Xue Sheng
All weight is underside
Way back in the very Early 70s, when I was training Japanese Jiujitsu, probably 1973 or 74 I read an article on Xingyiquan in It was either Karate Illustrated of Kung Fu Magazine and young little Xue was hooked It was not until the early 90s that I actually found a teacher that taught it. All this post really is are thoughts I have had, that would have generally gone in the Blog I us to maintain, but I just did not want to get back into it so here it is as a regular post.
The Post
To Xingyi, or not to Xingyi- that is the question:
Whether 'tis nobler in the mind to suffer
The aches and pains of outrageous external drilling
Or to take Yiquan to thwart a sea bodily pain,
And by changing end them.
NAH, more like To Xingyi or not to Xingyi , well that’s a stupid question
A few years back I trained some JKD for the first time and surprisingly, between that and a Novell Bell (The Black Taoist) Video where he was doing Xingyiquan bag work I realized there were some similarities between JKD and Xingyiquan. Of course, my posting about this on a web forum got me banned from all future Xingyiquan Christmas parties, but I never liked those anyway. The discussions I had on various forums about this adding to that a book by Di Guoyong (Hebei Style) and some Wudang style Xingyiquan and things got interesting. It brought me to my own view of Bruce Lee’s cultural mess.
Novell Bell’s Bag work upset people because they were stuck in a Chinese idiom that Xinyi never backs up and it must keep moving forward. Sorry I cannot find the exact idiom, but it didn’t mean it doesn’t back up, it meant it always attacks, forward, backward step to the side, it always attacks. In Xingyiquan, attack is attack and defense is also attack. As for moving forward constantly, think about that, Xingyiquan was used by the Chinese military in World War II, if it was only effective moving forward then all the Japanese had to do was stop them from moving forward. Also note, there are traditionally, standing drills in Xingyi that do nothing but stand there and strike.
Also, many today, or the few that still train it, tend to learn the 5 elements, the 5 elements linking and then move on to the animal forms. But they really have not learned the entire 5 elements. This came form Di Gouyong’s book and Zhou Xuan Yun’s Wudang Xingyiquan.
5 elements
Master Hai Yang
Every posture in the five elements needs to be trained with all of the foot work patterns off all the elements, going forwards and backwards, also with opposite hand and leg. This changes some of the applications of each element and gives you more tools in the Xingyiquan toolbox. You should also mix up the orders as well. And there is alternate foot work that tends to speed things up and is more like a single step pattern. Should also train it weaving in and out going in and out of and around posts, there is even training walking a circle, like, but not the same as Baguazhang. And lastly both full step and half step Bengquan. And after all that, then go on to the 5-element linking form, and there are 5 elements weapons forms too. Then go on to the animals, but to be honest, there is so much to learn and train in the 5 elements I have not yet found a need to go to the animal forms. Many just learn the basic 5 elements and nothing else because that is all they are taught, it was all there teacher was taught, it became the tradition, it is the culture, and it is a mess
Jeet Kune Do similarity; Yes JKD is a front stance and Xingyiquan is a back stance, but they are both explosive, and generate a lot of power by movement and structure, and neither appears to have aa problem with a pre-emptive strike.
Which also took me to something else Bruce Lee said
“Jeet Kune Do is just a name used, a boat to get one across, and once across it is to be discarded and not to be carried on one's back.” – Bruce Lee
What little of it I trained of JKD, and it was not all that much, fit into my Xingyiquan rather easily and quite well.
Another rather big part of XIngyi is stance training, and Santi Shi is a big part of that.. but more on that later
Here is a little more on the 5 elements if you wish to read it
Fundamental Moving Patterns of Xingyiquan by Liang, Shou-Yu, Dr. Yang, Jwing-Ming, December 6, 2010
legacy.ymaa.com
The Post
To Xingyi, or not to Xingyi- that is the question:
Whether 'tis nobler in the mind to suffer
The aches and pains of outrageous external drilling
Or to take Yiquan to thwart a sea bodily pain,
And by changing end them.
NAH, more like To Xingyi or not to Xingyi , well that’s a stupid question
A few years back I trained some JKD for the first time and surprisingly, between that and a Novell Bell (The Black Taoist) Video where he was doing Xingyiquan bag work I realized there were some similarities between JKD and Xingyiquan. Of course, my posting about this on a web forum got me banned from all future Xingyiquan Christmas parties, but I never liked those anyway. The discussions I had on various forums about this adding to that a book by Di Guoyong (Hebei Style) and some Wudang style Xingyiquan and things got interesting. It brought me to my own view of Bruce Lee’s cultural mess.
Novell Bell’s Bag work upset people because they were stuck in a Chinese idiom that Xinyi never backs up and it must keep moving forward. Sorry I cannot find the exact idiom, but it didn’t mean it doesn’t back up, it meant it always attacks, forward, backward step to the side, it always attacks. In Xingyiquan, attack is attack and defense is also attack. As for moving forward constantly, think about that, Xingyiquan was used by the Chinese military in World War II, if it was only effective moving forward then all the Japanese had to do was stop them from moving forward. Also note, there are traditionally, standing drills in Xingyi that do nothing but stand there and strike.
Also, many today, or the few that still train it, tend to learn the 5 elements, the 5 elements linking and then move on to the animal forms. But they really have not learned the entire 5 elements. This came form Di Gouyong’s book and Zhou Xuan Yun’s Wudang Xingyiquan.
5 elements
Master Hai Yang
Every posture in the five elements needs to be trained with all of the foot work patterns off all the elements, going forwards and backwards, also with opposite hand and leg. This changes some of the applications of each element and gives you more tools in the Xingyiquan toolbox. You should also mix up the orders as well. And there is alternate foot work that tends to speed things up and is more like a single step pattern. Should also train it weaving in and out going in and out of and around posts, there is even training walking a circle, like, but not the same as Baguazhang. And lastly both full step and half step Bengquan. And after all that, then go on to the 5-element linking form, and there are 5 elements weapons forms too. Then go on to the animals, but to be honest, there is so much to learn and train in the 5 elements I have not yet found a need to go to the animal forms. Many just learn the basic 5 elements and nothing else because that is all they are taught, it was all there teacher was taught, it became the tradition, it is the culture, and it is a mess
Jeet Kune Do similarity; Yes JKD is a front stance and Xingyiquan is a back stance, but they are both explosive, and generate a lot of power by movement and structure, and neither appears to have aa problem with a pre-emptive strike.
Which also took me to something else Bruce Lee said
“Jeet Kune Do is just a name used, a boat to get one across, and once across it is to be discarded and not to be carried on one's back.” – Bruce Lee
What little of it I trained of JKD, and it was not all that much, fit into my Xingyiquan rather easily and quite well.
Another rather big part of XIngyi is stance training, and Santi Shi is a big part of that.. but more on that later
Here is a little more on the 5 elements if you wish to read it
Fundamental Moving Patterns of Xingyiquan by Liang, Shou-Yu, Dr. Yang, Jwing-Ming, December 6, 2010
Fundamental Moving Patterns of Xingyiquan
We will begin this discussion by introducing the most basic stationary posture of Xingyiquan, the three body posture (San Ti Shi). This posture is also commonly called the three power posture (San Cai Shi) or Taiji posture (Taiji Shi). The main purpose of this stationary stance is to build up...
legacy.ymaa.com
