Jin training in Baguazhang

I recently came across an article with details about the various jins in bagua and how to train them (original chinese here ) that I thought would be of interest to bagua enthusiasts.

“JIN TRAINING IN BAGUAZHANG

There’s a scene in the film Pride’s Deadly Fury’ [1] in which ‘divine palm’ Li kills Niu Er on the riverbank with a single palm strike.

The power Li is using is called ‘inch power’ (cun jin).

The characteristics of inch power are that the distance between the striking body part and the target is relatively short, usually about an inch. Characteristically, inch power strikes are sudden, powerful and hence hard to detect, evade or block. The ‘collapsing palm’ (ta zhang], ‘inserting palm’ [ye zhang] and elbow strikes all train inch power. If you wish to master inch power, you must practice according to the requirements, for example, relax the shoulder and drop the elbow [song jian zhui zhou], hold the head as if suspended [xu ling ding jin], the whole body should be coordinated, with the leading hand hitting the opponent and the rear hand adding power.

Even though the movements are small, they are significant.

Apart from focusing on the movements in the bagua routines that train inch power, you can also train on trees. To train this, you need to find a youngish tree with a trunk that’s not too big. First, rest your fingertips of one hand on the tree, and then strike the trunk using the heel of your palm. When striking, the whole body should be ’solid’ and connected, the eyes should gaze as if angry, the knee of the lead leg should push upwards, whilst the rear leg should ‘push off’ the ground. At the moment of contact between the palm and the tree, the whole body should momentarily tense up. The intent should be to break the tree in half. Then, after the strike, you should return to the relaxed ready state, again with your fingertips resting on the trunk. At first, you should use the shunbu configuration, i.e. if the right hand is striking, the right foot will be leading, with the left palm ‘chambered’ at the left kua. Then, later on, one can practice it with aobu　［i.e. opposite rather same foot stepping].

In the past, bagua practictioners would bury 1m of a 2m-long wooden board in the ground, leaving 1m sticking up. They would then nail dog pelt to the board, and use it to practice collapsing palm and inserting palm.

The palm skills of the famous Cheng-style master Li Wenbiao  [2] were developed through just this kind of training. Small trees or wooden boards were used because they had a certain elasticity. If you use a large tree or a wall, not only will you not develop inch power, you will hurt your wrist. The scene in ‘Wulin Zhi’ in which Dongfang Xu practices his palm strikes against a big old tree was just a directorial flourish to show how fearsome Dong’s palm strikes were.

‘One-inch’ strikes can very easily inflict internal damage, especially when used against the ribs. Because human ribs are quite flexible, this damage sometimes is not obvious. Hence bagua students should be very careful to control the power of their strikes when practicing against a live opponent.

THE HIDDEN POWER OF BAGUAZHANG

‘Hidden power’, as the name suggests, is a kind of force that is not externally obvious. Kicking, punching and barging are all kinds of ‘obvious power’ which can be externally observed. Hidden power can only happen when two objects are touching. The hidden power in martial arts is mostly used to for self-protection. For example, if I punch someone in the chest, my opponent will probably try to block the punch. If my punch has only got force in one plane (going forward), my punch will be deflected easily. If my punch has a resisting force that stops my opponent from changing the direction of my punch, this is called an li, aka an jin.

Liu Fengchun

Many famous masters had strong hidden power, such as the bagua master Liu Fengchun, and the xingyi master Guo Yunshen. It was as if both of these masters had ‘electricity’ in their arms, the opponent would be launched away regardless of whether they were attacking the opponent or whether the opponent was attacking them. Stationary palms [ding shi zhang] are the main method used in bagua to train hidden power. Each posture, if combined with specific visualisations and practiced correctly, can produce hidden power. For example, in the first posture, ‘pressing down palm’ [xia an zhang], both hands ‘press’ downwards as if on a ball , with the arms rounded as if holding a large balloon. Posturally, the requirements are: relax the shoulder, press the elbows out [song jian cheng zhou]; hollow the chest and round the back [han xiong ba bei], hold the head as if suspended [xu ling ding jin] and the upper body should be slightly turned towards the centre of the circle while you walk using mud-wading step [tang ni bu].

When you are walking, you should imagine that you are walking through waist-deep water and also that you are trying to keep the two balloons with you – you can’t press too lightly [letting them float away] or too hard [bursting them]. Every time you practice it you should have this visualisation. Regular practice will mean that the moment you get into the stance, you should start to get the right ‘feeling.

In Shuang Bao Zhang (Double Embracing Palm), the arms are held in front of the chest as if ‘hugging a tree’ with the plams facing inwards, the palm is hollowed and the fingers held apart, as if hugging a large balloon 50-60cm in diameter. You should imagine you are using mud-wading step to walk through shoulder-deep water. Again, you must not let the balloon float away or burst it. The next step is to imagine that waves of water are buffeting the balloon in various directions, making it bob up or sink down, or pushing it sideways, whichever way the water pushes the ball, you must keep the balloon centered and moving with you. The practice of the other 6 fixed postures is similar to the first two, readers can experiment for themselves.

By the way, the various visualisations should not be ‘held’ too strongly, otherwise you will get dizzy and will only be able to circle-walk for a short while. As you grow stronger, the visualisation should be allowed to become weaker until it is barely there. One should not pay attention to the sensations that arise during this practice, just allow them to arise and dissipate naturally.

BAGUAZHANG’S ‘SPRING POWER’ [TAN JIN]

Long-time practitioners of baguazhang develop a body where every part is springy, connected and flexible.The characteristic of springs is that, within a certain range, the more they are compressed the greater the resultant ’spring force’. This phenomenon can be expressed by the equation F=-kX, where k is the elasticity coefficient of the material and X the degree of compression. The minus sign indicates that the relationship is inversely proportional.

As you can see from the equation, the strength of the spring force depends on the elasticity coefficient and the degree of compression. As baguazhang practitioners, we should pro-actively train to increase our ‘elasticity coefficient’.

‘Spring power’ [tan jin] is frequently used in taiji’s push hands and in bagua’s ‘drawing and leading palms’ ［xi hua zhang］ paired practice, and is also common in bagua’s free sparring [San Da]. Knowing that their opponent possesses spring power makes an attacker wary of changing his attack to other parts of the body. Spring power can be used continuously; sometimes, spring power can feel like a spring, and sometimes like a steel rod.

Apart from  ‘drawing and leading palms’ paired practice, other ways of training spring power are:

1) Resistance cords

Normally a 3m-long resistance cord is used, with the two ends fixed to something solid. The practitioner should try to move slowly with the cord resisting the arms, legs or waist. One can practice this on the spot or with moving steps. Movements should be slow; fast movements will not produce the desired effect.

2) Spring cord
Similar to the above exercise, with the cord attached to springs rather than a solid wall.

3) ‘Drawing curves’ pair work

In this exercise, two partners, A & B, stand facing each other with their right feet out in front. Their right arms should be held out in front of the chest so that the backs of the forearms touch. Then, A slowly draws a curve right and down, with B providing resistance all the way down. When A’s arm reaches its full extension, B then starts slowly drawing a curve right and up, this time with A resisting. B stops when his arm reaches full extension, and then the cycle is repeated.

4) Drawing curves with legs

A & B support each other’s arms, the right leg lightly lifts up, the feet touch and draw a curve. The method is similar to that described above for arms.

The methods described above use the right arm/leg, but could equally use the left side, readers can practice by themselves.

BAGUAZHANG’S HORIZONTAL POWER [HENG JIN]

Bagua’s horizontal power is indispensable in actual combat. It’s always been the case that vertical power is easy to train, horizontal less so. Horizontal power is especially important in a match between a smaller, weaker opponent and a stronger, larger opponent, where the smaller guy will have to rely on skill to win. Most of the time, people stand in ‘ding ba bu’, with the front foot pointing straight forward and the rear foot pointing diagonally outwards. In pushing hands or free sparring you should search for your opponent’s horizontal axis whilst protecting your own. Conditions in a fight change by the moment, no-one can guarantee that they can always protect their horizontal axis. As soon as you feel your opponent beginning to control your horizontal axis, you should resist it in order to gain yourself some time to reverse the situation.

Gao-style baguazhang master Liu Fengcai's Single Palm Change. Source: Pa Kua Chang Journal

On the other hand, you need strong horizontal power if you are to use it to attack your opponent. Bagua’s routines give prominent expression to horizontal power. For example, in Single Palm Change, the lead palm twists and pulls outwards, while the rear palm follows; in ‘plant a flower by a tree [yi hua jie mu], the drawing back and outward pressing of the forearm; in ‘black bear turns its back’, the back leans backwards and the palms press downwards. If these moves are done like callisthenics, one will not derive much benefit. It is only when one understands the point of these moves and couples them with intent that they can produce horizontal power.”

Footnotes

1. ‘Pride’s Deadly Fury’ (1983), known in Chinese as ‘Wulin Zhi’, is one of the few Chinese kungfu films to feature baguazhang training methods and techniques. The main female role of Gao Lianzhi is played by none other than Ge Chunyan, a student of Sun Zhijun and Liu Jingru. You can see a clip from the movie here .

2. Li Wenbiao was a famous student of Cheng Tinghua and grand-teacher (through Luo Xingwu) of Liu Jingru.

2 Heroes of the Central Guoshu Institute

In response to a request from one of my readers, I’ve been working on translating some information about Bajiquan, this first part of which is translated below. For a brief introduction to Bajiquan, see the wiki entry here. The original Chinese source of the extract below can be found here .

“2 Heroes of the Central Guoshu Institute, Han Huachen & Ma Yingtu

1. ‘Iron Palm’ Han Huachen (1887-1937)

Han Huiqing, styled Han Huachen was a professional martial arts teacher from Luotuan village near Cangzhou. He was extremely strong. As a youth, he studied bajiquan and piguazhang under Zhang Gongchen (aka Zhang Jingxing). In order to gain the true transmission from Zhang he was adopted into Zhang’s family and became one of Zhang’s indoor disciples.

Zhang Jingxing

Han practiced day and night, to the point that one of his palm strikes on a brick wall would cause the bricks to jut out on the other side by 2 inches. In the middle of cow tethering posts there used to be a square hole. Han, using baji’s advancing palm, could cause the post to break in half at the point of the hole. In practicing pigua’s ‘hungry tiger pouncing’, his right palm would hit the ice, then he would turn his body and strike it with his left palm. In doing so he could break the ice, sending shards of ice flying, hence the nickname ‘Iron Palm’. Han practiced obsessively: in practicing mud-hitting in horseriding stance, he would place mud on a wooden bench in front of him, regularly practicing one particular drill for 2 hours at a time. He would even use charging step [chuang bu] to move around while doing farm work, with the result that his waist and kua were extremely supple.

Furthermore, Han’s arm strength was incredible: after winding some water up from the well, the handle would then spin furiously as the pail dropped back down the well shaft. Han could stop the handle dead, mid-spin. After Han had finished his training, he journeyed to Beijing with ‘divine spear’ Li Shuwen. Li Shuwen would do one circuit of Beijing’s old city walls (about 20km) every morning using Baji’s ’crane stepping’ [Lu Fu He Xing ], which shows that his speedwalking [shen xing]  had already reached a superlative level. One day, Han joined him on his morning circuit; by the end, he was lagging far behind Li, but just finishing one circuit was already no mean feat, hence Li praised Han. Han did not reach the levels attained by Wang Zhongquan and Li Shuwen, but within the baji community he was already considered a high-level master.

