"Pu La Xiu Quan "Shandong Fluttering Sleeve Boxing"

Pu La Xiu Quan "Fluttering Sleeve Boxing"*
This style is practiced in Wenshang county in Jining prefecture Shandong.
The contents of Wenshang Pula Boxing include Big Frame Boxing in 6 roads, Small Frame Boxing, Tongbei Hammers, 4-6 Hammers, 8 Postures / 8 Section Breakdown. Weapons routines include Crescent Moon Spade, Double Crutches, Sword, Spear, Saber, Halberd, Guandao, Three Section Staff, and Flail.
This system went by a number of names around rural Jining, aside from the name of Fluttering Dragging Sleeves Boxing it was also called this such as Long Sleeves Boxing, Six Row Frame, Large & Small Frame, Old Well Boxing, Pocket / Hole Boxing, etc.
The origins of this style can be trace as far back as the late 1800's when Zhang Yuchun of Ai'er Stronghold in Bachalu town in then Linqing prefecture, (Bachalu is today just barely over the modern Shandong border in Guantao county Hebei) obtained his martial skills from the Abbot of Huguo Temple in Beijing (Huguo was one of the 4 largest and most prominent Buddhist temples in Beijing). Zhang Yuchun passed these methods onto his nephew Zhang Jinxiang and another disciple named Wei Jinfeng.
A few decades later Zhang Jinxiang began to openly instruct students in this boxing method. Among these students was Wang Lidong of what is today Guandi Shrine Village in Wenshang county of Jining prefecture. Returning home Wang became a well known teacher and this style became very popular in Wenshang county and adjacent areas.
Today the system is still preserved among members of the Wang family of Guandi Miao village and can be found scattered around Wenshang county and neighboring areas.
Pula Xiu Quan is directly related to Sun Bin Quan.
Sun Bin Quan descends from Yang Jindong who Sun Bin practitioners claim was a fellow student alongside of Zhang Jinxiang and Wei Jinfeng.
Sunbin Quan practitioners tell a number of different stories about their lineage. This includes using a number of different names for Zhang Yuchun (all of these start with Zhang and end with Chun but disagree on the middle character) and giving different accounts of where he lived (all of which they place in Liaocheng but in different counties or villages). In addition they tell different stories of where he learned his martial arts. These range from just saying that it is not known who he learned from to claiming his martial arts came from Laizhou and trace a couple generations back to the 1860'-1870's to a very old man named She De (bestowing virtue).
But the biggest difference in oral mythology with the lines tracing to Yang Jindong and calling themselves Sun Bin Quan is their claims to be a style tracing back 2400 years to the famous strategist Sun Bin or even further to Sun Wu.
The lineages tracing to Zhang Jinxiang and Wei Jinfeng in contrast only claim the art originates in Beijing's Huguo temple where they said it had been passed for a number of generations before being learned by Zhang.
Sun Bin Quan's forms also differ, however the main techniques are similar with both systems using "large frame" and "small frame" sets as their main forms.
Today lineages tracing back to Zhang Yuchun are found around Shandong and Neighboring areas. In the region of Guantao, Linqing, and Donge counties on the Shandong / Hebei border the style is referred to as Da Jia Quan , Da Xiao Jia Quan , Lao Jing Quan / Old Well Boxing, Hei Quan , and Pula Xiu Quan . In Wenshang county and neighboring parts of Jining the boxing is primarily known as Pula Xiu Quan as well as Chang Xiu Quan and Kulong Quan. Among the Yang Jindong lines in Western Shandong in Qingdao, Weifang, and Zibo it is primarily known as Sun Bin Quan and Chang Xiu Quan.
*The characters Pu and La refer to the flicking outward and pulling back motions respectively of the flapping long sleeves worn by past Chinese civil officials or opera performers.
There are various allusions to long sleeves in the style. It's not known if long sleeves were worn for performance visuals, for fighting, as a type of training component, or if it is simply an analogy meant to give an image of how the arms are to be used.
While very long sleeved garments are iconic they were only worn by the highest level civil officials, dancers, prostitutes, and opera performers. Laws prevented common people from wearing very long or wide sleeves.
Given claims of monastic lineage it could also be a garbled account of the wide sleeves of Buddhist monastic robes.
Commoners, especially in colder northern areas, did wear longer sleeves than normal but these did not extend more than 5-6 inches past the fingers. It is possible that it is referring to this but was later mixed up with the more iconic "water sleeves" of stage actors and dancers.

[@KARATEbyJesse]

Awesome! 🤩 I love these kinds of videos. Keep rocking! 🤘

[@TeaSerpent]

Thanks man, glad you enjoyed it.

[@wayaoh997]

Much Thanks for info. I’ve heard of this but have never
seen it till now. Much appreciated.🙏🏻🙏🏻🙏🏻☯️

[@TeaSerpent]

No problem. I have a couple other videos of it that I'm going to put up in the next day or two showing some of the complete forms.

[@wayaoh997]

@@TeaSerpent 👍👍🙏🏻🙏🏻🙏🏻🤙

[@ambulocetusnatans]

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[@wayaoh997]

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[@markohu]

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