[Note: This classic post appeared a few years ago on my former martial arts blog. I’m reproducing it here for this new audience, if any of you are into this kind of thing.]
Outstanding oral Xingyi history and memoir (逝去的武林, see cover above) by Li Zhongxuan has been out for a while in China. Chunks and pieces of this book have been posted online in China and some parts even translated to English on the web. But the really good stuff has not been properly highlighted, to my knowledge.
This author/master offers the most straightforward mainstream presentation of authentic Xingyi as an energy-centric art that I've yet seen, apart of course from my own work based on my seclusive teacher's personal instruction to me and the hand-written training manual he granted to me.
LZX's book here is mostly memoir and history, with a light but significant sprinkling of practical training insights and a huge wealth of clear no-nonsense exposition of fundamental principles. It's like a souped up version of the Tai Chi Classics, but for the Xingyi world. A lot of great historical anecdotes about all the golden age internal masters are included (Li Cunyi, Cheng Tinghua, Tang Weilu, Sun Lutang, etc.) And most of all it talks about the author's own teacher, superstar fighter and convoy guard combative professional (think Silk Road), Shang Yunxiang (尚云祥).
What I particularly like about this book are the following features:
Resolute, no-compromise presentation of Xingyi as an energy-centric art
Clear-eyed recognition that the surface of the techniques is not the point
Digging into a few practical drills of energy cultivation (not the main focus though)
Use of descriptive energy terminology that I've never seen anywhere else except in my own teacher's Xingyi handbook (e.g. 电力感 'electric feeling')
Focus is "train energy" not techniques per se, not mechanics, not even fight per se
Yet his teacher was a truly serious kickass fighter type of Xingyi hypermaster
Anyway I just thought as a reader service for you all, I'm going to translate a few especially delectable chunks. I won't re-translate anything that's already appeared in English. You can easily find those for yourself. But what struck me is that the real 24K nuggets do not seem to have been translated for the most part. So far I only see the more general top level stuff has appeared in English, scattered here and there on the web. In this post I'm going to sample the cool stuff that dovetails with the art as my own teacher presented it, which is far from the usual "Xingyi = slobby Karate" ethos that seems to dominate at the present time.
If you didn't like my energy-centric presentation of the art in my book Advanced Xingyi Energetics then PLEASE LEAVE RIGHT NOW because you are gonna hate the fuck out of this post. You'll be spitting venom like a rattler on a hot tin roof. Bye.
Ok now that only the cool kids remain, so here's how I'm running this longish post, in three parts:
A training-focused selection from Li's book. He talks about the importance of the Xingyi Preparation Protocol. That's the little ceremonial-looking thing you do at the start of every Fist or Animal Style in the art. Basically, viewed from outside, just raise your hands and lower into fists. This is another of those two-faced things so common with internal arts, in that if you don't understand the internal method and significance of it, you could perform this move every day for 20 years and get total ZERO from it. On the other hand, if you grok the true purpose and have the genuine feel of it, it's a mind-blowing lightning strike of a power hit. I have shown this in passing on a few of my videos, but I've never made a super big deal out of it because I have felt, quite frankly, that if you have not begun to activate the dantian at all, there's just zero chance in hell that you'll detect anything on this Protocol. You'll just shrug in disgust and that would be one more black mark against me because you'd assume the move is fraudulent. But now that I see a best-selling guy of this caliber (over in China I mean) is calling it out, I'm free to shine a light on it more explicitly than before. Actually elements of the style-agnostic synthetic daling protocol that I outlined in another book (The Aiki Singularity) are largely derived from this Xingyi fundamental. Anyway I'm going to give Li's description of it, translated directly from his text.
But beyond his words, I want you to have a visual reference, therefore following the translation I will present some comments of my own and also an extremely short video showing the move visually. Two versions are shown in the video: my version as I originally learned it, which is essentially a clone of how it's called out by the author (LZX), and then a more reduced or muted type of version performed on an old video by supermaster Wang Shujin. Both are good, they are essentially the same move. I just wanted to show a range of variation in performance.
