Appledog
Green Belt
I've been going through the "Intermediate Yiquan" series recently, it's not that old and I don't recall it being mentioned here before. There are hundreds of 'instructional' Yiquan videos on Thr3treebase's channel, but for the purpose of this post you can start here; and by the time you get to episode 8 you will be about where I am right now.
The interesting thing about Yiquan, is that it is part of the xin wushu movement, without being part of what was named xin wushu. I make that statement from my perspective after listening critically to what tree had to say. The most insightful part of what he had to say, for me, was the expose on what Wang Xiangzhai is not commonly known to have said (but what was well-known among his students). And the most salient point for me was the mention of "The Malady of the state of Zhou".
The reason why Yiquan, and really, Wang Xiangzhai's thinking was so important, is because it seeked a solution to what threetrees calls 'the ratio problem'. This is why I call it akin to the xin wushu movement. I'm not referring to modern wushu, which even forty years ago, even Wu Bin admitted was a comparative failure. But the interesting thing is that despite being completely aware of the malady of Zhou -- being completely aware of x, y and z, threetree (speaking truth from Wang Xiangzhai, I speculate,) goes ahead and says the same thing twice but flipping the logic. For example, on one hand he points out how mindless repetition is a bad idea and brings up the "95%, 5%" rule. But then he goes on to promote the idea of training and of holding postures for up to 40 minutes or longer. He brings up the aforementioned state of Zhou, but seems unaware that Sun Tzu essentially wrote the Art of War as a study of the failure of Zhou, as a document of Wu De -- and that it was classically understood as a failure of "Chong Shang Wu De" among the leaders of Zhou. All of this is in the background as thr3treebase explains that Wang Xiangzhai detested the sifu-tudi relationship and the idea of lineage itself.
I think about 50% of what he said is unique enough and important enough that these videos are worth watching, with the caveat that he often rug-pulls what he says by re-explaining it and flipping the script. For example, he says he will not do anything as plebian as teaching yiquan, in fact that such a thing is impossible, and then he goes on to teach yiquan -- justifying the disconnected logic of this by saying he isn't teaching, or even demonstrating, but saving people time by sharing the good and criticizing the bad. I do understand and get what he is trying to say, in a way -- and he does allude to this by mentioning that one of Wang Xiangzhai's driving ideas was the contradiction of the physicality of the old three fists with the boundless directional force ability of hunyuan strength. However, through the discussion three-tea weaves, two things become immediately apparent.
One, is that it is highly likely that Wang Xiangzhai himself did not know what the "old three fists" were -- he likely heard the term and lamented -- rightly so, but as many others before him did, that martial arts had devolved into a large number of flowery movements. According to the information in the videos, this is something Wang admitted to in essence by changing what he taught the three fists meant over time. This isn't a criticism of Wang Xiangzhai. It is praising his courage to finally stand up and do something about it "before it is too late"; (since he knew, but he didn't) and this is where many of his ideas of formlessness do seem to come from.
One of the most interesting points of the whole series so far is to point out that it is entirely possible that those who "got it" had teachers who didn't "get it". As such, I feel more confident in my conclusion that the grand idea thr3treebase is going for here is a dead end. What he, and clearly Wang Xiangzhai failed to understand, is that the end goal, which we may here call Yiquan, really is, and without doubt, the end result of the traditional (ex. "low road") training pattern. The entire point of the low road training pattern is to use your mind. The idea that it is not is a failure to understand the original, "low road" training method. "High Road" training methods -- according to Wang Xiangzhai(!) -- like Taijiquan, Baguazhang, and Xingyiquan -- are higher because of their use of Yi. And yet he relentlessly criticized them because they failed to produce results on a grand scale. Meaning, despite the fact they were high roads, they were abject failures and dead stones because they were no better than the traditional method.
And thus the grand experiment of Yiquan was launched. And what is the result, one hundred years later? Can we say Yiquan was successful in the eyes of Wang Xiangzhai? No, we cannot. If you say that Yiquan people can fight, you are correct -- but who is a Yiquan person? Thr3 himself points out that there have arisen many failed and cult-like schools of Yiquan and today there are many false teachers of Yiquan, even, those only for profit who do not really know Yiquan. Thus we can say, "the pot has called the kettle black". Yes, Wang Xiangzhai took a step in the correct direction, and for this his genius will forever be praised. But in that other steps need to be taken, if we are as critical of Yiquan as Wang himself was of the low road methods, we may say that it was merely a step to the side, and not necessarily a step forward. However, often times, this change of perspective, this new thinking, can unlock new developments and new ideas -- and this is a point Thr3tree himself makes, even underscoring it with a Richard Feynman clip! And thus, we come to realize the true genius of Wang Xiangzhai, even as we realize he ultimately failed.
The true step forward is pure Yi, without the Quan -- the teaching of Wu De. Chong Shang Wu De. Only based on this can everyone succeed, because it will kill the evil of dishonesty, it will kill the failure of disloyalty, and it will kill the failure of all the other virtues being missing. In truth, there has in fact been a progressive loss in the martial arts community -- one entirely of Wu De, and nothing else. All of the forms have been preserved. But we remain to point out the obvious-- is your mind in the movements? And if not, where is your mind? If you discover it is in the wrong place, then Chong Shang Wu De will help you to restore it. Otherwise, killing one hand to save the other might just be like killing the golden goose!
