sent by Master Zhu in combat. Training us for ages, Master Zhu usually explained and demonstrated the main application of every Quan movement or posture. Once when he explained the application of Lun Pi Kao Shan (split with firmness) in playing Shao Lin Barehanded Boxing, he split together with wrapping and locking in a momentum followed by his delivering of internal strength like an intangible iron wall rushing head-on being so powerful that it could horizontally hurl away anyone running into it. Such is the application of his integral strength as well. It is supposed to be a clear goal that many Kung-fu practitioners have striven so hard to achieve. In fact it needs a lot of power training and close coordination between each movement and each part of your body. As that strength is rooted from your feet stuck onto the ground, the practice of your footwork is of great importance. In the Shao Lin boxing formula, it reads that "your strength is sent by forcing the ground with your feet with your body shivering in a flash." It mirrors Master Zhu's internal strength in playing Kao Shan as mentioned above.
     As implied in a humorous saying that "footwork had better not be taught in Quan or the teacher would get defeated", the importance of footwork could be seen in the application of one's strength in playing Kung-fu while every Quan master emphasizes the training of footwork in his own way. In playing Shao Lin Quan, you are required to learn twenty four sets of spring kicking techniques, each of them contains certain linking or transitional movements, such as holding up or shoveling, twisting or turning, wrapping or coiling. All the movements are closely linked, coordinating delicately with different part of your body in deliberate striking methods. In actual combating, your footwork should be kept agile and steady. You should keep the centre of your gravity stable in attacking. Discharge inner strength with your body uptight, press down with your foot to strengthen the attacking power. Have your Quan movements agile and flexible in defending. You can roll your body to neutralize the attacking sent by your rival then counterattack him swiftly. When you have to with-draw in lowering your body, you should turn sideward to him, so as to reduce the possible attacked area and to get better defend or attack. Though your movements are normally varied in various practicing ways, the main principle would be the same.
     The Quan scripture emphasizes the following elements in Kung-fu: strength, agility, looseness, integrality, firmness, softness, restraint, effect and spirit. To master these techniques and to send your internal strength freely with intent, you have to achieve the three harmonies of internal and external parts while three external harmonies refer to "your shoulders should be coordinating with your hips, your elbows, with your knees and your hands, with your feet". As your intent is usually connected to your heart in Shao Lin Quan scripture, the words usually read "your courage comes from the beats of the heart", "when your heart is beating, your breath will flow to the four sensational ends, and your internal strength will be sent out then" and "your body moves with your heart". Therefore, the three internal harmonies actually refer to "your heart should be harmonizing with your intention, your intention, with your Qi or your vital energy, and your Qi, with your strength". The Quan scripture says that "the boxing methods are carded out to your fists while your strength, to breathing. In breathing training, you should exhale to deliver your breath and inhale to receive it. Your breathing would be delivered slowly and applied swiftly. Exercise your breathing before you send out your strength." Actually it stresses the integration of your intention and your movements in combating and routine training.
     Based on actual combat, all the movements of Shan Lin Quan are simple and natural without any extra adorned postures attached, and each movement could be applied directly to actual combat. It is also profound in its connotation with its simplicity and practicalness. Its uniqueness is rooted from the long-term survival struggle and actual practices by our predecessors as well as the Chinese traditional culture. Indeed Shao Lin Barehanded Quan for combating could be praised as an exquisite miracle in the Kung-fu circle.