Han Huachen

In the first year of the republic (1912), at his shidi Ma Fengtu’s invitation, Han took up a post as a martial arts coach of the Shenyang Police Academy. This was the second batch of Baji teachers to teach in the Northeast, as Li Shuwen and Huo Dian-ge had previously worked as martial arts instructors under General Xu Lanzhou in an officer training academy in Harbin. During the 1920s, while acting as Head Guard of Zhongxing mine in Zaozhuang (in Shandong province), Han took on disciples including Li Xueyi, Zhao Ronglin and others. When the Nanjing Guoshu Institute was established, the headmaster Zhang Zhijiang invited Han by telegram to take up a post as an instructor there. In 1928, Han resigned from his post at Zhongxing mine and headed south with his disciples Zhao Shude, Li Xueyi and Zhao Ronglin. Han, along with the abovementioned disciples and his shidi Ma Yingtu, all fought in the Leitai competition of October 1928.

Han defeated over 30 well-known fighters, each time with only one blow. His opponents were carried off on stretchers, hence he acquired the nickname ‘Invincible General’. Ma Yingtu was similarly unstoppable, defeating more than ten name fighters in a row. Zhang Zhijiang and Li Jinglin, fearing that this would cause bad blood in the martial arts community, did not allow Han or Ma to enter any more fights, hence Han and Ma were just listed among the 37 names in the ‘Excellent’ [youdeng] division. Zhang Zhijiang appointed Han head of teaching duties, whilst Ma Yingtu was made sectional training head. It was largely due to Han and Ma’s efforts that Bajiquan became a compulsory style at the Nanjing Guoshu Institute. Notable names who taught there such as Wang Ziping, Tong Zhongyi, Gao Zhendong, Huang Bonian and Jiang Rongqiao all had great admiration for the pure skills of Han and Ma, and would always recommend them first in any challenge match with outsiders. Tong Zhongyi’s son-in-law, Li Yuanzhi, studied bajiquan under Han and Ma, and later praised it as one of the most worthwhile things he had learnt.   

At that time, Han and Ma were mainly in charge of sparring competitions at the institute, while Wang Ziping and Tong Zhongyi were in charge of shuaijiao competitions. In the early days of the institute, Han and Ma were two of its ‘pillars’, and gained the trust of both Generals Li Jinglin and Zhang Zhijiang. Han had a great influence on the spread of Baji in southern China, to the point that there was a saying ‘bei li nan han’ meaning ‘Li [Shuwen] in the north and Han [Huachen] in the south’.

In the 1930s, when Li Jinglin and Xu Lanzhou established Guoshu institutes in Hebei and Shandong, Han and his disciples followed Li Shuwen to take up teaching posts there. At the same time, Han also acted as martial arts trainer for the militia of the Chairman of Shandong Province, Han Fuju. At the Shandong Guoshu Institute, Han met and crossed hands with Yang Chengfu. Yang praised Han’s skill, and the two became fast friends, exchanging arts with each other. In the 30s, during his tenure at the Shandong Guoshu Institute, Han died of heart disease.

 

Lu Baochun (L, Bajiquan teacher in Finland) with one of Han Huachen's grandsons, Han Zhenjiang, (R)

Han’s art was passed on by his sons, Han Jiequan and Han Longquan, as well as his disciples Zhao Shude, Dong Yiwen, Li Xueyi, Yao Chunfu, Wei Hong’en, Wei Hongbin and Zhao Ronglin. In Taiwan, Li Yuanzhi also taught Han’s baji. Han’s grand-daughter, Han Zhen-ge, won first place in a Baji competition in Cangzhou. Han’s descendants live and teach in Zaozhuang, Shandong, spreading Han’s baji.

BAJI FROM LUOTUAN, PIGUA FROM YANSHAN – MA YINGTU

‘Lightning hands’, ‘Ma the Ruthless’

Ma Yingtu in military uniform

Ma Yingtu (1898-1956) was from Yangshiqiao in Southeast Township, Cangzhou. He was a professional martial arts teacher, styled Ma Jianxun (some say Ma Jianxiong). As a kid, he studied pigua and baji from his brother, Ma Fengtu. Even as a young lad Ma was solidly-built, and his bravery was well known in his hometown, which was only 2km from one of the centres of Baji, Luotuan village. In 1904, the two Mas (Ma Yingtu and Ma Fengtu) became Zhang Gongchen’s disciples, learning the ‘6 great openings’ [liu da kai], ‘8 great techniques’ [ba da zhao] routines as well as the six harmonies spear. At the time the two Mas became Zhang’s indoor disciples, Zhang was quite old already. The 8 year-old Ma was a favourite of Zhang Gongchen’s, and he also received pointers from his shixiong Zhang Yuheng, Han Huiqing and Ma Fengtu as well as from Li Shuwen’s teacher, Huang Sihai. As a result, his skill improved in leaps and bounds. In 1910, when he performed baji at the Tianjin Wushi Hui (lit. ‘Association of Chinese Warriors’) , Li Shuwen praised him, saying “This kid’s even using some dingba jin [upward pressing force], he’s going to be a talent to watch.” Later events proved Li right. Ma Yingtu was incredibly powerful, he loved to fight and his techniques were fast and devastating, hence his nicknames of ‘Lightning hands’ and ‘Ma the Ruthless’ [Ma Henzi].

In 1924, the militias of Feng Yuxiang and Li Jinglin [1] fought the battle of Langfang. Ma, on the instructions of Zhang Zhijiang, who was the Commander in Chief of Feng’s militia, led a ‘kamikaze corps’ [gan si dui] mostly composed of young men from Cang county which, armed with sabres and handguns, was responsible for clearing the way for the rest of the army to attack Tianjin. He later received a commendation from Feng for his efforts.

Another martial arts instructor in Feng’s camp was not impressed and challenged Ma to a contest with sabres. The two started 10m apart holding wooden sabres, and with Ma’s opponent wearing protective gear. General Feng Yuxiang arranged that the match would start with a blast on a whistle from the referee. The referee had not even finished blowing the whistle, when Ma Yingtu closed the gap and delivered three successive blows to his opponent’s head, knocking him out.

Whilst stationed in Tianjin, Ma accidentally offended a local gang when he used his kungfu to help a passerby out of trouble. Over 100 gangsters surrounded Ma, but Ma was unruffled throughout. The gang’s fighters were thrown out one by one, with no one being able to get near Ma as he fought from one end of a street to the other. Hence there’s a saying amongst baji people ‘The second Ma [Ma Er Ye] beat a whole street’.

Founder of the Nanjing Central Guoshu Institute, General Zhang Zhijiang

In 1927, Ma, in his guise as a military officer from the Northwest Army , accompanied Zhang Zhijiang when he went to Nanjing to establish the Nanjing Central Guoshu Research Institute , and was one of the founders of said insitute.The following year, the Nanjing Central Guoshu Insitute was officially established with Ma acting as head of the Shaolin division. Ma was quickly taken up with preparations for the first national guokao (lit. ’state test’, an All-China martial arts competition). In order to test various rules for the guokao, the institute held internal barehand and weapons sparring competitions, in which Ma defeated many other famous masters, earning him a reputation as the representative of ’real masters’ [as opposed to those there through connections] at the institute. During the closing ceremony of the guokao, Ma Yingtu, along with Liu Pixian and others, demonstrated sparring with spears and sword duelling  for dignitaries such as Chiang Kaishek, Lin Sen [2] and Dai Jitao [3], winning praise. After that, Ma taught Bajiquan, Piguazhang, Miao Dao, Feng Mo Gun [devil's staff] and the spear to the teachers’ class.

Master of miao dao, Guo Ruixiang, demonstrating miao dao usage.

In the early days of the institute, there were two famous martial artists called ‘iron head’ and ‘iron hand’ who issued a challenge. The other instructors all suggested that Ma take the challenge. Ma did so, easily defeating the two challengers, and thus saving face for the institute.At the insitute, [Han Huachen's disciples] Wei Hongbin and Zhao Ronglin learnt piguazhang from Ma. Wei Hongbin and his brother Wei Hong’en settled in Qinhuangdao in 1937. Zhao Ronglin was an instructor at the Whampoa Military Academy. After liberation, Zhao returned to his hometown in Wen An county [which also produced bagua founder Dong Haichuan] and became a farmer. ……..

……. When the Japanese invaded China, Ma was employed as either a martial arts instructor or a military officer in the militias of Liu Ruming and Song Zheyuan. The ‘Da Dao Dui’ (Sabre Unit) that Ma trained up struck fear into the hearts of the Japanese and made a sterling contribution to the Chinese efforts toward liberation. In 1949, Ma took part in Fu Zuoyi’s Beijing revolt. Later, he was demobilised due to illness, and subsequently became a farmer in Jingchuan county in Gansu province. Ma Yingtu was a fiery but bold man, all of his students remember him with gratitude. The fact that he ended his days in poverty and obscurity is truly a tragedy.

Ma was skilled at Bajiquan, Piguazhang, Fanzi [4] and Chuojiao [5]. Amongst the weapons, he was good at the double-handed broadsword, gim and staff; there was also great admiration for his shuaijiao, weightlifting, sword sparring and archery on horseback. In his own teaching, he stressed practical usage, long- and short-range strikes, combined usage of hard and soft, hence his excellent fighting record. He was warm yet strict in his teaching. Li Yuanzhi, He Fusheng, Ma Chengzhi, Niu Zenghua and Cao Yanhai all studied under him.”

[1] This battle was part of the second Zhili-Fengtian war, which you can read more about here  The war was between two cliques, the Zhili clique led by Feng Yuxiang, and the Fengtian led by Zhang Zuolin. Interestingly, Li Jinglin and Zhang Zhijiang were on opposite sides of the war in 1924 (Li Jinglin being a commander in the Fengtian clique, whilst Zhang was CIC in Feng’s militia, which was part of the Zhili clique). And yet only 4 years later, they were both involved in the Nanking Central Guoshu Institute: Zhang Zhijiang was the principal and founder, and Li Jinglin the vice-principal.  

[2] Lin Sen was the President of the Republic of China from 1931-1943.

[3] Dai Jitao was a high-ranking member of the Kuomintang (KMT) who served as State Councillor and Minister of Information in the Republican government.

[4] Fanzi quan, or ‘rotating fists’ is a northern Chinese style of martial arts emphasising the hands.

[5]Chuojiao is another style of martial arts from Northern China that emphasises kicking and is often taught together with Fanzi quan.

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Wang Jiwu on hidden power

Many xingyi practitioners will be familiar with the ‘3 stages of development’ codified by Guo Yunshen, dividing the power generated by a xingyi practitioner into ming jin [obvious power], an jin [hidden power] and the highest level, hua jin [neutralising power]. However, what is less often discussed is what these various stages feel like and and how to train them. Below is an extract from an article (taken from here)  by a grandstudent of Wang Jiwu, discussing those very concepts:

“I still remember going to Grass Factory Qi Alley in Beijing with my shifu, Wang Lianyi, to see my shiye, Wang Jiwu. [1] When we got there, shiye Wang instructed my kungfu uncles and brothers to demonstrate ming jin (obvious power) for me. Present were: (WJW’s disciples) Zhang Baoyang & Pan Zhiyuan, as well as my shixiong Wang Hongchang, Sun Guangli, Du Fukun, Su Jingsheng and Ma Wenxuan. The performances of my shixiong were vigorous and full of ming gang jin [obvious hard power], which both surprised and captivated me. Then Zhang Baoyang and Pan Zhiyuan proceeded to demonstrate.

Wang Jiwu with one of his grandstudents, Wang Deming

Their demonstrations were also of hard power, but were different from those of my shixiong. My teacher explained that they were displaying hidden hard power. At the time, I did not understand what was meant by ‘hidden’ hard power. Later through my own practice and insight, I came to realise that regardless of whether one is at the obvious, hidden or huajin stages, one should manifest hard power, as this is the ’soul’ or root of xingyi.

