Eric Tuttle has been studying Chinese martial arts for more than 50 years. He is a Master-level practitioner and teacher of many internal and external styles, as well as the neigong health systems related to those arts and other individual health systems.
Eric is the lineage holder and the international disciple of the following systems:
Six Harmony XinYiQuan (XinYiLiuHeQuan)
Six Harmony XinYiQuan is the oldest known system of XinYiQuan and is believed to be the original system from which all other styles of XinYiQuan were developed. Eric is an indoor student of the late Grandmaster Yu HuaLong, the head instructor of the Six Harmony, Ten Animal Research Association of Canada, and the first acknowledged non-Chinese XinYiLiuHeQuan master in the history of the art. Grandmaster Yu HuaLong, himself a living treasure of China, trained from a young age originally with Master Chen JinPo, and in the school of Yuan ChangQing, whose teacher Li HaiShen was a martial brother of Mai ZhuangTu. Later, Yu HuaLong became a family disciple of both Yang DianQing and Lu SongGao. Eventually Grandmaster Yu sent Eric Tuttle to train with a senior martial brother in the Mai family and various teachers of Mai family branches in ZhouKou.
Chen Style TaiJiQuan
Chen Style TaiJiQuan is the original system of TaijiQuan from which all other TaiJiQuan styles were developed. Eric is the top foreign student of Grandmaster Ma Hong (disciple of Chen ZhaoKui, the last great Chen master and son of Chen FaKe who is widely recognized as the greatest TaiJiQuan master of the 20th century). Eric has studied different branches of TaiJiQuan for over 50 years, specifically Chen style for over 35 years, and in the mid-1990s he brought the Inner Family form of Chen ZhaoKui to Canada. Having also studied with other teachers of Chen ZhaoKui’s lineage, he is one of the few practitioners in the world who can perform all five of Chen ZhaoKui’s TaiJiQuan forms: YiLu, ErLu (PaoChui), 24 Ancestral Short Fist, 108 Ancestral Long Fist, and 42 FaJin Application Set, and the weapons forms of Chen ZhaoKui Taijiquan.
Eric has also studied other internal martial arts, including:
BaGuaZhang
BaGuaZhang is an internal system based on walking a circle. Eric has studied various systems of Baguazhang including Cheng TingHua Style, Sun LuDang Style, Jiang RongQiao Style, the rare Gu RuZhang baguazhang system, Fu ZhenSong Style, YinFu and Yin YuZhang Styles, and Shi JiDong Style. He has also studied Xie Peiqi’s BaGuaZhang QiGong system. At present Eric mainly concentrates on the Yin YuZhang, Ma Gui, and Shi Styles of Bagua.
LiuHeBaFaQuan and YiQuan
LiuHeBaFaQuan and YiQuan are the youngest of the internal martial arts. LiuHeBaFaQuan was founded by Wu YiHui and YiQuan was founded by Wang XiangZhai, both in the early 20th century. Wang was a young student of the Gao YiSheng school, who went on to research other martial arts and to create the YiQuan system.
LiuHeBaFaQuan’s theory is based partly on XinYiLiuHeQuan, and is also influenced by other styles of Chinese internal martial arts. YiQuan is derived from Five Element XingYiQuan (Hsing I Chuan).
Eric first learned the long form of this LiuHeBaFaQuan system from Tao PingSiang, direct disciple of the system’s founder Wu YiHui. This form was more external than the later ShangHai versions of the system. Eric later received private instruction from Hong Kong lineage-holder, Master Wai Lun Choi, and with students of ShangHai Style Master Liang ZiPing. Most recently, Eric studied in HuaiNan with Wu YiHui’s son, Wu YingHua.
Eric first studied YiQuan standing postures with Master BP Chan. He also studied and helped translate into English Wang XiangZhai’s and Han XingQiao’s YiQuan original 24 standing post postures with lineage student Philip Chan.
Eric has also studied some Internal/External systems, including:
Northern ShaoLin
Eric trained in Gu RuZhang’s system of Northern ShaoLin (Canton and Hong Kong Branch) with Master Kwok Chan, and later with the Wing Lam school. Eric was the first Canadian-born practitioner in Canada to learn all ten Northern ShaoLin Empty Hand forms. At the same time he was also introduced to Wan Laisheng’s Natural Gate Boxing (ZiRanMen).
LanShouMen
LanShouMen is an internal martial art system of ShaoLin that is direct and powerful. It is known to have one of the best internal stretching methods of any martial art. Eric studied privately in ShangHai with one of the last great LanShouMen teachers, Grandmaster Yu XiaoLong.
Non-Classical GongFu
Non-Classical GongFu was developed by Bruce Lee. Eric has studied 3 different lines of Bruce Lee’s teaching: under Bruce Lee’s first student, Jesse Glover, on Bruce Lee’s back-hand technique with Daniel Lee, and straight-blast methodology at the James DeMille school.
In all, Eric has studied with over 50 grandmasters, masters, and experts in Chinese martial arts.