The interesting thing about Yiquan, is that it is part of the xin wushu movement, without being part of what was named xin wushu. I make that statement from my perspective after listening critically to what tree had to say. The most insightful part of what he had to say, for me, was the expose on what Wang Xiangzhai is not commonly known to have said (but what was well-known among his students). And the most salient point for me was the mention of "The Malady of the state of Zhou".
The reason why Yiquan, and really, Wang Xiangzhai's thinking was so important, is because it seeked a solution to what threetrees calls 'the ratio problem'. This is why I call it akin to the xin wushu movement. I'm not referring to modern wushu, which even forty years ago, even Wu Bin admitted was a comparative failure. But the interesting thing is that despite being completely aware of the malady of Zhou -- being completely aware of x, y and z, threetree (speaking truth from Wang Xiangzhai, I speculate,) goes ahead and says the same thing twice but flipping the logic. For example, on one hand he points out how mindless repetition is a bad idea and brings up the "95%, 5%" rule. But then he goes on to promote the idea of training and of holding postures for up to 40 minutes or longer. He brings up the aforementioned state of Zhou, but seems unaware that Sun Tzu essentially wrote the Art of War as a study of the failure of Zhou, as a document of Wu De -- and that it was classically understood as a failure of "Chong Shang Wu De" among the leaders of Zhou. All of this is in the background as thr3treebase explains that Wang Xiangzhai detested the sifu-tudi relationship and the idea of lineage itself.
I think about 50% of what he said is unique enough and important enough that these videos are worth watching, with the caveat that he often rug-pulls what he says by re-explaining it and flipping the script. For example, he says he will not do anything as plebian as teaching yiquan, in fact that such a thing is impossible, and then he goes on to teach yiquan -- justifying the disconnected logic of this by saying he isn't teaching, or even demonstrating, but saving people time by sharing the good and criticizing the bad. I do understand and get what he is trying to say, in a way -- and he does allude to this by mentioning that one of Wang Xiangzhai's driving ideas was the contradiction of the physicality of the old three fists with the boundless directional force ability of hunyuan strength. However, through the discussion three-tea weaves, two things become immediately apparent.
One, is that it is highly likely that Wang Xiangzhai himself did not know what the "old three fists" were -- he likely heard the term and lamented -- rightly so, but as many others before him did, that martial arts had devolved into a large number of flowery movements. According to the information in the videos, this is something Wang admitted to in essence by changing what he taught the three fists meant over time. This isn't a criticism of Wang Xiangzhai. It is praising his courage to finally stand up and do something about it "before it is too late"; (since he knew, but he didn't) and this is where many of his ideas of formlessness do seem to come from.
One of the most interesting points of the whole series so far is to point out that it is entirely possible that those who "got it" had teachers who didn't "get it". As such, I feel more confident in my conclusion that the grand idea thr3treebase is going for here is a dead end. What he, and clearly Wang Xiangzhai failed to understand, is that the end goal, which we may here call Yiquan, really is, and without doubt, the end result of the traditional (ex. "low road") training pattern. The entire point of the low road training pattern is to use your mind. The idea that it is not is a failure to understand the original, "low road" training method. "High Road" training methods -- according to Wang Xiangzhai(!) -- like Taijiquan, Baguazhang, and Xingyiquan -- are higher because of their use of Yi. And yet he relentlessly criticized them because they failed to produce results on a grand scale. Meaning, despite the fact they were high roads, they were abject failures and dead stones because they were no better than the traditional method.
And thus the grand experiment of Yiquan was launched. And what is the result, one hundred years later? Can we say Yiquan was successful in the eyes of Wang Xiangzhai? No, we cannot. If you say that Yiquan people can fight, you are correct -- but who is a Yiquan person? Thr3 himself points out that there have arisen many failed and cult-like schools of Yiquan and today there are many false teachers of Yiquan, even, those only for profit who do not really know Yiquan. Thus we can say, "the pot has called the kettle black". Yes, Wang Xiangzhai took a step in the correct direction, and for this his genius will forever be praised. But in that other steps need to be taken, if we are as critical of Yiquan as Wang himself was of the low road methods, we may say that it was merely a step to the side, and not necessarily a step forward. However, often times, this change of perspective, this new thinking, can unlock new developments and new ideas -- and this is a point Thr3tree himself makes, even underscoring it with a Richard Feynman clip! And thus, we come to realize the true genius of Wang Xiangzhai, even as we realize he ultimately failed.
The true step forward is pure Yi, without the Quan -- the teaching of Wu De. Chong Shang Wu De. Only based on this can everyone succeed, because it will kill the evil of dishonesty, it will kill the failure of disloyalty, and it will kill the failure of all the other virtues being missing. In truth, there has in fact been a progressive loss in the martial arts community -- one entirely of Wu De, and nothing else. All of the forms have been preserved. But we remain to point out the obvious-- is your mind in the movements? And if not, where is your mind? If you discover it is in the wrong place, then Chong Shang Wu De will help you to restore it. Otherwise, killing one hand to save the other might just be like killing the golden goose!
go for it