On the subject of huajin, my teacher confided that my shiye himself had reached anjin but never reached the level of huajin. Thus, my teacher said that we would probably only reach, at best, anjin, as we were unlikely to put in as much time and effort as the old-timers had. According to Li Cunyi, huajin is not a result of any special training methods but merely a result of taking anjin to its conclusion. Wang Jiwu said that, of the older generation of xingyi masters that he had met, Wang Fuyuan, Song Huchen, Song Tielin, Li Fuzhen and Li Cunyi had all reached the stage of huajin. From his own generation, his two shixiong Peng Yingxi and Peng Tingjun, Shang Yunxiang and Sun Lutang had all also reached huajin. Even amongst those who had reached huajin, there were still slight differences: for example, Sun Lutang was generally acknowledged to be a ‘grandmaster’ (da shi) of xingyi, but he wasn’t invincible. There were other masters who had reached a similar level, but these masters all had a great respect for each other’s gongfu and reputation. These masters did not need to knock down or launch an opponent to gauge his skill: sometimes, merely a word here and there or simply touching hands would be enough. True masters are always looking for someone on the same or higher level to exchange skills with. Sun Lutang ‘crossed hands’ with a number of high level masters who were famous at the time but are practically forgotten now. Wang Jiwu’s shixiong, Peng Yingxi was one such. Wang Jiwu said that Sun Lutang’s xingyi was agile [lingdong]; his ‘monkey’ shape in particular was superb. Peng Yingxi had once crossed hands with Sun, and found that he [Peng] was the more powerful of the two.

I had thought that xingyi enthusiasts nowadays wouldn’t be able to see huajin: if even our own shifu and shiye say that they have not reached huajin, where would we go looking for it? Luckily fortune smiles on us, for last year I bought a VCD on Dai style xinyi by Guo Jin-gang. I invited my shifu to watch it with me; as we were watching it, he remarked that he was surprised at how different Guo’s xinyi was from our xingyi. As we watched on, my shifu was full of praise, saying that Guo’s xinyi was real Xinyi Liuhequan, and that if his father had still been alive he would have been delighted. Perhaps Wang Jiwu may even have seen something of his shixiong in Guo’s movements, for Wang Jiwu’s shixiong Peng Tingjun learnt the 3 fists, 3 staffs and 4 seizes (Si Ba) from Dai Kui. Later on Peng assimilated what he had learnt from Dai into his xingyi and taught it to Wang Jiwu. My shifu solemnly declared that this was the stage of Hua Jing, and that Guo’s xinyi was orthodox Dai style. If you’re interested, I suggest you take a look at videos or VCDs of Guo. There’s no need to look at his fists, just looking at his steps is a shock: his steps are extremely light, as if walking on ice, he can either step noiselessly or stamp hard enough to split a brick. This must be the result of decades of unremitting practice.

The distinction between mingjin and anjin is a feature of Hebei xingyi, Che style doesn’t really emphasise the difference. As Wang Fuyuan first studied under Liu Qilan and then later moved to Taigu, where he studied with Che Yizhai, a lot of the xingyi passed on by Wang is almost identical to Che style. I have seen some footage of some disciples of Lu Xuelong (a disciple of Che Yizhai): it was like watching my own shifu when he was teaching me, they were demonstrating xingyi’s anjin. In our branch, we first train mingjin: that is, we practice the fists according to the 6 harmonies (liu he), each step is a stamp, each punch should generate noise. One should train in this way for about 5 years before ‘converting’ to anjin. A lot of people (including some of my own kungfu brothers) are ’stuck’ in the mingjin stage, because anjin is trained in a completely different way. It’s not like taiji’s fang song, it’s more like motionless resistance against a pair of forces. For instance, in training anjin one needs to ‘open the shoulder’, by which we mean to relax the shoulderblade. However, merely relaxing it is not enough, you need to visualise expanding whilst simultaneously ’sucking’ them inwards. The kua also needs to be first relaxed and then ‘wrapped’ internally. In fact, the same process applies to the knees, elbows and feet as well – this is the external aspect of practice. The internal requirements are even more important: the baihui point [on the top of the head] must be ’sucked’  down; the hand forms a ‘roof tile’ shape, the laogong point [on the palm] is ’sucked’ in; the soles of the feet should be ‘empty’, with the toes gripping the floor and the yongquan point must be ’sucked’ upwards. All of this is done to concentrate qi in the dantian. Now, when you practice zhan zhuang, it’s not about strengthening your leg muscles, but rather about cultivating internal power and inner qi. At this stage, we stand in low postures, but it’s not good to stand for too long. When you first start a few minutes is enough – my shifu only holds the posture for 100 breaths. You can switch legs if you want, the important thing is not to get stiff. In this way, even though you only stand for a short time, you develop power. In standing, the arms can move around slightly, but the legs should be steady. The waist (dantian) and shoulders should turn as you feel the flow of internal power [nei li]. At the same time, you need to couple the practice with visualisations. The best time to practice is when there is no noise and no people around: my shifu practices at 4am, whilst I practice between 10pm and midnight – it’s down to your personal preference.

After you have ‘changed power’ [2], you go back to practicing the fists (i.e. the 5 elements), but the way you train it is different. You want to bring the ‘quality’ of the zhan zhuang into your forms. To do this, you have to do the forms slowly, you can’t do them fast. After you have developed some neijin, the hands should feel as if they are ripping cotton, or drawing a bow. When stepping, as you step out you should ‘hold back’ the jin, and then express ‘nian’ [crushing] and ‘zhan’ [expanding] power as you lay down the foot. The elbow should hang down, but at the same time ‘wrap’ inwards. As my shifu said, you want to ‘draw’ the elbow back, firstly to experience ‘wrapping’ [chan guo] power, but also to defend against the opponent grabbing your tendons, or sealing blood vessels (拿脉）. At the same time, the lead arm must go forward as if pulled by a string, while the lagging arm is visualised as being pulled backwards. It should be as if there is a tug-of-war between the two hands: but this kind of visualisation shouldn’t be too forced, it should mainly remain at the level of ‘intent’. This is why xingyi is easy to practice but hard to master: at this stage, we work on the mental aspect, not power. Apart from training hard, you have to analyse and examine your art. When I reached this stage I went back to the 5 fists and 12 animals to re-evalutate them, to discover the ‘internal side’ to the forms. By then, just practicing the 5 elements was enough – in fact, sometimes I just practiced Pi [splitting] and Beng [crushing]. The main concern at this stage is to practice neigong, to cultivate the dantian’s inner qi [nei qi].

Wang Jiwu practicing neigong

The training method is not actually that complicated, it’s called Bodhidharma Innate Qigong [达摩先天功], and includes both sitting and lying postures, and even ’sleep qigong’, which involves falling asleep naturally whilst practicing the aforementioned postures. The key is to keep practicing every day for 100 days and to keep sex to a minimum. If you can’t rein in your sex drive, there’s just no way you can train anjin. The idea is that after you have ‘filled up’ the dantian, you can project it to the rest of the body. After the body is full of true qi [zhen qi], the body naturally becomes as light and agile as a swallow. If you practice late at night or early in the morning, you will feel that it’s not you practicing xingyi, but rather the movements of your body are driven by the inner chi (neiqi), spontaneous and automatic, and not reliant on your own will. I believe that if we persist in our training, we too can reach the stage of ‘no-mind is the true mind’ [wu yi zhi zhong shi zhen yi] talked about by older generations. The upside of practicing at night is that you don’t rely so much on your eyes, you’re forced to use your other senses. Of course, this can also be practiced during the day by closing your eyes. Then, if someone attacks  you by surprise, your reaction will be natural, reflexive, without being mediated by the brain. This is what grandmasters of the art mean when they talk about ‘whilst waiting, motionless; if the enemy suddenly attacks, you respond naturally to his actions without meaning to hit him’ .

Grabbing clay jars

Those who have reached the anjin stage need to strengthen their external power [wai li], especially of the arms and fingers. Training methods included grabbing sandbags and grabbing clay jars. This strengthening is needed becase in the anjin phase, the joints of your body have opened up and your muscles are naturally relaxed. At this point, you should train to make the arm muscles tight [jin] but subconsciously relax in your practice. This helps to avoid the problem of ‘full legs, light top’ (xia shi er shang qing), because the anjin of xingyi is ‘hard hidden power’, not the relaxation of taiji. Xingyi’s hidden hard power is like steel wire on a reel, or a rotating iron ball. The outside looks soft, but the inside is actually hard. Li Cunyi once discussed the issue of soft & hard hidden power most incisively.

Even at the age of 90, Wang Jiwu still did press-ups either with only two fingers or with a closed fist (in Shaolin gongfu, this is called Iron Ox plows the earth]. As a result of this, even in his later years Wang Jiwu could send people flying out the door using only two fingers.

My teacher, Wang Lianyi, is 80 this year and is approachable and modest: he always says that he has only reached the anjin stage, not huajin. However, I have observed that for Wang Lianyi, xingyi has already seeped into everything he does. For example, when M Wang used to live on the first floor, there would be lots of flies buzzing around in the hallway in summer. M Wang, as a hygienic man, would grab a rolled-up newspaper and swat the flies out the air. I couldn’t help noticing that he used the ‘monkey’ shape from the 12 animals to swat the flies. As I was sweeping up the fallen flies, I noticed that, to my surprise, the flies had not been smashed to bits, but had only had their wings knocked off or had been knocked senseless. It was only then that I realised what control shifu must have over his power.

When practicing shi li, shifu could launch me into the air to land on a bed or a chair several steps away, but it would never hurt. This is not some kind of ’speciali ability’, simply the result of hard practice when he was younger. In training, shifu and his shixiong would throw sandbags weighing tens of pounds between each other like kids playing. Even in his mid-sixties, shifu could still carry a bag weighing more than 50 kg on his shoulders up 6 flights of stairs without getting out of breath. Hence, I believe that anjin is not some kind of ‘mysterious’ ability: as long as we can avoid temptation, practice hard and think deeply about our art, we too can reach the heights scaled by previous generations.

[1] Wang Lianyi is Wang Jiwu’s son and disciple.

[2] This term (换劲, huan jin) refers to the process of changing the way you use your body, the way you generate power – in this case, from obvious to hidden.

‘Iron Arm’ Wang Fuyuan

Flicking through Dan Miller and Tim Cartmell’s excellent book ‘Xingyi Neigong” (pictured below) the other day, I was curious about the master Wang Jiwu, whose exercises are profiled therein.

 

 

It turns out Wang’s branch of xingyi is an interesting mixture of Shanxi and Hebei xingyi with some Dai xinyi influences.  Below is a profile of Wang’s teacher, Wang Fuyuan, translated from here :

‘Iron Arm’ Wang Fuyuan was one of Liu Qilan’s most accomplished disciples. He was Liu Qilan’s ’shu tong’ [1] and from his youth practiced xingyi morning and night under Liu’s tutelage for over a decade. He mastered the essence of Liu’s xingyi. He never married, and hence kept his ‘tong zi gong’ [2] and his iron arm was as hard as steel.

As a young man, Wang Fuyuan once eliminated a local head of the ‘3 Emperors’ gang  on his shifu’s orders. In order to evade the local authorities, Wang sought shelter with his shishu [3] Che Yizhai and lived in his home. In the evenings, Che, his disciple Li Fuzhen and Wang all practiced xingyi together. Che, seeing that Li wanted to ‘cross hands’ with Wang, ‘Changyou [Li Fuzhen's nickname], why don’t we watch Fuyuan’s xingyi?’ To which Wang replied ‘Shishu, what would you like to see?’ Che replied with ‘Whatever you like!’ In reply, Wang said ‘I guess I’ll do a bit of Pan Gen walking then.’ So saying, Wang went into a San Ti stance, sank his qi to the dantian, and started doing Pan Gen, with the steps directing the body, like a swimming dragon. The rotations and changes of directions made Wang’s movements hard to make out. By this point, Wang was moving so fast that his queue [4] was stretched out horizontally behind him. After Wang had finished, Che was full of praise. Che treated Wang as if he was his own indoor disciple, teaching him painstakingly. Wang also became fast friends with Li Fuzhen. Later on, Che recommended Wang for a job guarding a household in nearby Yuci county.

