Chen Tuan
Chinese Taoist scholar and hermit from Mount Wudang and Mount Hua, who died in 989; tradition credits him with creating the Liuhebafa (Water Fist) system.
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Chen Tuan was a Chinese scholar and hermit whom tradition credits with creating the Liuhebafa system ("Six Harmonies and Eight Methods"), also known as Water Fist. He died on 25 August 989. Sources give different birth years: some place it between 907 and 960, others give approximately 871. He used the name Tunan and the title Fuyao Zi, and was also known as Old Ancestor Chen Tuan and Ancestor Master Xiyi.
In his youth he failed the imperial civil service examination and became a hermit. He spent about twenty years in seclusion in the Nine Chambers Cave on Mount Wudang, and from 954 he lived on Mount Hua (Huashan), where he also taught.
He mastered the Confucian classics, history, the Book of Changes (Yijing), medicine, astronomy and geography, and taught about the River Map and the Luo River Book. He developed sleeping qigong methods for internal alchemical cultivation and a daoyin method divided into 24 periods of the year, with exercises seated and standing. Emperor Taizong granted him the title Master Xiyi.
According to legend, he predicted his death for the 22nd day of the tenth lunar month of 988, and after death his facial features remained unchanged, even though his face rested against his palm.