Then finally I return to Li's book with some brief translations of section that highlight key elements of Xingyi as an energy-centric art (not a slobby, mechanical Karate routine).
SECTION 1: THE PREPARATION PROTOCOL OF XINGYIQUAN
The Preliminary Protrocol is the Source of Sensitivity
Everything is difficult in the beginning. In Xingyiquan training, if you don’t understand the preparatory movement, you will be unable to deploy the five powers of Splitting, Crushing, Drilling, Pounding and Crossing.
In practicing boxing, it’s essential to generate the “electrical sensation”, which is the sign of sensitivity. The meetup between Xingyi master Shang Yunxiang (1864-1937) and Bagau legend Cheng Tinghua (1848-1900) was initiated by Master Shang. Master Shang was a short and stocky man with a big belly. He visited Master Cheng during the New Year celebration season. Seated behind the heavy square table there, Master Shang subtly ballooned out his abdomen, and his sudden energetic power blasted the table forward. Just at that moment, Master Cheng slammed his hands down on the tabletop. The two greats then repaired to the courtyard to continue proving one another. It has often been said that Cheng Tinghua was supernaturally sensitive.
That is the highest praise for Master Cheng’s sensitivity. Only sensitivity enables the development of all the various kinds of deep skill. So the Preparation Protocol in Xingyi is the source of sensitivity. The specific movement is to raise both hands, shaped as though holding water in two bowls, being careful not to spill the imaginary water. This cultivates sensitivity. Then, as your hands reach beyond eyebrow level, near the top of your head, rotate them (palms down). From the level near the top of your head, lower them like the receding of the ocean tide, and try to feel a sense of pressure as they pass your eyebrows on the way down.
The air is like a wet sponge, and you should have a feeling of squeezing out the water. You maintain that feeling of pressure as you lower down toward your thighs. At that point, you should bend your knees and close the angle between thighs and hip, as you start to squat down. As you squat, lift both hands and retract them toward your hips. Your body contracts and compresses, while your hands curl toward closure, as through wringing something. Gather all five fingers firmly together, one by one. This is the Preliminary Protocol of Xingyiquan, which sensitizes your entire body.
SECTION 2: THE PREPARATION PROTOCOL - VISUAL REFERENCE
I want you to have a visual reference on the move, so below is an extremely brief performance of it. Please cross reference the visual to Li's text description above, which is really your best guide. I didn't especially emphasize this move when presenting it, because I felt (and still actually feel) that until and unless you've done a fair amount of the work like the Tanden Activation Protocol as taught in detail in my book TANDEN REVOLUTION, you're unlikely to feel anything much. But that said, if you have begun to seriously, explicitly and tangibly activate the dantian as energy source, then you will be absolutely gob-smacked by how cool this is. If you do pick it up, pay particular attention to the lowering and fist clasping phase. Lower your hands with a very rich and explicit attention to your palms pressing something material downward, like trying to hold down a billowing sheet then as you (softly) curl your fingers into fists, the huge energy mass in in your dantian will be kind of magnetically absorbed in your hands. It's an internal experience like no other! Frankly I doubt most readers here will grok it in the near term, but since it's out there explicitly in Lis' book, I may as well show it.
The first half of this 1-miute video is me doing the move, in the fuller more classical way. This is also the way that Li describe it above. Then I include another short clip of super master Wang Shujin doing it in a more muted, compressed kind of style, which can be equally valid and powerful, just not quite as extended as I learned it and as Li describes it.
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SECTION 3: SELECTED TEXT CHUNKS FROM LI ZHONGXUAN
Now the really juicy part. Below I present various choice chunks of highly principle Xingyi doctrinal meat. In most cases, these are things that my own teacher highly stressed in his training of me, that I haven't seen elsewhere and which in fact many Internet Xingyi mavens have tried to ding me on. Well, here it all is from the horse's mouth. If you want more specific training details on dozens of drills that actually embody and enable these core energy-centric principles (including but also enlarging the core inventory of Five Fists and 12 Styles) , please check out my own book (in English yay) Advanced Xingyi Energetics, and also the dozens of rare Xingyi drills that I've shown on dozens of free Xingyi training videos at my YouTube channel.