In Yuci, Wang also often met and sought instruction from some of his other xingyi uncles like Song Shirong, Li Taihe, Li Guangheng, Liu Yuanheng and He Yunheng. Hence, Wang’s xingyi can be said to combine the essence of various branches of Hebei and Shanxi xingyi. What’s more, even though at that time the Dai family still kept to their tradition of not teaching outsiders, Wang had contact with the Dai family, which is how Wang’s xingyi came to contain neigong concepts such as the ‘reverse bow’ [反弓一粒精] as well as the Dai family’s 3 fists (Drilling, Wrapping and Stomping ) as well as the 3 staffs (Peng, Pao, Fan Bei). Wang commonly carried with him a paired weapon called ‘bodyguard needles’, which were the same as the ‘iron chopsticks’ used by the Dai family. When Wang guarded convoys, he would carry these needles on his person in case of emergencies. Wang’s needles, 3 staffs and dragon sword (long xing jian) were taught to Peng Yingxi, who taught Wang Jiwu, who passed it on to his son, my teacher Wang Lianyi. For a period, Wang Fuyuan ran a caravan-guarding agency [biao ju] called Xing Yuan in Sanchahe in Inner Mongolia. During the years running Xing Yuan, his caravans were never successfully raided.

Both shiye and shifu emphasised to me that our branch is called Xinyi Liuhe quan – this emphasises that the contents of our branch come from the methods of the Dai family. In Wang Lianyi’s 1986 book, ‘Amazing Art’ (神功） he also calls our art Xinyi Liuhe quan. In this article I will refer to it as Xingyiquan to avoid confusion with the Xinyi Liuhe quan practiced in Henan.

Wang Fuyuan was famous in his lifetime and taught many students in the Yuci and Yangqu areas of Shanxi. From Yuci, there were Peng Yingxi, Wang Zhen-gang, Wang Jiwu, Zheng Zigang and Bo Zhanmei; from Yangqu, there were Mu Xiuyi, Peng Tingjun, Liu Shirong, Qi Zhenlin, and others. Amongst these, the most oustanding were Peng Yingxi, Peng Tingjun and Mu Xiuyi.

A short clip of Mu Xiuyi’s grandstudent, Cao Zhiqing, practicing Beng Quan can be found here

 Wang Fuyuan was born in 1856 and died in 1916 at the age of 60. According to Wang Jiwu, when he was 60, Wang caught a cold and went to a doctor. The doctor prescribed the wrong medicine, leading to Wang’s death. Wang’s passing was a great loss to the martial arts community. Wang Jiwu remembers that Wang Fuyuan was exceedingly fond of him (WJW) and treated him as an adopted son. Wang Jiwu studied with Wang Fuyuan for 6 years, learning San Ti, the 5 elements and the dragon and tiger shapes. After Wang Fuyuan’s passing, Wang Jiwu spent the next 7 years completing his studies with his shixiongs Peng Yingxi and Peng Tingjun, learning the rest of the animals, pair work and weapons. Later, Wang Jiwu went to work as a bodyguard in Li Cunyi’s caravan guarding agency, where he received further pointers from Li Cunyi himself. 

According to Wang Jiwu, the root of Wang Fuyuan’s superlative gongfu was his tongzigong, like that of the Shaolin warrior monks. This, together with his iron arm skill and Pan Gen stepping is what made him one of the most skilled masters of his era. I remember when I visited Wang Jiwu in the autumn of 1986. By that time Wang Jiwu was 94 years old. He showed me his ‘arm gongfu’ sitting on a rock bench by sticking out his arm. His arm was like a thick tree branch; in that year I was 24, and yet, try as I might, I could not move his arm an inch! After a while, I started to hang on his arm as if from a parallel bar – even then, his arm remained rock-steady. Wang himself did not consider this ‘iron arm’, it was merely a product of the practice of zhua tanzi [grabbing earthen jars] and ‘holding wooden bucket’ zhan zhuang. In his later years, Wang Jiwu’s arms were very thin – the skin was loose but the flesh was very firm, like an iron bat. Wang said that, with true ‘iron arm’, the practitioner’s arm could almost double in thickness after ‘circulating qi’ [运气], after which one would be able to break rocks and bend iron  pipes. At the time, I was not convinced. It was only after I met an anonymous master at the Wangfu Hotel who really did have this kind of iron arm ability that I believed what Wang Jiwu had said. After circulating his qi , this man’s arm doubled in thickness and turned red; he could hit his arm with a hammer without damage. He could also ‘project’ qi to heal illnesses.

Wang Jiwu told me that Wang Fuyuan, because of his iron arm and pan gen stepping, had never lost a challenge. In facing up to an opponent, he didn’t block, he just went straight on the attack, invariably ‘launching’ his opponent out. This is the pinnacle of combat in xinyi, called ‘just attacking, no looking [zhi da bu gu]‘. According to the old xinyi manuals, combat can be divided into 3 stages: ‘look first, then attack’; ‘looking & attacking together’ and ‘no looking, just attacking’. Not only that, at the peak of his powers Wang was able to sense movements within 10 steps behind him. It was then that Wang Jiwu told me of an incident that occurred in Wang Fuyuan’s later years.

One night in 1912, Wang Fuyuan was coming home on a deserted country road. On the way, he was accosted by two robbers. The two robbers, seeing that Wang was a skinny old man by himself, hid in the bushes by the side of the road. As Wang passed by, the two leapt out from either side clutching wooden staffs and attacked Wang from behind. Wang, perceiving the danger, ducked backwards through the gap between the two robbers, ending up behind them. Once behind, he hit the Fengfu point on the back of both their heads, causing the two of them to stumble. Wang then used the ’hook back’ of Dai style Ying Zhuo [Eagle Grasp] to send the two robbers to the floor. From nowhere, Wang’s needles appeared in his hands as he barked “Why are you robbing people? If you don’t mend your ways, I’ll put an end to the both of you.” The two robbers knelt on the floor and begged for their lives; Wang, relenting, let them go.  

[1] A ’shu tong’ [书童] , in feudal China, was a servant to a scholar, responsible for odd chores such as fetching books, grinding ink, tidying the scholar’s study, etc.. 

[2] ‘Tongzi Gong’ [童子功] refers to a set of exercises to make the body extremely supple and the joints flexible. It usually has to be practiced from early childhood to have the desired effect.  

[3] Terms of address in Chinese martial arts: shi fu = teacher, shi xiong = elder kungfu brother, shi shu = kungfu ‘uncle’, shi ye = grand-teacher

[4] The queue was the characteristic long ‘ponytail’ hairstyle imposed on Han chinese men by the Manchu emperors during the Qing dynasty.

 

Yang Luchan on the silver screen

During the late Qing dynasty, a young man from Hebei named Yang Yuqian leaves his village to seek out a kungfu master. After many travails and escapades, he ends up in Chen Family Village in Henan. Once there, he asks to become a student of the taiji master Chen Zhengying, but is refused, as the Chen family art is not taught to outsiders. However, eventually Chen accepts Yang as his disciple. Yang masters the art and brings it to Beijing, where he defeats allcomers and sets up his own school teaching the art.

Sound familiar?

That’s because this is the plot of the 1997 mainland series ‘Master of Tai Chi’, which, of all the various kungfu films and series over the years with the word Tai Chi in the title, cleaves closest to the actual story of tai chi. Of course, the directors Zhang Xinyan [1] and Yuen Woo-ping [2] have taken artistic liberties with the story: names have been changed (Yang Yuqian for Yang Luchan, Chen Zhengying for Chen Changxing), Yang becomes Chen’s disciple after saving him from poisoning (rather than working as an indentured servant like the real Yang Luchan), Yang falls in love with Chen’s daughter, and so on.

The most interesting departure from history is that Yang, in his quest for high-level kungfu, first goes to Beijing, where he meets Dong Hancheng (a thinly disguised Dong Haichuan) and asks to be accepted as his disciple. However, because Dong is on a mission to assassinate the emperor (coincidentally mirroring a real-life theory as to how Dong came to become a eunuch [3]), he refuses and it is only later that Yang finds his way to Chen Family Village.

Wu Jing in a wushu-ised taiji posture

The fight between Dong and Yang is a standout of the entire series in that both Dong and Yang are (to a certain extent) shown to use recognisable techniques and principles from their respective styles. An excerpt of the final fight between Dong and Yang can be found here.

‘Master of Tai Chi’ is also rare in celluloid versions of the taiji story in that the main protagonist actually practices taiji. Wu Jing, the actor playing Yang Yuqian, performs a speeded-up version of the Chen 56 competition routine throughout the series.

In a 2006 interview, Wu revealed that he went to Chenjiagou to learn the routine from Wang Xi’an and is good friends with Wang’s second son, Wang Zhanjun. Even after the filming finished, he continues to visit Chenjiagou at sporadic intervals to learn taiji and relax from the stresses of his ‘day job’ as an actor.

Wang Zhanjun (L) pushing hands with Wu Jing (R)

[1] Zhang Xinyan was the director of 1984’s Shaolin Temple, the film which started Jet Li on his path to fame.

[2] Yuen Woo-ping is one of the most respected and successful martial arts choreographers in the world having worked  on such films as Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon and the Matrix series among others.

[3] Li Ziming, in his 1993 book “Dong Haichuan & Baguazhang”, put forward a theory that Dong came to Beijing and became a eunuch in order to assassinate the emperor. This theory was based on interviews with masters from the second and third generations of bagua.

1929 Hangzhou Leitai Tournament

My recent translation of an article on Pei Xirong sparked my interest  in the 1929 Leitai tournament in Hangzhou, which seems to have been the largest bare-hand Leitai competition in recent history. The following translation draws on several sources, mainly here and here .

“In early 1929, the vice-dean of the Central Martial Arts Academy, Li Jinglin, wrote to the heads and gatekeepers of various martial arts from around the country, intimating that he wished to organise an ‘All-China Martial Arts Gala’, in order to inspire more Chinese people to learn martial arts. His proposal was eagerly received. On 3 May 1929, the Zhejiang provincial government decided that in November of that same year, they would hold a ‘Zhejiang Guoshu  & Entertainment Gala’ (popularly dubbed the ‘National Leitai Tournament’) in Hangzhou. In August of that year, the Zhejiang Guoshuguan was established and took on the responsibility of organising the tournament. The Organising Committee was set up on 11 Oct. Chen Tianshen, at the time a Guoshuguan student, wanted desperately to take part, but was too young, and so instead was allocated to help out the organising committee.

On 9 November, the promotional activities for the Leitai tournament reached a crescendo, with decorative archways being erected in front of Qinghua and Qingtai hotels located in Hangzhou city centre. Red silk banners reading ‘Guoshu & Entertainment Gala Hostel’ were strung up in front of the archways whilst Chen and his kungfu brothers distributed flyers on the streets. The next day, participants from all over the country started pouring into Hangzhou. The oldest entrant was Ruan Zenghui from Fenghua at 68 years old, whilst the youngest was Lin Biao, from Wenzhou, aged only 7. The original number of performers swelled from 270 to 345 people whilst there were 125 entrants for the free-fighting competition. All the while, ‘fans’ from all over the country poured into Hangzhou, filling its hotels to bursting.

The venue for the tournament was the  old Futai Yamen [2] next to Tongjiang bridge. A concrete leitai platform 4 feet tall, 56 feet long and 60 feet wide was specially built for the event…..

