少林七星拳- 释永智 shaolin qixingquan- shi yongzhi

Changhuxinyimen Songshan Sect

History:

Founder: Li Jiyu (李际遇), a coal miner turned rebel in the 17th century (late Ming/early Qing Dynasty). Notorious for having led a large peasant revolt. His hometown and sanctuary was in Mogou village in Songshan where he learned the Shaolinquan of Mogou, Shaolin Xiyuanpai (Western Courtyard) separated from Shaolin Monastery at the time for over 100 years (now about 500). He insincerely made "friends" with the Shaolin monks, offering them loads of resources and learned their wugong at Shaolin Monastery Yonghuatang, aka. Nanyuan (Southern Courtyard). Concerned the monks would side with the Emperor, as they did in the past, he planned a massacre in the early 1640's. When they were known to be in prayer (he asked them to gather in the hall to commemorate his birthday), he and his men swept down on them on horseback, entering the hall and killed over 200 of the monks. The peasant uprising was suppressed by officers of General Chen Wangting of Chenjiagou, who was actually cousin to the Li family. This gave opportunity to inspect Shaolin manuals and incorporate them into the corpus that formed Chen Style Taijiquan. It is also said at a time Chen Wangting accompanied Li Jiyu in studying in Yonghuatang, learning 'xuzhuang' (empty stake) and other skills of Xinyiba. This is also around when much of extant Shaolin arts were spread to surrounding villages, such as Ruan village Nanyuan which separated roughly 360 years ago.

Li Jiyu at the time had learned Mogou Xiyuanpai and Shaolin Nanyuanpai wugong and also learned the teachings of Ji Jike (aka. Ji Longfeng) when he visited Shaolin. What Ji Longfeng taught at the time was called Xinyi in Shaolin and incorporated Priest Dong Cheng's Tongbiquan theories as well as Ji Longfeng's newly developed 'rooster style' based on a cockfight he had witnessed.

Later interactions elsewhere with Ji Longfeng and his students led to the development of Xingyiquan/ Xinyi Liuhequan. Back at Shaolin, Li Jiyu took the new Xinyi elements and mixed them with Shaolin Nanyuanpai and Mogou Xiyuanpai styles to create a new sect called Changhuxinyimen (长护心意门), meaning "Constant Protection of the Xinyi (mind & intent) Sect".

Boxing Sets:

This sect's material is generally made from pulling Mogou and Shaolin Monastery sets and adding Xinyi to them, often using rooster, tiger, and snake hand and body methods. Hand shapes include the rooster claw also called 'fengshou' (wind hand) for the splayed fingers, also tiger claw, and 'goushou' (hook hand, like crane's beak) which represents a rooster's head.

The representative boxing set of the Changhuxinyimen is Changhuxinyimenquan, which uses Mogou Xiaohongquan as a template combined with Xinyi (Dong Cheng's Tongbi + rooster) elements. It is a Muzi (mother & son) set with Qixingquan (also called Qixingba), which in other sects is separate and unrelated. The following sets also have non-Changhuxinyimen versions that exist. You will notice much of the same technique set throughout these routines as done in this sect.

1) 长护心意门拳 Changhuxinyimenquan
2) 七星拳 Qixingquan
3) 关东拳 Guandongquan
4) 五型十六法 Wuxingshiliufa
5) 大通臂拳 Datongbiquan
6) 六合拳对练 Liuhequan Duilian