Shang Style Xingyi: Form and Intent
I was a young man when I began my Xingyi training as Shang Yunxiang’s disciple. Only years later did I hear my teacher’s boxing method revered as Shang Sytle Xingyi. Recently, boxing aficianodos have come around asking questions about “Shang Style”, wondering what are its unique features. I ‘ve been momentarily at a loss as to how I should answer. When I was training it was just a question of seeking the benefits of the regimen. Nobody ever though about this issue. We disciples puzzled over it, but nobody could recall Master Shang ever contrasting his approach to other systems or styles.
Even after decades of study and reflection, I can’t really fathom on what basis people are now classifying Shang Style Xingyi as a particular method. Based on my experience with Master Shang at the time, the training had to be absorbed experientially and grasped intuitively. If it had to be set down into words, then form means “formless” and intent means “without intent”. This isn’t some egghead just playing with words, it is the practical fact of martial training. As to form, when some enthusiasts first hear of Shang Style Xingyi, they assume there must be key differentiating features of form and posture, asking things like “is the front foot straight or turned?” or “is the rear hand held close to the waist or aligned in back of the front elbow?” It’s true that there are some particular shapes of so-called Shang Style, but they aren’t the key factor. Those are merely the natural result of Master Shang’s decades of deep combative experience, not motivated by any desire to create a style by adding features just to distinguish the system from others. People have an instinctive sense of balance and proportion. No matter how you trick up the forms and stances, things will come back into equilibrium over time. If that is style creation, it’s nothing but a joke. Master Shang’s key principle was always “train fundamental skill rather than combat”, and “train energy rather than strength”. To focus on the superficial features of a practice rather than seeking the underlying principles is like the joke about the drunk searching for his keys under a street lamp because “the light is better here”. Some people try to analyze Shang Style techniques according to the principles of mechanics, assuming that there’s some structural advantage to its features, or believe that the forms were modified to suit overweight people. I’m sorry to inform them that Shang Style Xingyi is firmly based on the principle of training the energy rather than strength or structure, and to analyze it according to mechanics is fundamentally mistaken.
Looking at it from the standpoint of combative applications, we see that Swallow style, for example, is done in other styles with the shoulder, while Shang Style makes use of the legs. The target of the attack also differs, and tis naturally causes some difference in positioning the body. In fact, however, there’s no reason that the shoulder can’t be used in Shang Style. After all this isn’t Western Boxing, where a hook can only target the chin, or jabs are only to the face. A single technique can target any area of the body from head to feet. One technique can have a hundred variations, and only this can be called Xingyiquan. Otherwise, if the system relied on a mere five techniques and twelve (animal) forms, how could it be called one of the three great internal combat systems?
Furthermore, every Xingyi technique has three variants: as drill mode, application mode, and performance mode. You won’t see them in books, you’ll only get the full picture after becoming a disciple to a master. The canonical forms typically shown in books are usually a chop suey of all three of these mixed up together. How can you base a comparison with Shang Style on something like that?
Anyway, what is the real significance of Master Shang’s dictum: “use energy not strength”? Its meaning can’t be stated directly but only hinted at with analogies. Using strength is like hitting somebody with only one finger, while using energy is like hitting him with your whole fist. If that’s still not clear, then let’s try another: there is a famous line in the Xingyi classic writings to the effect that “transmission entirely depends on the step of the rear foot”. If this is interpreted as meaning that you need to stomp your rear foot as you strike out with your fist, then virtually every practitioner will suffer a painful jolt to the back of his head. It will generate power, just as an ordinary Western boxer also uses the rear foot thrust and turning waist to generate force. This is the most scientific principle for physical power generation. But sport boxers are thrusting from the ball of the foot, thus they don’t suffer the head jolt. The classic writings aren’t talking about any physical push or stomp. It relies on an energy that isn’t detectable via scientific instruments applied to muscle extensions and contractions. An analysis of power based on thrust of the leg propagated via physical waist turn that transmits force joint-by-joint to the final strike does not apply to Chinese martial arts.