…The gala’s opening ceremony was originally supposed to be held in the afternoon of 15 November, but was postponed to the next morning because of rain. That day, the old yamen, which had lain dormant for so long, was a blaze of colour and awash with people: group representatives, reporters and guests filled the hall. The moment the bell sounded and military marches started to play, the whole crowd came to their feet and saluted in silence.

The Leitai tournament was divided into two halves: the ‘performance’ days from 16-20 Nov, in which places or winners were judged; and the ‘free-fighting’ stage, which ran from 21-27 Nov, at the end of which rankings would be announced.

The gala was a huge event for Hangzhou, with hordes of people wanting to watch the fights, with the result that tickets became a hot commodity. There were two kinds of tickets to the Leitai tournament: a ‘one-bout only’ ticket was 5 jiao (about 7  cents) whilst a ‘General Ticket’ allowing the holder to watch 10 bouts cost 4 yuan.(about 60c) Seeing as a pound of pork at that time only cost 1.5 jiao, the tickets were relatively expensive for the time. The audiences every day numbered in the tens of thousands of people.

General Li Jinglin

In order that judging should be fair, the organisers put together a committee of 29 judges which included such famous names as:

Li Jinglin, Head Judge, (master of Wudang sword)
Sun Lutang, Vice-Chairman of Judging Committee
Chu Minyi ［3］
Liu Baichuan, (master of northern Shaolin, famous for his kicks)
Du Xinwu, (master of the Ziranmen [Natural Gate] school)
Yang Chengfu, (Yang style taijiquan)
Wu Jianquan,  (Wu style taijiquan)
Jiang Xinshan, (cousin of Li Jinglin, bagua student of Cheng Tinghua’s son Cheng Haiting)
Zhang Zhaodong, (xingyi/bagua)
Shang Yunxiang (xingyi, student of Li cunyi)
Liu Caichen (studied taiji from Quan You, xingyi from famous master Geng Jishan)
Huang Bonian (bagua)
Han Huachen (famous master of bajiquan)
Xu Yusheng (Yang style taiji)
Ma Yutang (xingyi, student of Li Cunyi)

The committee also engaged the services of 37 ‘inspectors’, which also included some of the brightest names in martial arts:

Chu Guiting (learnt xingyi from Li Cunyi, bagua from Huang Bonian & taiji from Yang Chengfu)
Tian Zhaolin (yang style taiji)
Tong Zhongyi (expert in shuai jiao & liu he men [6 harmonies boxing])
Gao Zhendong (studied xingyi under Ma Yutang)
Li Xingjie (xingyi, Li Cunyi’s student)
Chen Weiming (yang taiji)
Ye Dami (yang taiji)
Li Shuwen (famous master of bajiquan)
Wan Laisheng (ziranmen)
Fu Jianqiu (bagua/xingyi)
Geng Xiaguang (xingyi, Geng Jishan’s son)
Han Qichang (famous master of Meihuazhuang, or ‘plum flower posts’)
Zhao Daoxin (yiquan, Wang Xiangzhai’s disciple)
Cheng Yougong (bagua, Cheng Tinghua’s son)
…..

On the first day of the gala, the judges, ‘inspectors’ and entrants performed over 500 bare-handed and weapons routines coming from over 30 different styles, including Wudang, Shaolin, Xingyi, Bagua, Taiji and many more. The displays included internal and external gongfu as well as ‘light skill’ and hidden weapons. Li Jinglin and his wife performed a 2-person taiji sword routine.

Photo of performance of 2-man Wudang sword set at the tournament

The third day marked the start of the free-fighting tournament. The tournament operated on an elimination basis, with bouts decided by drawing lots. Contestants were not allowed to attack the eyes, throat or groin – anyone breaching these rules was disqualified. The atmosphere during tournament was very tense, but at the end of the first day, more than half of the entrants remained in the competition. This was because of a flaw in the rules: in the event of a draw, the original rules stipulated that both contestants could progress to the next round. At the end of the first day, the judge’s committee changed the rules so that in the event of a draw, both contestants would be out. After that, the competitors didn’t hold back and many people were hurt, mostly with head injuries. The judges’ committee instituted a new rule in response, stating that contestants were not allowed to continually attack the head. As a result of this new rule, the third day saw more attacks to the lower half of the body and the overall skill level on display rose substantially. However, the atmosphere of the tournament still remained tense.

THE 1929 TOURNAMENT IN THE EYES OF ZHAO DAOXIN

There were several people from Tianjin competing in the Hangzhou Leitai tournament, one of whom as Zhao Daoxin [4]. Zhao, only 20 at the time and at the beginning of his martial arts career, managed to achieve 13th place, and out of the top 30 ranked fighters, the vast majority were around 30 years old.

A young Zhao Daoxin

Zhao Daoxin was a disciple of Zhang Zhaodong and was famous in Tianjin’s martial arts community. He was known for the ferocity  of his attacks, and was called ‘the Lu Xun [5] of martial arts’ for his willingness to experiment, to separate the wheat from the chaff. In the 1980s, Zhao Daoxin (by that time already in his 80s) taught what he had learnt to Zhang Hongjun. Based on Zhao’s teaching and his own hard training, Zhang went on to become a nationally famous San Da fighter. He inherited Zhao’s ‘heavy’ punches and kicks.

When asked about Zhao’s participation in Leitai tournaments, Zhang Hongjun showed this reporter a portion of Zhao’s diary summarising his understanding of kungfu and his thoughts on the 1929 tournament:  ‘No foreigners dared to enter the contest. Those ‘orthodox inheritors’ of traditional martial arts, regardless of whether they were lofty monks or local grandmasters, were either kocked out or scared out of the competition.Even though, at registration, every competitor identified themselves as belonging to a traditional style, every one of them engaged in secret auxiliary combat training of their own device.’…….

…..At the Hangzhou Leitai tournament, there were no weight classes. The 240-odd competitors were divided into 4 groups. All the contestants wore Chinese -style jacket and trousers made of grey cloth, with either a red or white sash tied around the waist to differentiate them. Before the start of the tournament, the contestants’ names were replaced by numbers, which were then placed in wooden balls. The wooden balls were then placed into a larger copper globe. Under the watchful eyes of the supervisors, the wooden globe was shaken and the order of bouts determined by the sequence in which the wooden balls rolled out of the globe. Thus, the first day of the tournament commenced, with the first competitor to be knocked down or admit defeat judged the loser.

On the second day, the judges had to change the rules because of the number of drawn matches. For example, the bout between Wen Zhenfei and Wang Pu lasted 10 minutes, with neither side winning; in the Han Qichang v Gao Shouwu bout, the bout was still drawn after 60 rounds (?!).

Han Qichang (from 1991 Grandmasters magazine)

Gao and Han were then given a 3-minute break, after which they resumed, with neither side able to gain the other hand; it was only after a final short intermission that Gao Shouwu was able to win with a kick – but by that point both contestants were both so tired they could barely catch their breath. In response, the judging committe changed the system to: fight 4 minutes – 2 minute break – resume. If no-one could win within 10 minutes, the match was declared a draw and there was to be a rematch the next day. The judges also declared that, where contestants ignored a referee’s whistle/instructions to stop, they would be disqualified.

‘ADEPTS’ LOSE THEIR HALOES

For the duration of the tournament, Hangzhou, lost its  customary scholarly air to be replaced by a more martial spirit. The fisticuffs in the ring drew yells of approval from the audience. Such a large-scale tournament drew the attention of not just Chinese people, but also some Japanese and Russian martial artists came to watch. A dozen or so Americans brought their cameras to the tournament and took photo after photo of the contestants. Even though the rules at that time allowed anyone (including foreigners) to enter the tournament, no foreigners dared to enter, because of the lack of protective equipment (no gloves, no headgear) and the lack of restrictions of techniques – only eye gouges, strangling and groin attacks were barred.

Zhang Hongjun said “What does it mean to have gongfu? The 1929 Leitai tournament in Hangzhou is a classic example of how we should understand the term ‘gongfu’.”

In the tournament, Cao Yanhai (a student of the Central Guoshu Institute who eventually placed fourth) met the iron palm master Liu Gaosheng. Liu Gaosheng was famous in Shanghai for his mastery of iron palm and Ziranmen (Natural Gate); he was the head trainer of security guards for Shanghai’s 4 largest department stores and had close to 3,000 students, and was one of the favourites to win the tournament. Liu was not only a master of iron palm, he was also adept at  hard qigong. Meeting such a tough opponent in the first round put Cao under pressure. At the beginning of the bout, Liu immediately launched a palm strike at Cao. Cao took the strike, thinking to gauge Liu’s power, only to find that half his body went numb – he could barely withstand it! Fortunately,Cao was calm under pressure and didn’t crumble. He took a deep breath, shook himself and hurriedly changed his tactics. Instead of taking Liu on head-on, Cao evaded as much as possible, trying to use sweeps and low kicks to attack Liu’s legs. This tactic helped Cao to go on the offensive. In the second round, Cao saw his opportunity and laid Liu out with a punch, winning the match. The next day, Zhao asked Liu how he could have lost: Liu was so vexed he punched the ground, breaking a brick in half, saying “Dammit, dammit”.

Purely from looking at the results, Liu Gaosheng’s gongfu was no match for Cao Yanhai; but Cao Yanhai could not split a brick – how can we explain this result? The reason is, Cao Yanhai often sparred, so he was good at adapting his tactics. Liu, on the other hand, rarely fought: day-to-day practice only involved testing his palm strikes, which of course most normal people could not withstand. In the bout, even though Liu’s palm strikes were devastatingly powerful, he could not hit Cao, instead being knocked down. Thus, one should not mistake hard qigong for combat skill. In a real encounter, the winner will be he who reacts faster, hits harder. Li Jinglin, the Wudang sword master, head of the Central Guoshu Institute and organiser of the 2 Leitai tournaments, once said “If I were to be knocked down, I should respect my opponent’s gongfu: we should recognise that ‘he who can knock me down has gongfu’”.

HEBEI SWEEPS THE TOP 3

As the tournament progressed, the bouts became more and more exciting, with the crowds numbering in the tens of thousands. No longer did we see protracted battles of attrition: some of the matches were over within a couple of exchanges of blows. In the final stages of the tournament, the match between Ma Chengzhi and Han Qingtang [6] was a standout. Ma and Han met in the 6th round of the tournament, by which point there were only 10 competitors left. Han Qingtang was one of the representatives of Northern Shaolin of the era. He was particularly skilled at Praying Mantis and Taizu Long Fist.

Han Qingtang

At the beginning of the bout, Ma advanced on Han, with Han adopting a ‘wait-and-see’ approach. When they were about 3 or 4 feet apart, Han, thinking that Ma would keep advancing, launched his attack, only to find that Ma had already switched legs and use xingyi’s horse shape to ‘counter-attack. Thus, Han found that he had not made any substantial contact but instead moved right into Ma’s strike. Han was knocked back several steps, but did not go down. Having recovered his balance, Han once again adopted a ‘wait-and-see’ approach, whilst Ma slowly approached. Han then retreated, thinking to lure Ma into attacking. As soon as Ma followed, Han launched kick & punch combos. Ma didn’t retreat or block, but rather ducked into xingyi’s bear shape, advanced, evaded Han’s attack and punched Han in the jaw. Han instantly went down. After the match, Han praised Ma’s movement, saying “He’s like a shadow, constantly changing his angles of approach, I couldn’t even see him, never mind hit him.”

