Liuhebafa's Origin Story

The person who came up with the martial system I am training in was trained in Liuhebafa. I unfortunately never met him, though I did at one point have opportunity to do so; I was told that he did see me, at least in video form - he watched me doing some push-hands with the one who is teaching me now, a student of his. 

Just now I found this article reprinting an interview with Wai Lun Choi, who is the recognized lineage holder of the art. The interview probably was in Chinese, I would not have understood what was being said if it weren't for Mr. Troy who I'm guessing is the one who did the translation.

The part I found most interesting was the story of how LHBF came to be. Now obviously the veracity of the claim is suspect; it was common practice back then for martial schools to connect their practice with some famous personage for added legitimacy and prestige. And learning from long-forgotten writings is a tired trope - just look at every work out there in the wuxia genre and you can't help but be jaded.

But that Chen Hsi I, the founder of this old and storied style, failed the civil service examinations; examinations which, and here I quote the interview, were "the route to employment in the Confucian bureaucracy." And which there were no do-overs, apparently. This Chen Hsi I who could have lived a life of comfort decided to of all things be a recluse stuck in a cold mountain with the barest of necessities.

Were it not for his writings being discovered some time later, we would not have this system now. Imagine if his papers had somehow become nest to termites; or if a fire had broken out; or if someone had used them to wipe his ass after he took a shit. So many things that could have gone wrong, didn't.

I wonder also if Chen Hsi I did not really intend to teach his style. Was he too old by the time he had completed it? Or was he too afraid of failing again? If it were me, I would have been terrified. I would not have left the door of my room.

If he had wanted to teach, but could not, did he feel like all his study in the end was for naught? Maybe he felt himself a failure twice over, for not even leaving anything behind in the world?

My teacher's teacher, he saw what he taught being transmitted, however inefficiently. He passed with the knowledge that the thing he loved is going to live on.