Or if you prefer to think that the push off the rear foot enables the entire body’s weight to concentrate into the fist, let’s consider that. An average adult might weigh 200+ lbs, so using this body weight idea, it’s hard to see how you’d get 100 lbs of force into your strike. If you dropped a 50 lb. heavy bag from a height of one meter, the force hitting the ground would be 50 lbs. But a 200 lb. person cannot hit with 200 lbs of force. If the person’s entire body were dropped from a height of a meter, then due to the structure of joints in the body, the force of impact will be dispersed through the ground. So if anybody has the idea of applying their full body weight to a strike, their force will be blunted by the same kind of natural dispersal. So you can thrust and stomp your rear foot as much as you like, but it won’t get you anywhere.
The use of energy can be compared to a net, used to gather and throw balls. Done the right way, the body weight isn’t dispersed and with the increase in delivery speed the generated force exceeds the body weight altogether. So it’s natural that Shang Style Xingyi would incorporate this principle, and rely on energy rather than strength. Only by abandoning strength is it possible to train energy. That’s because energy requires full unification of the upper and lower body. As soon as you use physical strength, you fall into the trap of relying on development of limited tricks, chasing trifles rather than keeping your eyes on the prize. Some people see the energetic classification of the Xingyi class writings as obvious power, hidden power, and mysterious transformative power, and immediately assume that continuous physical exertion is called for. This will seem to get results, and produces a nice looking performance. When such a student hears that with Xingyi you can become a lethal striker in just a year, they assume that this kind of training is required. But then, what’s the difference between Xingyi and a boxer hitting a heavy bag? A decent boxer can kill people with his punch just as well. A boxer can deliver 75 lbs of force in a strike to the chest, and of course that could kill just as easily.
In fact, the obvious power mentioned in the classic writings implies a level of clear understanding. It’s passing through an essential stage of full body comprehension which naturally augments the striking power. Moving into hidden power is the dropping away of all preconceptions, resulting in completely natural energetic reactions. Then with mysterious transformative power the fullest energy is liberated. It’s hard to explain hidden energy and mysterious transformative energy. All we can do is laboriously describe the obvious energy. There’s an amazing trick to developing obvious energy. You must seek it in the transitions. The Five Element techniques of Xingyi are not combative applications, they are ways to train five different kinds of energetic deployment. Thus the movement pattern of each technique is different. Drilling these patterns helps us understand the entirety of internal energy.
As you persist in training for energy, you will naturally experience mysterious sensations. These need not be explained, as they will be understood naturally by the student. If they are to be analysed in terms of power generation, it’s inevitable that one stance or technique will seem superior to another. But Shang Style Xingyi is based on energetics. When the energy is fully honed, all postures are equally advantageous, thus there is no “form” to speak of.
As for intent or ideation, there’s a lot of destructive phoniness. Teachers of past times were often culturally unsophisticated. Without personal instruction from a true master, when they read the descriptions in the classic writings, they took them superficially. When they saw something like “defeating 1000 pounds with 4 ounces” they took it wrongly as a literal description of some kind of mechanical combat advantage. Thus they never could develop the real inner power. In the present time, some practitioners under the influence of Qi Gong take it into their heads to cook up a lot of wild training images, such as the idea of “holding up the entire ocean” when training the standing posts. How heavy is the ocean, really? This kind of thing is only going to tense you up, and if persisted in will shorten your life.