One may win by brute force; but one may equally win by fighting ‘cunningly’ (qiao da). In the 7th round, Ma met his kungfu brother Hu Fengshan [both were students of Sun Lutang]. Because the two were kungfu brothers, they had often practiced together and were familiar with each other’s fighting style. Hu eventually won by trapping Ma’s foot and punching him in the face. Perhaps such a tactic is not what us enthusiasts imagine when we think of kungfu. As Zhang Hongjun points out ,this illustrates the variability of real combat: hitting hard & blocking hard can injure your opponent so he cannot go on, whilst fighting ‘cunningly’ can also win. Kungfu fans might think that this kind of ‘cunning’ tactic is underhanded or not very  staisfying, but this is what real challenge fights are like.

On 27 Nov, after several days of intense fighting, the final placings were decided. Wang Ziqing, a coach from the Central Guoshu Institute came first; Zhu Guolu was second, and Zhang Dianqing third. coincidentally, the top 3 fighters all came from Hebei province: Wang, 30 years old, from Baoding city; Zhu, 29, was from Dingxing county; and Zhang, 25, was also from Baoding. When the news reached Tianjin, Tianjin’s ‘Da Gong Bao’ reported the tournament with the strapline ‘Hebei takes the Top 3′, causing celebrations in Tianjin’s martial arts community.

The most remarkable thing of all was that the top 3 fighters remained unmoved in the face of the lucrative prize money on offer, but instead divided up the prize money amongst all the competitors.”

The final rankings of the Hangzhou tournament were:

1. Wang Ziqing (skilled at shaolin & shuai jiao)
2. Zhu Guolu (xingyi and boxing)
3. Zhang Dianqing (fanzi quan, shuai jiao, yiquan)
4. Cao Yanhai (originally studied Mizong quan. Learnt Tongbei from Ma Yingtu, pigua from Guo Changsheng, later studied under Sun Lutang)
5. Hu Fengshan (originally studied xingyi under Tang Shilin., later became Sun Lutang’s disciple)
6. Ma Chengzhi (originally shaolin,later studied xingyi under Sun Lutang)
7. Han Qingtang (praying mantis, taizu long fist, especially expert at qin’na)
8. Wan Changsheng (learnt Cha quan from Ma Jinbiao)
9. Zhu Zhenglin (learnt Tai Yi Men under Yang Mingzhai)
10. Zhang Xiaocai (learnt Cha Quan under Ma Jinbiao)
11. Gao Zuolin
12. Yue Xia (bagua under Zhao Weixian)
13. Zhao Daoxin (yiquan)
14. Li Qinglan
15. Shang Zhenshan

[1] Guoshu, lit. ‘national art’, was the common umbrella term for chinese martial arts in the early Republican period.

[2] The yamen was the local bureaucrat’s office in imperial China, that functioned as a police station, court house and county hall rolled into one.

［3］ At the time of the tournament, Chu Minyi was a member of the Central Executive Committee of the KMT. He is mostly remembered as a traitor by the Chinese for serving in the collaborationist regime  of Wang Jingwei supported by the Japanese. However, he was also a taijiquan enthusiast, having studied the art under Wu Jianquan.

[4] Zhao was one of the main disciples of Wang Xiangzhai. He later went on to create his own martial art, Xin Hui Zhang [spirit meeting palm].

[5] Writer considered to be the founder of modern Chinese literature

[6] A master of long fist originally from Shandong who later fled to Taiwan. He is known in the West mostly through Robert Smith’s book, ‘Chinese Boxing: Masters & Methods’.

Pei Xirong

The following translation is an excerpt taken from this article .

“Pei Xirong was born in 1913 in Raoyang county in Hebei province. His father was a core member of the Yi He Tuan [1], and his mother had also participated in the ‘Red Lantern’ movement [2]. His uncle, Qi Dalong, was a bodyguard in the caravan agency established by Li Cunyi who guarded caravans travelling between Tianjin and Gubeikou. When the Allied Forces invaded Tianjin, he and Li Cunyi battled against the invaders at Laolongtou Train Station. He fought courageously, sustaining several wounds.

Pei Xirong

The feats of his forefathers inspired Pei Xirong, so that from a young age he held aspirations of practicing martial arts to serve his country. Pei Xirong’s family had practiced Traditional Chinese Medicine for 4 generations; it was for this reason that Pei’s grandfather, an able doctor, was called ‘Pei San Tie’ (3 poultice Pei). Pei carried on the family tradition, learning TCM at the same time as martial arts, laying down a solid foundation in the process. In 1929, 16-year old Pei went to the ‘National Leitai Tournament’ held in Hangzhou. Whilst there, he met the famous master of xingyi and bagua, Fu Jianqiu, and had the good fortune to become his student.

Fu Jianqiu was a skilled disciple of Li Cunyi. In the winter of 1929, Fu Jianqiu, accompanied by Pei, went to Wudang Shan in Hubei province at the behest of Li Jinglin. At the Purple Cloud Palace (Zi Xiao Gong) on Wudang, he met the Taoist abbot Xu Benshan. Pei Xirong recounted that Fu Jianqiu had compared skills with Xu Benshan 3 times, with each expressing admiration for the other’s skills In the end, Fu considered that Xu was an accomplished martial artist  who had left behind the ‘world of dust’ [the secular world] and so became his student. He was accepted as a 16^th-generation disciple of Wudang martial arts, and was given the Taoist name ‘Fu Taishan’ (the ‘He’ character generation) whilst Pei was inscribed as a 17^th-generation inheritor of the ‘Jiao’ character generation. [3]

A young Fu Jianqiu practicing Beng Quan (Crushing Fist)

Fu and Pei lingered in the Zi Xiao Gong for several months, learning Wudang Taiji Neigong, Qian Kun Qiu (Male & Female Ball), Xuanwu staff, Taiyi Sanshou and Wudang sword amongst other things.

The years of arduous training spent following Fu were the start of Pei Xirong’s martial arts career. Later on, Li Jinglin recommended that Pei continue his studies at the Nanjing Central Martial Arts Academy. After that, Pei did stints as a TCM doctor in Beijing and Zhengzhou. Whilst in Zhengzhou, he also worked as an editor for the Sports section of the ‘North China Daily’ (Huabei Ri Bao). Throughout all this, he continued to practice his martial arts, and also learnt Xinyi Liuhe quan from the famous master Bao Ding (aka Bao Xianting).

Pei Xirong’s skills improved in leaps and bounds under the tutelage of his various teachers. Bao Xianting thought particularly highly of Pei, entrusting him with teaching duties as well as compiling martial arts manuals.

In the mid-1930s, the North China Daily was forced to cease publication because it had published several progressive poems. As a result, Pei left Zhengzhou and returned to the Central Martial Arts Academy in Nanjing. One day, as he was walking along the bank of the Qinhuai river, he saw some hoodlums harassing a young lady.  Furious, Pei used the ‘Single Seizing’ (Dan Ba) of Xin Yi Quan to throw one of the hoodlums into the river. The others, upon seeing this, quickly fled.

By sheer coincidence, the then head of the Central Martial Arts Academy, Prof. Huang Bonian, happened to witness this scene. Seeing that Pei was both of upright character and was unusually skilled, Huang accepted Pei as his disciple on the spot, going on to teach Pei his ‘Dragon Shape Baguazhang’. Later Pei Xirong also learnt Bagua Taiji and Bagua Yinyang Panshou from Wu Junshan. By this point Pei Xirong’s first teacher, Fu Jianqiu was teaching in Wuxi in Jiangsu province. In the subsequent years, Pei continually shuttled between Nanjing and Wuxi. In this time, he became more powerful and learnt the essence of the internal arts of Xingyiquan, Baguazhang, Taijiquan and Wudangquan.

After the outbreak of the Sino-Japanese war, the Central Martial Arts Academy moved to the Soutwestern city of Chongqing (formerly Chungking), and later worked as a doctor in Xi’an. Pei Xirong spent several years living near the Little Goose Pagoda. On numerous occasions, he attended to soldiers fighting the Japanese as well as local people for free, earning him a good reputation in the area.  After the Japanese surrender, Pei returned to the East of china via Xuzhou. His train was halted at Bengbu (in Anhui province) by an accident, and hence Pei decided to lodge at the Bengbu Transport Hotel. One morning, he was spotted by a local Praying Mantis master named Li as he was practicing his martial arts in a park. Li paid Pei a visit at his hotel and invited him to a banquet being held at another hotel. After the banquet was over, Li asked if he and Pei could compare skills. Pei Xirong suggested that each of them perform one routine, to see each other’s techniques. Li replied ‘If you’re worried about our techniques, I’ll spar with my disciple’ .  So saying, Li started to spar with his disciple. His palm techniques were impressive, and was accustomed to using slaps to the face to win.

Pei hitched up his robe and started sparring with Li. Li kept on trying to attack Pei’s face, only for Pei to evade each time. Li was skilled, and was suddenly attacked Pei’s waist with the technique ‘Gui Chuai Jiao’ (‘devil kick’). Li’s intent in doing so was that if the technique landed, Pei would be injured for sure; if he used his arms to try and ‘catch’ the leg, Li would attack Pei’s face. In order to defend against Li’s attack to the face, Pei used his leg to intercept the kick. Li then grabbed Pei’s intercepting leg. Pei then employed the ‘shaking jin’ (tandou jin) in the ‘Chong Xi’ (‘knee butt’) technique from Xingyi’s ‘8 character set’ (Ba Zi Gong) to strike Li’s ribs, knocking Li to the floor.

Li then got up and tried to use ‘Wicked tiger pounces on sheep’ (E Hu Pu Yang) to headbutt Pei in the chest. Pei, seeing that Li was going all out, used a dislocation technique to dislocate Li’s lower jaw. Afterwards, Pei relocated Li’s jaw and gave him some medicine. The two became friends after that, with Li asking Pei to stay in Bengbu to exchange techniques.

Pei’s victory over Li raised Pei’s profile in Anhui province a lot. Soon, two well-known boxers from Zhengyangguan came to Bengbu to invite Pei to come to Zhengyangguan to see the sights and meet the boxers there. One of the Gaos was so strong he could play with a 100 kg stone lock [4] as if flicking a marble. Pei, upon realising his strength, used his ‘dragon shape baguazhang’ to weave and evade, so that Gao could not get in close. So although Gao was strong, he could find no opportunity to grab Pei. Because Gao had practiced so much ‘hard gongfu’ (ying gong), as the bout became more prolonged, he started to tire and wheeze. Gao, wanting to get Pei to stand still, picked up a handful of sand from the ground and flung it at Pei’s eyes.  To his surprise, Pei was ready for this and pulled out his iron fan, blocking the sand. Gao then grabbed Pei’s arm and attempted to use the ‘Back Pack’ technique from Shuai Jiao, to which Pei Xirong once again used a dislocation technique to dislocate Gao’s forearm, winning the bout.

Immediately after his victory at Zheng Yang Guan, Pei took a train from Bengbu to Wuxi, where one of his friends introduced him to work in the Athletics Department of Jiangnan University. In 1951, Jiangnan University obeyed orders to merge with Nanjing University, and so Pei came to Shanghai to teach at Fudan university (one of the best universities in China). During his time in Shanghai, he continued to train hard, gaining pointers from Yin Yuzhang (Yin Fu’s son), Dong Wenxiu [5], Huang Boshou and Hu Yaozhen [6]. With the advent of the Cultural Revolution, Pei’s teaching duties were put on hold.”

Gao Tie Niao, one of Pei's students, practicing baguazhang

After Pei retired, he accepted appointments to various Qigong and martial art associations and went on lecture tours in Japan, Malaysia and Singapore.  His students include Gao Tieniao (now teaching in Sweden), as well as Liu Xiaoling and Jane Yao (both now teaching in the USA).

[1] The Yihetuan, lit. ‘Righteous Harmony Society’, more commonly known as the Boxers, was a sect that believed that they could perform extraordinary feats through training, martial arts and prayer. They launched the Boxer Rebellion (1898-1901).

