Xinyiquan and xingyiquan
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Xingyiquan was originally called Xinyi Liuhe Quan (Heart Mind Six Harmonies Boxing). This was in reference to the 3 internal and 3 external principles that are the key element to Xingyi training. The six harmonies are: 1. The hands harmonize with the feet, 2. The shoulders harmonize with the hips, 3. The elbows harmonize with the knees, 4. The heart harmonizes with the intent, 5. The intent harmonizes with the qi, 6. The qi harmonizes with the power. In order for your jing to be effective and powerful, these principles must be followed, regardless of the style you practice. When the hands and feet arrive together in sync, the shoulders relaxed while the hips firmed internally, and the elbows are dropped while the knees lock, then the entire body will move as one unit. Through diligent practice these movements become natural. The emotional mind will remain calm and concentrated, and the qi will flow unimpeded. If the hands are raised but the feet are not raised, it is a waste of time. Never move the hands for no reason. The elbows do not leave the ribs, the hands do not leave the heart. The hands enter and exit openings and the body follows close behind. Wait until the opponent's intent lags, then attack. The shoulders push the elbows, the elbows push the hands. - Dai Long Bang, 1750 A.D. SEVEN KEY POINTS Sink the waist - the coccyx is curled under. Imagine the tailbone is trying to touch the nose. Relax the shoulders - the shoulders become rounded, getting "behind" the arms. Depress the chest - the chest becomes hollow and sunken in conjuction with the shoulders rounding. Press - the tongue is gently touching the roof of the mouth while the hands reach and press outwards. Lift - the anus is lifted and contracted. Moving across and moving smoothly must be understood - "moving across" is to rise and "moving smoothy" is to lower. Rising, drilling, falling and overturning must be clearly separated - when one raises the arms in Xingyi, this is drilling. When the arms fall, this they must overturn. EIGHT WORDS The old classics say the following eight characters must be present to make the enemy yours. Each of these characters has three important physical points which will help in aligning the body properly. These principles must be observed when practicing Xingyi, especially in the five elements. San Ding "three press upwards" San Kou "three hooks" San Yuan "three rounds" San Min "three quicks" San Bao "three embracings" San Chui "three sinkings" San Qu "three curves" San Ting "three stretches" Three Press Upwards - the head presses upwards helping to straighten the spine, the palms press outwards and the tongue presses against the roof of the mouth.
he Eight Vital points are of first importance; they are the mother of Xingyiquan. Whether you are practicing the five Five Elements or the Twelve Animals, they must follow the Eight Vital Points. The insides must be lifted - lift the anus, press the tongue to roof of mouth, and lift the crown point (Bai Hui) of the head. The three hearts unit - the crown point, heart palms and heart of the sole of the feet are imagined being drawn to the center of the body. The three intents must follow one another - Qi, strength & intention. The Five Elements must flow smoothly - this refers to both internal and external elements in the body. The internal are the heart, liver, spleen, lungs and kidneys. The external are the tongue, eyes, mouth, nose, and ears. The Four Extremities must move together The heart must be at ease The three points must be on a line The nose, front hand, and front foot. The eyes must focus on a single point NINE VERSUS Body - Bowing forward or bowing backwards, the jing cannot be strong. Leaning to the left or right are the sickness of the body posture. Erect yet leaning, leaning but erect, the posture should remain alive yet not rigid. Shoulders - The head presses upwards. The shoulders drop downwards. The left shoulder turns, the right natually follows. The strength will arrive at the hands. This is because the shoulders are dropped. Arms - When the left arm is extended, the right arm should gaurd the ribs. Like bent but not bent. Like straight but not straight. Curved too much they will not reach. Curved not enough, there will not be enough power. Hands - The right hand gaurds the ribs. The left hand high as the chest. The rear hand is bent slightly. The front hand extends strongly. The two hands protecting the entire area, using only as much strength that is necessary. Fingers - The five fingers are spread apart and shaped like hooks. The tiger's mouth is round. Like hard, like soft. The strength must arrive at the fingers and must not be forced. Legs - The left leg is in front. The right leg supports the rear. Like straight but not straight. Like bent but not bent. Although they are both straight and bent, each move is like the chicken form. Feet - Left foot points straight forward, leaning sideways is sick. The right foot is diagonal, the front heel faces the rear. The distance between depends on the person. The toes hook the ground to firm the root. Tongue - The tongue is the extremity of the flesh. When it is pressed up, the qi desends. The eyes wide open, the hair stands up. The qi must sink to the Dan Tian, then the skin will be like iron and the internal organs will be strong. Buttocks - When the buttocks are slightly tensed or "lifted," the qi will reach the four extremities. Both legs twist inwards, the buttocks press together. If the posture is too low, the shape is broken, therefore it should be raised slightly. TEN EYES You must become sensitive to your surroundings at all times, seeing everywhere as if you had ten eyes. SIXTEEN POINT PRACTICE METHOD Cun "Inch" Refers to the stepping.
