Bajiquan
01 · Historical Records
Yueshan Bajiquan originated in Bo'ai County, Henan Province. It was founded by Canggong, the second abbot of Yueshan Temple, in the 25th year of the Dading era of the Jin dynasty (1185). It spread to the surrounding region in the early years of the Yongle era of the Ming dynasty, and has a history of more than eight hundred years. By the 16th year of the Republic of China (1927), Yueshan Bajiquan had been transmitted through 24 generations of monks.
02 · Core Techniques & Process
Yueshan Bajiquan is simple and plain in movement, fierce and violent in force, and vigorous in bearing; it uses short techniques to defeat long ones, combining offense and defense, with emphasis on practical application.
Monk Canggong and twenty-four generations
Founded in 1185 by the second abbot Canggong, the style passed through twenty-four generations of monks until 1927, an unusually temple-centred lineage.
The temple transmission system
The temple taught the art alongside monastic routine, prizing plain, fierce, practical technique that answers length with shortness.
Ma Liansheng and the Luqiao martial hall
After the temple was destroyed in the war, the lay disciple Ma Liansheng of Luqiao village opened a boxing hall and carried the art into civilian hands.
Power like a snapping bow
The style's power is mainly hard: a release like a snapping bow and quick as lightning, the hallmark of the inheritor Ma Dexing's teaching.
Fierce and close
Plain, powerful movements built for close range, suiting the mountain temple setting in which they were forged.
The inheritor Ma Dexing
Born in Bo'ai in 1946, he has run boxing halls for over fifty years and gathered physical evidence and documents on the Yueshan lineage.
03 · Regional Records & Related Items
Centered on Yueshan Temple in Yueshan Town, Bo'ai County, Yueshan Bajiquan is practiced in the cities and counties of northwestern Henan such as Jiaozuo, Qinyang, Wuzhi, Xiuwu, and Wen County. Together with the Wu-style Bajiquan transmitted in Mengcun, Cangzhou, Hebei, it constitutes one of the two main branches of Bajiquan. Yueshan Temple is a famous Buddhist temple in the Central Plains; its monks combined stance training with close-range striking into one, forming a temple-transmitted style that is fierce and violent, defeats long range with short techniques, and emphasizes practical use. After the temple was destroyed by war, the techniques were preserved by lay disciples around Luqiao Village through folk martial arts halls, and boxing manuals and physical materials survive to this day.
Other submitting regions for the same item: Bajiquan.
04 · Cultural Value & Contemporary Safeguarding
During the War of Resistance against Japan, Yueshan Temple was destroyed by war. Ma Liansheng, a lay disciple of the temple from Luqiao Village, Bo'ai County, opened a Bajiquan martial arts hall in his hometown, where the art has been transmitted to the present day. Rescuing and protecting Yueshan Bajiquan has important reference value for research on the basic lineage of Chinese traditional martial arts development, on the relationship between Chinese martial arts and geopolitics as well as economic and social development, and on the transmission and development of Henan's local culture and Buddhist culture. Although Bajiquan practitioners are now found throughout the country, and even in Britain, the United States, Germany, the Netherlands, Japan, and the countries of Southeast Asia, as veteran masters gradually pass away, many boxing manuals, techniques, and skills are on the verge of being lost, so protection urgently needs to be strengthened. Ma Dexing (from the official archives of the associated inheritor): Male, Han ethnicity, born in August 1946, from Bo'ai County, Henan. The main technical characteristics of the Yueshan Bajiquan he transmits are: at the moment of releasing force, the movement is like a bow breaking loose and as swift as lightning, with hard force as the mainstay. For more than fifty years, he has run martial arts halls successively in Luqiao Village, Baoshan Town, and Qinghua Town to train new practitioners; his disciples are found throughout the world, and he has become a powerful disseminator of Chinese martial arts abroad. Representative inheritor of Bajiquan (Yueshan Bajiquan), a third-batch national-level intangible cultural heritage project. He emphasizes research on history and culture, and has excavated physical materials related to Yueshan Bajiquan from many sources, laying a relatively solid theoretical foundation and historical support for the transmission and protection of Yueshan Bajiquan.
05 · Associated Representative Bearers
Representative bearers recorded under this item, organized by national nomination batch:
- Ma Dexing 03-1212
06 · Authoritative Sources & Bibliography
Sources
China Intangible Cultural Heritage Network (ihchina.cn)
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