Zhai Men, Shackled Boxing of Hubei Province

Chuan Lian "Linking" boxing set of the Zhai Men school of Jingzhou prefecture.
According to oral tradition this school was founded in the last years of the Qing dynasty.
It is said that two skilled martial artists, Chen Yimin and Li Benjiang, had met in a prison in central China* Both these men had practiced martial arts their entire lives and finding themselves imprisoned together they decided to spend their days exchanging and refining their skills.
Their arms and legs being shackled constrained their movements which shaped the new art they were creating as well as inspiring it's name**.
Seeing the skills of these two men a guard surnamed Zhang began to treat them with great respect eventually requesting and being accepted as their student.
These three men would practice together in the prison for many years.
Eventually Chan and Li were released and left the area. Having grown weary of worldly living they decided to move into the hills and spend their remaining years as hermits.
At the same time Zhang quite his job as a prison guard. Zhang followed his teachers for a short time before leaving to travel and in order to improve his martial skills.
Eventually he settled in Jingzhou and took on three students Wu Zhinan, Zhu Hanqing, and Zhang Yihe.
Obviously while teaching Zhang who was not shackled and after being freed there was no need to artificially confine their style to only smalll "shackled" movements. So while the art does contain these techniques it is also full of the wide sweeping arm movements typical of many arts practiced in the central Yangtze river valley region.
Later in the 1920's and early 1930's Wu Zhinan and Zhu Hanqing passed on their skills to Wang Gongbing while Zhang Yihe taught Xiong Hanzhou.
both Wang Gongbing and Xiong Hanzhou became famous teachers in Jingzhou's Shashi district and taught many students.
Today Zhai Men is still practiced by their martial descendants in the Jingzhou's Shashi district
*There is a name for the prison but I can't figure out where it is actually located. A lot of place names have changed since the Qing dynasty so it can be very difficult to located things from old accounts. But I think around Changsha in northern Hunan?)
** 窄 Zhai has the meaning of something that is narrow or constrained. Furthermore it also can mean being stuck in a bad situation or being blocked off from escape. So the name Zhai can both be a reference to their imprisonment as well as their movements being physically narrowed and constrained by arm and leg shackles.

[@briannemeth3296]

Beautiful style. Thank you

[@Braindazzled]

Wow! What a performance!

[@fightingcrane5647]

And how miraculously did he manage to free himself from the shackles literally from the very first seconds of his performance?

[@minituremarvels]

Interesting style, thanks for sharing

[@ghostc.t.k.3688]

Amitofu shifu. Stay safe. 🙏🏻 🐍 ☯