Stamping down with the whole body. Zuan "Drill" The whole body drills forward. Jiu "Bind" The whole body contracts, closing space. Lai "Come" Legs shear with scissor stepping. He "Combinations" Refers to the six internal & external harmonies. Qi "Disease" Inner and outer are one. Zheng "Straight" Appearing straight but is leaning. Appears to lean but is straight. Xing "Passing" The hands massage the internal five elements Jing "Lower Legs" The place that sends the body out with sudden power that alerts the four extremities, never breaking intent. Qi Luo "Rise and Fall" Rise is to go out. Fall is to strike. To rise is to strike, to fall is also to strike. Rise and Fall like the overturning waves. Jin Dui "Advance and Retreat" Advance with low steps and retreat with high ones. If one does not understand this, it is a waste of time Yin and Yang Yin contains Yang. Yang contains Yin. In boxing they unite. When they come together this is e great treasure. Wu Xing "Five Elements" The Internal five elements must move. The external five elements must follow. Dong Jie "Movement and Stillness" Stillness is the original body. Movement is body in use. Stillness does not reveal it's power. Movement doesn't leave a trace. When movement and stillness have not quite issued power, this is movement and stillness. Xu She "Empty and Full" Emptiness is pure. Fullness is spiritual. When the pureness and spiritual are complete, one will nourish the Dan Tian and lead a long life. RED MAPLES "Red Maples have forgotten the six alignments... Tranquility will reveal the Five Elements" - Two verses from Dai Fengzhong, Grandmaster Dai Longbang's ancestor These two verses are found on a pagoda/tower in grandmaster Dai's home town, overseeing a maple forest.
By wuyizidi of the Empty Flower forums
First, the simple technical part. In external martial art our shen and yi are usually focused on the same thing. If I'm going to hit you in the face with my right fist, my eyes look at your face, and my mind is on the right fist, focusing on giving it as much power as possible. In internal martial art, we always want to use the least possible power to get the desired result. The best way to do that is to first unbalance the opponent first. What happens when you trip unexpectedly? Your heart skips a beat, your hand naturally reaches out, and your entire attention is focused on restoring that balance. At this point your whole body is totally defenseless; someone can hurt you with a much less powerful strike. So in Bagua for example, if the application calls for putting one hand on the opponent's arm and striking with another, your focus (yi) should be on the hand that is on the opponent's arm. With one touch you should be unbalancing him, controlling him, taking his attention away, that gives you time to do the large complex movement with your body and the other arm. If you don't unbalance him, then he has time to deal with your follow-up movements. But the more important part of the answer has to do with principle. We say: in external martial art, we practice techniques so we can use them directly in a fight. In internal martial art, we practice techniques so we can forget techniques. This second part is an example of how knowing a little bit about Chinese history/philosophy/general cultural background information really helps you learn Chinese martial art: If you want to invent a truly useful martial art, one that can defend against all kinds of attacks, what would you do? You would start with ways that you can imagine other people would attack you, and design defensive skills accordingly right? From a theoretical perspective, this is a very limited approach: First, the range of defensive skills you can do is limited by your imagination of what an opponent can do. If you cannot imagine something being able to attack with their hip, you won't have that skill designed, and you won't know what to do when that happens. Second, so now you try to compensate your limited imagination by incorporating everyone else’s. Now you probably have thousands of techniques and even more variations. Do you really have time to practice all of that? Third, even with all this knowledge, you still can't be safe in assuming you can have all situations covered. The world is constantly changing, new people are being born every moment, and some of them are definitely going to do things no one has ever seen before. So you can see this is ultimately not a very workable solution. With this approach in order to beat everyone you have to know everything. So how do we get people like Dong Hai Chuan, Yang Lu Chan, Li Luo Nen? How do they become undefeated by studying one thing? How do they do it? If you actually gathered and practiced all the thousands of techniques, you'll probably start to notice certain commonalities, some underlying patterns, and organizing principles. Different group of people use different ways to describe them (soft, hard, straight, cross, circular, etc), Xingyi people concluded that all movements, qualitatively, can be classified using the 5 element theory, the bagua people using Bagua, and taiji people using yin yang. We study the interaction of these forces, which ones help each other, which ones cancels each other out, what are all the properties of a force, etc. So now, you're no longer approaching this from the perspective of if he does technique A, then I do technique B. Now it's, if he's using something that embodies this basic principle, then I do whatever is necessary that uses the complementary/opposite principle. The basic principles are few; the number of examples, applications, and variations manifesting these qualities are countless. This is like teaching math. The basic principle is 1+1=2. And the teacher shows you by example: 1 apple + 1 apple = 2 apples, 1 orange + 1 orange = 2 oranges, etc. Eventually you'll get the idea that 1 + 1 = 2. So tomorrow, if someone invents something new, like a light saber, something that never existed before, and asks you: what's 1 light saber + 1 light saber? You'll know the answer, you won't be stuck ("I've never seen a light saber before"). So this is what in Chinese philosophy say "you practice technique to understand principle, and after you get principle you can forget the techniques." This is a very common concept in Buddhism and Daoism, and it applies to martial art. So in martial art people also this phrase borrowed from Daoism to describe the highest level: tuo hua. Once you understand the principles, you are freed from all formal constraints, but whatever you do is always natural and correct, because you have totally internalized the principles. So the principle leads to the third part of the answer: the training methodology. In internal martial art, form and practice are different. There are things that you do in the form that are designed for understanding the principle. And their movements are large so you can get the correct feeling easily. With small movements it's over very quickly, and for the purpose of understanding the principle it is not as helpful as large movements. This is also why we do Taiji form slowly; it gives you more time to pay attention to the correct feeling. In practice we do movements big and slow at first, once we can get the correct feelings, we make them small and quick for fighting. |