The mind or intention of Xingyi isn’t an imaginary picture in your brain. Master Shang always insisted that his students pursue reading and academic learning. He stated that a martial arts student should be more of an intellectual than any scholar, and only such a person was a true martial artist. The great commanders and generals of the ancient historical chronicles were mostly intellectual types. Martial artists of today should be the same. If you’re going around looking for a fight all the time, you’ll never be able to train to a high level of skill. There are many teaching in the classic writings that a scholar can grasp right away but which will be very difficult for a crude fighter. Furhtermore, Master Shang was a very genial person with a cheerful countenance. His complexion was excellent and he lacked the characteristic fierce scowl of the typical fighter. But somehow if you came up quickly from behind, his quick glance over his shoulder was really scary. The mentality of Xingyi is like a master painter at work. He hasn’t got every stroke pre-planned and rigidly composed, but instead works freely according to his flowing inspiration. This is true creativity. Like the change in the wind before a storm, he works subtly and without rigid concepts and dead distinctions. Only by striving for this kind of creativity can you train Shang Style Xingyiquan.
Post Standing
You can’t indulge in fanciful movement or showoff posing. The boxing discipline is a practical study. When standing don’t try to express force or puff yourself up. If you start getting tense while standing, figure out how to relax yourself again. Xingyi is based on relaxation and never permitting tension. The core objective is sensitivity. If you get tense and clumsy you’ll never advance far. Only by feeling the lightness and relaxation of standing will your post standing practice eventually yield the true internal power. Only by emptying yourself of tension will your body awaken to the real internal.
Circulation
Master Tang Weilu taught that standing post must generate the feeling of ‘blood circulation’. It’s not imagining the flow of blood in the veins and arteries. After standing for a while, the student will naturally experience a sensation of flow, which will seem similar to blood circulation. In some areas of the body, this flow will feel smooth and unhindered, while in other areas it may feel peculiar or restricted, and may be accompanied by gyrations or shaking, which will persist until the body is fully clear. This is a healing process, in addition to a power training method. As a method for physical optimization and internal power intensification, it may be said to constitute the essence of Form and Mind, which together are the art of Xingyiquan.
====== APPENDIX ======
For those who may wish an easy read on Shang Yunxiang, here's the Wiki entry on him, down below. By the way, that "table blasting" anecdote in the (above) long translation post is a skill closely related to the 'gut toss' protocol that I detail in book TANDEN REVOLUTION so check that out if interested. Also the thing about boxers breaking wrists punching Master Shang in stomach (bio down below) is related to the demo of that skill given by Wang Zhanjun (Chen Style) that I included in my own demo video of the gut toss stunt. which is here:
[VIDEO OMITTED FOR NOW]
Shang Yunxiang (尚云祥), a.k.a. Shang Jiting (尚霁亭), was a renowned master of Xingyiquan in the late Qing Dynasty (1644–1911) and early Minguo (Republic of China, 1911–1949). He was born in Leling City of Shandong Province, in 1864. He died at the age of 73 in 1937.
Shang was an inspector with the military of five cities and became the head of house security for the Qing Court Eunuch and Area Military Commander-in-Chief Li. He was known for his small limbs and big belly. His belly was said to have shown legendary strength—many boxers supposedly broke their wrists by punching him in the stomach.
Shang obtained his Xingyiquan skills from Li Cunyi (李存义, 1847–1927). In the beginning, Li Cunyi refused to accept Shang as a student due to his “not-ideal-physique for martial arts”. Shang was skinny and short, of a height of less than 1.6 meters. It was under the intercede of Zhou Mingtai (周明泰, a student of Liu Qilan) that Li Cunyi accepted Shang Yunxiang as his student. When he was older, Shang also learned Baguazhang from both Li Cunyi and Cheng Tinghua (程庭华, 1848–1900). Shang was well known for his skill with the Beng Quan (one of the five basic skills of Xing Yi Quan). Because he was skilled in combat, Guo Yunshen (郭云深, 1820–1901) visited him personally to instruct him on his Beng Quan methods (for which he had also been known).
Shang, like his shifu Li Cunyi, was famous with his combat ability, he earned nicknames like “Iron Arms”, “Iron Feet Buddha”, “Half Step Bengquan”, etc. for his real-life combat experiences and his ability to generate exceptionally strong explosive power. Shang’s career had always been related to martial arts. He had worked as a biaotou (headman of a biaoju which is an establishment which provides services such as escorts, bodyguards, transport of goods (armed) for a fee), bodyguard, detective, martial arts teacher.