Ma Fengtu & Ma Yingtu (馬鳳圖・馬英圖) — the brothers who built 通備

The Ma brothers of Cangzhou — Ma Fengtu (馬鳳圖, 1888–1973) and Ma Yingtu (馬英圖, 1898–1956) — fused four of the great northern arts into a single integrated system, 通備 (Tōngbèi, "comprehensive-prepared") martial learning, and armed the Republican era's broadsword soldiers with the famous 破鋒八刀. Hui (Muslim) masters of the Cangzhou heartland, they sit at the crossroads of Pigua, Baji, Fanzi, and the dadao of the resistance.

The brothers

Ma Fengtu (馬鳳圖), courtesy name Jianxiang (健翔), 1888–1973, and his younger brother Ma Yingtu (馬英圖), 1898–1956, were born into a Hui martial family of Cangzhou (Mengcun / Yangshiqiao) — the same Cangzhou-and-Mengcun ground that produced the Wu-family Baji and Li Shuwen. The family later resettled in the northwest (Gansu), where the Ma-style 通備 took deep root.

通備 — the synthesis

Ma Fengtu's life work was to integrate four arts that had long been practised separately into one coherent system under the motto 理象會通 ("uniting principle and form"):

• 劈掛 (Pigua) — the long-range, whip-like family art;

• 八極 (Baji) — the short, explosive close art (the classic 劈掛 + 八極 pairing);

• 翻子 (Fanzi) — the dense, rapid tumbling hands;

• 戳腳 (Chuojiao) — the kicking art;

plus spear and staff — drawing on a 通背大架 he inherited from 黃林彪 (Huang Linbiao), tracing to the Qing master 潘文學 (Pan Wenxue). The result, 馬氏通備武學, is one of the most ambitious systematisations in Chinese martial history.

破鋒八刀 — the sabre of the resistance

Ma Fengtu devised the 破鋒八刀 ("Eight Sabres that Break the Edge"), a battlefield broadsword method, for Feng Yuxiang's 西北軍 (Northwest Army) — developed through the 新武術研究會 (New Martial Arts Research Society) he co-founded with 張之江 (Zhang Zhijiang) at Zhangjiakou around 1924–25 — and wrote the army's 《白刃戰術教程》 (close-combat manual). (The method is widely cited as ancestral to the famous 1933 Big-Sword units; the direct chain to the 29th Army's saber is asserted in popular history but debated by scholars — best stated as "associated with," not proven.)

Ma Yingtu and the Guoshu Institute

The younger brother, Ma Yingtu — "Lightning Hands" (閃電手) — was a feared practical fighter. He performed Baji at the 1910 Tianjin 中華武士會 demonstration and was praised by **"Divine Spear" **Li Shuwen. From 1927 at the Central Guoshu Institute, he was a section head of the Shaolin gate, one of the institute's strongest men, who helped run the first 國考 national examination and pushed to make 八極 a core subject.

The Ma family's 通備 continues today through Ma Fengtu's sons — 馬賢達 (Ma Xianda, 1932–2013), a major modern wushu figure, and 馬明達 (Ma Mingda), a martial-arts scholar.

See also

Pigua (劈掛) — a core component of 通備

Baji (八極) — the 劈掛+八極 pairing the Ma brothers integrated

Chuojiao + Fanzi (戳腳翻子) — the other two arts of the synthesis

Foreign Strongmen & the Big-Sword Army — the 破鋒八刀 and the dadao units

Central Guoshu Institute — where Ma Yingtu ran the first 國考

Sources

[1] 馬鳳圖, Chinese Wikipedia and 馬英圖, Baidu Baike — dates, the 通備 synthesis, the 破鋒八刀, the Guoshu Institute role, the family line.

[2] 理象會通：馬氏通備, HK01 (hk01.com) and the Tongbei Institute (tongbeiedu.wordpress.com) — the Ma-style 通備 system and its components.

[3] 破鋒八刀, China News (chinanews.com.cn) — Ma Fengtu's saber method and its (debated) link to the Great-Wall dadao squads.