Cai Mao
Legendary figureLegendary knight from Mount Hua in Shaanxi province, whom Chinese tradition regards as the founder of the Shandong style Huaquan (Blossom Fist).
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Cai Mao is a legendary figure whom Chinese tradition regards as the founder of the Shandong style Huaquan (Blossom Fist). According to tradition, he was a knight from Mount Hua in Shaanxi province, famed for his martial prowess and swordsmanship, who lived under the Tang emperor Xuanzong (712–756). According to tradition, he killed a nobleman from Chang'an and then had to hide from his family's vengeance.
Tradition also places the origin of the style in the era of the Liu Song dynasty. We have not been able to verify either of these dates; we have found no verified biographical data about Cai Mao himself.
According to the source, the style was developed by his descendants Cai Tai and Cai Gang, about 400 years later at public contests in Jining in Shandong province. It was set down in writing by Cai Wanzhi of Jining in a work known under the English title Secrets of Huaquan, in which he based the system on shen (spirit), qi (inner energy) and jing (inner strength). The source places him in the Jiaqing era of the Ming dynasty, but an era of that name is usually assigned to the Qing dynasty, so his dating is uncertain. Traditional Huaquan has 48 hand forms, along with grappling and joint-lock techniques and weapons work.
Of the later history of the style, the source mentions Cai Guigin (b. 1877), who settled in Shanghai in the 1920s, and his son Cai Longyun, who in the 1950s collaborated on unified syllabi for sport wushu. The Cantonese style of the same name, Huaquan, makes no mention of Cai Mao and must not be confused with the Shandong one.