[2] The ‘Red Lantern’ group was a branch of the Yihetuan that accepted only women, local to Tianjin.

[3] In a traditional Chinese martial arts ‘family’, disiples are often given generation names based on a poem passed down by the founder of the style. Thus, for example, the fourth generation baguazhang master Sun Zhijun is from the ’shan ‘[mountain] character generation, based on a poem left by Dong Haichuan.

［4］Stone padlocks were used for weight training in traditional chinese martial arts.

[5] Dong Wenxiu was a master of bagua and xingyi who was thought to be a grand-newphew of Dong Haichuan. Most of his teaching came from Liang Zhenpu, but he also received instruction from Liu Fengchun, Li Cunyi and Zhang Zhaodong.

[6] Hu Yaozhen (1897-1973) was a master of Xinyiquan who was also well versed in Taoist Neigong practices. He first learned Xinyi Liuhe quan from Peng Tingjuan, and later learnt Dai style Xinyiquan from Dai Wenjun (of Qi county in Shanxi). He is most famous for having taught Feng Zhiqiang.

Going to Court over Taiji

I came across an article originally published in 2007 in the Eastern Daily (from here) that illustrates how deep feelings run over historical/lineage issues in China, and thought I’d share it.

“For the last 80 years, the origin of taijiquan has been hotly disputed. One side contends that it was created by Zhang Sanfeng from Wudang mountain; the other contends that it was created by Chen Wangting.

In August of 2004, He Youlu, a 6th-generation inheritor of He style taijiquan sued a martial arts enthusiast over damage to his reputation. This not only caused great consternation in the MA community, but also attracted the attention of Chinese TV and other mainstream media.

He Youlu performing at a Taiji gathering

On 2 June 2007, the Chinese Association of Folk Artists declared Wen county as taijiquan’s site of origin. On the 5th of June, He Youlu won the lawsuit and collected 20,000 RMB in compensation from Wen county People’s Court.

Back in 1992, the relevant provincial departments started to create the two brands of Shaolin and Taiji. Over the last 15 years, Shaolin Temple has already become a famed tourist hotspot, yet Chenjiagou’s tourist appeal is still in its infancy.

Wen county’s declaration and hard work notwithstanding, can Wen county’s taijiquan really be industrialised? How should Wen county’s taijiquan be developed?

TAIJI INHERITOR SUES ‘WUDANG’ MAGAZINE

On the 5th of June 2007, He Youlu collected 20,000 RMB from Wen county People’s Court, signalling the end to a 2-year long reputational damage lawsuit.

He Youlu talking to reporters after the verdict

He Youlu is a 6th-generation inheritor of Zhaobao taijiquan from Zhaobao village in Wen county. In June 2003, he published ‘A Manual of He Style Taijiquan’, a book that had been 2 years in the making.

In his book, in the chapter ‘The Creation of He Style taijiquan’, reads ‘He style taijiquan started with He Zhaoyuan (1810-1890), who was from Zhaobao town in Wen county, Henan province. He learnt taijiquan from the famed master Chen Qingping, and was Chen’s senior disciple…’

A martial arts enthusiast named Zhang Jie from Qinyang city (also in Henan) felt that He Youlu, by only mentioning Chen Qingping but not that He style ultimately derived from Zhang Sanfeng of Mt Wudang, was deliberately avoiding the issue of taijiquan’s origin. In the 2004 Issue 7 of Wudang magazine, Zhang wrote an article accusing He Youlu of ‘betraying his ancestors’ and ‘buddying up to Chen style’.

In August of 2004, He Youlu took Zhang and Wudang magazine to court, demanding an apology and compensation.

The court found that He Zhaoyuan was a student of Chen Qingping and indeed the founder of He style taijiquan. As for the lineage prior to Chen Qingping, the court found that there was still controversy around this subject and that it was not necessary for He Youlu to trace it beyond. The court judged that the defendant, Mr Zhang, had clearly blackened He Youlu’s reputation. It also judged that Wudang magazine had not properly carried out its editing duties.

A group picture of taijiquan masters taken at a banquet organised by Wen county government. From L-R: He Youlu, Wang Xi'an, Chen Xiaowang, Local Government Official, Chen Zhenglei, Zhu Tiancai & Chen Qingzhou

In December of the same year, the court reached a verdict: the two defendants should retract their comments in appropriate media at the same level, as well as paying the plaintiff  compensation for mental distress of 15,000 RMB and 5,000 RMB respectively.

On 23 January this year, Zhang carried out his duties after being formally detained by the police. On 29 May of this year, officers of Wen county people’s court impounded Wudang magazine’s bank account in Danjiangkou city, Hubei province.

80 YEARS OF CONTROVERSY

The roots of this case actually lie in an argument over the place of origin of taiji.

In 1927, the outstanding Chen style master Chen Zhaopi set up a Leitai (traditionally, a ring for kungfu challenge matches) in Beijing, going 17 days undefeated, a feat which caused uproar in Beijing. From then on, the fame of Chen style taiji spread far and wide, but it also caused a dispute over the origins of taiji.

One theory is that taiji originated from Wudang mountain, and was created by the Taoist Zhang Sanfeng; another is that it was created in the early Qing dynasty by Chen Wangting from Chenjiagou.

So what relation is the Chen Qingping mentioned in the ‘He style taiji lineage’ to either of these?

Yuan Fuquan, the current Secretary of Wen county Taijiquan Development & Research Centre and former head of Wen county Athletics Bureau, says that records show that Chen Qingping was a 7th generation inheritor of Chen style taijiquan, who was taught by Chen Youben, his uncle. Later, he moved to Zhaobao town (4km away) for business, and it was his disciple He Zhaoyuan who created He style taiji.

He said that the Zhang Sanfeng theory is just a legend, there’s no supporting evidence.

According to Yuan, Tang Hao, the Chief Editor of “Reference Materials for History of Chinese Physical Culture”, was a trailblazer in chinese martial arts who visited Chenjiagou 3 times during the course of his research. His conclusion, that ‘Taijiquan was created by Chen Wangting and was passed down within the Chen clan’ has become widespread. Kang Gewu, the secretary of the Chinese Martial Arts Association and head of the research department at the Chinese Wushu Management Centre, also concluded after investigation that ‘Chenjiagou is the birthplace of taiji’.

Some experts, however, reject this theory. The taiji authority Wu Tunan, in his ‘A General Discussion of Chinese Martial Arts’ (Guoshu Gailun)wrote that the lineage of taijiquan was Zhang Sanfeng – Wang Zongyue – Jiang Fa – Chen Changxing. The former vice-editor of Zhonghua Wushu magazine considers that Chen Wangting is the originator of Chen style taijiquan, but not the originator of taiji as a whole.

On a separate note, Zhaobao village considers, based on the 1936 book ‘Orthodox taiji’ that Zhaobao taiji developed before Chen style taiji, and hence Zhaobao is the home of taiji.

In view of this hotly disputed topic, some authoritative figures in the martial arts world have pointed out that certain places and styles have distorted history, used legends, or even resorted to fabricating historical evidence for their own benefit. This phenomenon has been bad for the development of taiji as a whole.

CONCLUSION: WEN COUNTY PROCLAIMED BIRTHPLACE, SETTLES DISPUTE BETWEEN CHENJIAGOU & ZHAOBAO

To Yuan Fuquan’s delight, on 2 Jun this year, the dispute over taiji’s origins was finally settled. The General Secretary of Wen county  Literature & Arts Federation Zheng Fuzhen told reporters, in August of last year, Wen county formally applied to the Chinese Folk Arts Association to be recognised as the birthplace of taiji.

On the 20-21 of March this year, a task force made up experts from the fields of martial arts, archaeology and folklore examined Wen County’s claim to be the birthplace of taiji. The CCTV Channel 7 programme ‘Countryside’ filmed a documentary about the whole process, which was edited into an episode called ‘The Birthplace of Taijiquan’, which introduced in detail taijiquan’s origin, evolution and development.

The taskforce unanimously agreed that: Taijiquan originated in the Zhaobao and Chenjiagou villages of Wen county, and that it was created by Chen Wangting of Chenjiagou based on the martial arts passed down within his family, with contributions from many other arts. Later on Chen style taijiquan gave birth to offshoots in the form of the Yang, Wu/Hao, Wu (Jianquan), Sun and He styles.”

Note that the final decision essentially sticks to the Chen Qingping theory for the origin of Zhaobao taiji, despite the existence of Zhaobao lineages that do not descend from Chen Qingping.

The Hidden Tao: Li Jingwu’s life in Taijiquan

I have been reading a book called ‘Hidden Tao [大道显隐]‘ by one Mei Mosheng, which is a compilation of articles commemorating the life of the eminent taiji master Li Jingwu, who learnt Chen and Wu style taiji from some of the greatest masters of his day. As M Li is not that well known in the West, perhaps some introduction is in order.

Li Jingwu in a Chen style posture

M Li was from Shandong, but moved to Harbin when he was 14. While in Harbin, he started learning Mizong quan [lost track boxing, made famous in China by Huo Yuanjia of the Jingwu association] under Liu Ziyuan at the age of 17 in order to heal his legs, which had been frostbitten during the harsh Harbin winters. After 3 years of training, his legs got better and he had achieved a degree of gongfu. In the early ’30s, Li moved to Beijing for business. While there, Li always kept an ear to the ground for martial arts teachers. A friend from his village who had practiced xingyi, taiji and bagua for many years and knew the Beijing martial arts scene well recommended that Li study taiji. Li managed to get a recommendation to study Wu style taiji under Zhao Tie’an, a disciple of Yang Yuting (of northern Wu style) and Wu Jianquan. Among Wu stylists in Beijing, Li Jingwu was known as one of the ‘5 tiger generals’ [五虎上将], a group which also included the famous master Wang Peisheng.

L-R: Zhao Tie An, Yang Yuting, Wang Ziying (Wang Maozhai's son, who coached Li Jingwu in push hands)

The Chen style master Chen Fake was also teaching in Beijing at that time (having been invited to teach in Beijing in 1928 by his nephew, Chen Zhaopi). In the early ’40s, through an introduction from Hu Yaozhen, the famous master of xingyi and qigong who also taught Feng Zhiqiang, Li Jingwu became M Chen’s disciple and studied with him for over a decade. Prior to liberation, Li ran a department store in Beijing. 1959 was a turning point in his life, for it was in that year that Li accepted a post to teach taiji full-time at the Beidaihe Qigong Rehabilitation Hospital in Hebei province. M Li spent the rest of his life teaching taiji in the relative ‘backwater’ of Beidaihe.

Chen style ‘Family photo’ taken in Beijing in 1982. Back row, 3rd from left (L3): Chen Xiaowang. L5: Feng Zhiqiang. R5: Li Jingwu. R4: Hong Junsheng. Chen Zhaokui’s disciple Ma Hong is front row, far right.

M Li was unusual in that he made all of his students learn both Wu and Chen styles, and was also unusual in that, although he was mostly known for his Chen and Wu style, he had a good working knowledge of Sun and Yang styles as well. Based on his experiences, M Li created a separate set of neigong exercises, which was later made public in the book ‘Taiji Neigong’. His art is carried on by his disciples such as Lu Dehe, Wang Dayong and Zuo Zhiqiang, as well as by his son Li Shujun and grandson Li Hongshun.

