masters: han-ching tan

Han-Ching Tan was a noted master of northern long fist, yang tai chi, and shuai jiao. from what i know, he was one of the original masters involved in the founding of the Nanjing Martial Arts Academy, as well as a noted figured in the Taiwanese martial arts community. he apparently was involved with the Wutan school, and taught several students of Liu Yun Chiao, including my Sifu, Jason Tsou. some of what i am learning (in particular, the tantui) is from his lineage.

there are alternative English spellings of his name--Han Chin Tan, Han Ching Tang, Han Qin Tan, Han Qin Tang--but you can find information on him on Google under any of these (or similar) permutations.

the YouTube videos of him are all very old, and appear to be silent movies shot on 8mm film. as a result, they tend to be pretty grainy and run at a high speed. in addition, they were shot in his later years.

despite this, i think they're worthwhile to view, since you can still get a sense of his athleticism, which is pretty impressive given how old he apparently was at the time most of these films were shot. you can see what i mean by comparing him to the other people in the following videos:

• tantui: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Wt83nvRwq-4
• si lu ben da: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CkWY4joNlUk
• chin na: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=M4LVjwPGhQg
  
• demonstration (note: a lot of this is an excerpt from videos of the banquet that i presented in a previous post--you can see them at masters: the banquet...the new part is at the 4:43 mark, which shoes dan dao versus spear): http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XL4NmkG9EYc
• student of Han-Ching Tan doing Yan family 13 spear: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=i04tulv2p4Q

i've been trying to find more videos of him or closely related to him, but they seem to be pretty hard to find on YouTube. i've tried different English spellings of his name, but this is the best i could find.

i should note that there are some pictures of him floating around the internet. i found some at a blog called Formosa Neijia (http://formosaneijia.com), who dedicated several posts to him:

• http://formosaneijia.com/2007/more-pics-of-han-qing-tan/
• http://formosaneijia.com/2007/more-pics-of-han-qing-tan-and-tt-liang/
• http://formosaneijia.com/2007/han-qing-tang-a-samurai-sword-and-a-painting/

that's about as much as i've been able to find about him on the internet. like YouTube videos, material about him seems exceedingly rare--at least in English-language circles.

i suspect that there are probably more videos, pictures, and info about him available under Chinese language headings. but not knowing Chinese and not having access to Chinese websites or YouTube channels, i can't access these. hopefully i can find someone who can help me with this.