I wanted to share a small extract from this book which I thought was interesting:

“M Li’s neigong was incredibly developed. One time he got me to feel his stomach – it felt as though there was a half-inch wide hard band around his stomach. He was smiling while I did this, he definitely wasn’t holding his breath or anything. Once, during a course of lectures on taiji, whilst explaining the phrase ‘don’t let qi mix with qi’, he said: ‘this is the ancients showing us that there are two kinds of qi: one is breath, and the other is the ‘inner qi’ of the dantian. The meaning of this phrase is not to confuse breath and inner qi. When M Li taught me neigong, he said: ‘it’s a gradual, stepwise regimen that produces gudang qi [surging qi] – it is surging qi that can be used in push hands and fighting. When M Li pushed hands and launched people, you could see his dantian rotating, the spirit flowing up the back [神通于背], and there would occasionally be ‘heng,ha’ sounds. Even in his old age, M Li could still launch people more than a zhang [3 metres] away, a feat made possible by his deep neigong.

M Li lived to be 86, which is a ripe old age, I guess. His taiji combined both health and fighting: even when he was over 80 he could still launch people in a moment. Even after he had had an operation on his legs and he couldn’t walk, he could still push hands with us whilst sitting down – this must have been thanks to his neigong. I remember, one time when I went to see him, he said ‘I’ve gotten old, I’m good for nothing, I can’t even carry a basket of eggs. But if someone applies force on me, I can still use my neigong to yield, neutralise and then launch him. I guess this is ‘reaction force’. However, this ‘reaction force’ can only be used after long practice. This is skill [gongfu] – once you have developed the ‘taiji body’, you won’t lose your gongfu. It can even be used lying on a bed. Finally, M Li said “the neigong of internal martial arts, once achieved, stays with you your entire life, this is one of the unique characteristics of internal martial arts.”

Che Style Prohibitions

Che style xingyiquan, and professor Che Xiangqian, have been very ably introduced by Jarek Szymanski in his article here.

Below is a translation of an article written by Prof Che on a Chinese martial arts forum (www.wushu2008.cn) which puts forward some interesting viewpoints on some common xingyi issues.  

“The 8 Prohibitions of Che style Xingyi by Prof Che Xiangqian

1. The restrictive ‘5 elements theory’ that each fist corresponds to an internal organ and a sense organ and that the 5 element fists mutually create and destroy each other seems to have become a ‘classic’ of xingyi. For example crushing fist is actually found in all other martial arts, where it is called a straight jab. It’s also the most common and practical move used when people fight. Guo Yunshen’s crushing fist shook the MA community, out of all the fists crushing is most worth researching. Whoever heard of another move that ‘beat allcomers and was without peer’ (da bian tian xia wu dui shou). The previous generations explained crushing’s characteristics as: fast, simple, and straightforward, but capable of change and chain-punching. However, some books introduce crushing like so: “Bengquan [crushing fist] is wood. Wood creates fire and destroys earth, Beng creates Pao and destroys Heng”;”Metal destroys wood, Pi destroys Beng”;”Internally, Beng is connected to the liver, and externally to the eyes”;”should be performed facing east”;”the corresponding trigram is ‘zhen’ [shaking]“;”this fist is specifically for training the liver”. The explanations of Drilling, Pounding, Splitting and Crossing are also explained in this fashion. In Che style, we don’t believe in these connections, because application has shown that these theories do not hold true in practice and that there is not necessarily any connection between Crushing fist and, say, the eyes. Such theories only serve to hold people back.

2. We don’t believe in applications of Daoist alchemy without first seeing hard proof. I started learning xingyi in 1950, but it was only in the 80s that I heard of another ‘classic’, talking of ‘3 ways of practicing’, ‘3 steps of gongfu’, ‘3 layers of meaning’ and the ‘3 levels of breathing’. Pronouncements such as “ming jin [obvious power] is in the hands, change in the bones, turning jing into qi, breathing through the nose and mouth”; “an jin [hidden power] is in the elbows, changing the sinews, turning qi into spirit, dantian breathing”; “hua jin [neutralising power] is in the body, changing the marrow, returning to the void, breathing through the skin”. In the 90s I heard of an even higher level, to become all-seeing, all-powerful and at one with the Tao, a level which had only been reached by one person in the entire history of Chinese martial arts. The previous generations of Che xingyi in Taigu did not talk about this, nor did Guo Yunshen’s inheritors in Shenzhou (in Hebei province), nor did the inheritors of Zhao Zhenyao (Geng Jishan’s disciple)’s xingyi such as Professor Yang Shaoyu in Beijing, or Zhang Hui’an-Yu Chonglin in Wuhan. These terms come from Daoist alchemy. Not a single living person has displayed any of these phenomena through practice of xingyi. This is because there are no real martial artists in whom obvious and neutralising powers, or hitting and neutralising powers are separated; because the internal and external changes together in people who pracice xingyi in a scientific manner; nor is there any way of proving that someone has ‘returned to the void’ or ‘become one with the Dao’; nor can any of these ‘Grandmasters’ stop up their mouth and nose and breathe through their skin or dantian. That’s why Che style teachers don’t talk about it, and students don’t believe in it.

3. We don’t practice neigong that ignores the external. There is a phrase popular in xingyi circles, saying that xingyi is ‘neigong boxing’ which mainly trains intention, spirit and qi . The ‘4 treatises on neigong’ (namely the Neigong, Nagua [Na Trigram?], Shenyun [divine movement], Dilong [ground dragon] classics) have also become ‘classics’. Che style xingyi does not talk about this. Our forebears were of the opinion that the internal and external should be trained together, at the same time. Training in a scientific manner measurably strengthens all the organs and systems of the body. If someone sweats, shakes and becomes breathless after ten minutes of sparring, that means there’s a problem with their organs and systems. This is something that both the practitioner and observers can see and is measurable with instruments. The internal of Che style xingyi is closely linked with the external, it’s specific. For so many years, we have heard a lot of talk of ’stress the internal, dismiss the external’ and ‘abandon the form, stress intention’. The older generation of masters warned students that ignoring the external shape in favour of practicing neigong cannot produce a master, nor will it lead to health and longevity; instead, it can easily lead to monkhood. There is factual proof of this.

4.We don’t pursue ’superpowers’. In martial arts tales and books, there are many training methods that can enable the practitioner to withstand sword cuts, lift great weights, vault over walls, even to move objects with the mind or eternal youth, etc..Our forebears were always dismissive of these kinds of claims. Historically, after Li Luoneng returned to Hebei province, Che Yonghong [Che Yizhai] was number 1 and Li Fuzhen number 2 in the xingyi community.

Che Yonghong (aka Che Yizhai), the founding father of Che style xingyiquan

The older generation saw all kinds of martial artists in their time, but they never encountered anyone with ’superpowers’. The old tale of M Che ‘hanging the painting’ refers to his ability to launch people into the air, not to some ability to ’stick’ to a wall. Are there superpowers? Maybe; but if there are, they’re like emperors – each country has only one. If everyone wanted to gain superpowers, it would be like everyone wanting to be an emperor, it would lead to utter chaos. Better to practice Che style xingyi instead.

5. Don’t exhaust yourself. Our forebears advocated not only not practicing when you’re tired, but also not training to the point of exhaustion. We don’t practice when our body is tired or when our spirit is fatigued (as in depressed, angry or excited). We especialy do not practice to exhaustion. Frequently practicing to exhaustion will only make the student become fed up at the mention of martial arts. Even training something like taiji too heavily over a long period of time can lead to injuries and illness. Che style xingyi is about technique and skill; you should not only get stronger, but also learn the ‘knacks’ [qiao jin] and ‘art’ of xingyi. Thus, you should use your brain as well as your body; single moves and forms are important, but sparring even more so. In short, experiencing and mastering the connection between fitness and combat comes first.

6. We don’t practice hard qigong [ying gong]. Our forebears forbade students from hitting punchbags, lifting iron locks [similar to kettlebell exercises], hitting trees and other such hard qigong training methods, because they are bad for your health and are of no use in combat.

(1) Ying gong can increase your punching power and resistance to blows, but it doesn’t raise your skill level. The crux of fighting is that ‘we can hit him, but he can’t land a blow on us’. Strength is necessary, but each person’s strength has its limits, whereas the techniques and strategy of using that strength is limitless. Like when a Spanish toreador fights a bull, a bull is stronger than a man, but the man wins with cunning. Everyone with real fighting experience knows that the more nimble the fighter, the less strength is used. As long as you can combine one’s innate strength with that derived from practicing martial arts and apply it to a single point, that’s enough. The practice of ying gong can reverse the relationship between skill and strength by luring people onto the path of ‘winning by strength’, turning fighting from a match of skills to mere trial of strength.

(2) Ying gong builds strength fast, each day’s practice builds it more. But once people reach middle age they can’t practice ying gong any more. And once you stop practicing ying gong, the strength it built starts to disappear. Martial arts training should give you skills you can use your whole life, Ying gong only builds atttributes for a relatively short period of time and is thus a waste of your time.

(3) There’s a saying that ‘the young fool can get away with sleeping on a cold kang, only because of his vigour’. Youngsters can practice ying gong because their body can still take the abuse. But the ravages of time spare no man, once you get old injuries and illness appear. How many martial artists have gained gongfu but sacrificed their health in the process?

(4) Brute force does not work against an adept, because an adept wins by skill, ‘4 ounces defeats a thousand pounds’. Moreover, if fighting with ordinary people, ying gong is liable to leave the opponent disabled, which is against martial ethics [wu de].             

These are the reasons that ying gong is forbidden in Che style xingyi.

7. We do not practice ’stillness’ [jing gong']. ‘Stillness’ can refer to posture holding, as in zhan zhuang; it can also refer to practices where thought stops or the intention is focused on one place. Of course, zhan zhuang must be practiced; as the saying has it ‘practicing martial arts without holding postures is just but messing around’. San Ti, in particular, encapsulates the postural requirements of xingyi. ‘Of the myriad methods, none leaves San Ti’ ‘Mastering San Ti is halfway to success’. Whilst San Ti should not be held for long periods, it can be done several times a day. Each time you hold San Ti, you should only hold it for a maximum of 10 minutes, but this could be repeated two or three times a day. If you hold San Ti for an hour everytime you train, not only are you losing precious training time, it can also damage the nerves and capillaries in the legs. Overdoing zhan zhuang is one of the reasons why a lot of martial artists suffer leg and knee problems. As for your intention staying in one place, this should only happen in health qigong when your intention rests on one spot – it only needs to do so for a matter of seconds (10 or so is fine), not minutes. There is no health benefit if the intention stays in one place for a long time.

8. We don’t take the path of ‘wushu-isation’ or the ‘mystification’ of xingyi. Li Luoneng’s xingyi is characterised by its simplicity, practicality, its combination of form and intention and its suitability for young and old alike. However, there are two tendencies in the xingyi community. One is wushu-isation: the movements and names are xingyi, but the postures, coordination, power and rhythm are all ‘long-fist-ised”, meaning that the performance is neither good long fist nor good xingyi. This kind of performance becomes a San Da-style contest of force when moved into the boxing ring. The other tendency is the mystification of xingyi, where people force daoist, buddhist, confucian, or TCM concepts onto xingyi, turning xingyi into a religion, almost. This ‘mystical’ kind of xingyi I call ‘neigong-style’ xingyi. These two trends have existed have a long time, but are particularly rampant now.

Bu Xuekuan, one Che Yizhai's most famous disciples

When Che Yonghong [aka Che Yizhai], Li Fuzhen and Bu Xuekuan were alive, these two tendencies had no place or market among Che stylists. Since 1980, these two trends have flooded the xingyi community. Regarding this phenomenon, the older generation of masters impressed upon us that we must preserve Che style’s simplicity, practicality and emphasis on skill. Keeping the exhortations of our forebears firmly in mind, in Che style both our newly-compiled and traditional routines can be performed by young and old alike, they have no difficult flashy moves. The principles of our art are testable and based on concrete examples; even illiterates can understand them. Our fighting techniques are practical and based on skill: a technique learnt in the morning can be used by the afternoon. The representatives of our style maintained their abilities into their old age, and could still win in sparring into their 70s and 80s.”