Formosa Neijia

All of these teachers are openly teaching the Xiong system. The top teacher is teaching the complete system four hours a day, six days a week at the Botanical Gardens here in Taipei. As I said before, they seem to really specialize in sword and dao training.

The third teacher in the list above seems to specialize in the two-person form that Xiong learned/created. He teaches a class at Chiang Kai Shek Memorial Hall (center of Taipei) on weekend mornings.

The two-man form is spilt up into single-person and then paired pracitce. If you think about this for a minute, you’ll realize then that what you effectively have is THREE forms. Both sides A and B can be done and should be done as solo forms. Then both sides are practiced together as a two-man form. So in effect, students get two fast, usage-type forms to complement the slower small circle form that Yang Shao-hou taught to Xiong. Kind of interesting, eh? Problem is, this amount of material would be difficult to keep up with, I would imagine. But the wealth of taji usage that could be gleaned from this material could be drawn from for a lifetime.

The third link is also very usefull because of the many documents found on the site. The teacher has lists of all the froms in the style with names of each movement given in Chinese. I also note that he has copies of Xiong’s book, which have long been out of print, for sale. He even has DVDs and VCDs of his material. Last but not least, he appears to have a large qigong system that I haven’t heard of. I’m not sure whether or not this system is from Xiong, but it wouldn’t surprise me if it was.

According to T.T. Liang’s book Steal My Art, Xiong was quite the qigong and meditation expert. In that book, Liang tells a story about him and Xiong going into the mountains on a meditation retreat. Early one morning, Liang wakes up and find that they’re in the middle of an earthquake. He looks over and sees Xiong deep in meditation. Liang runs out of the room until the earthquake is over. When it is, he runs back into the room, only to find Xiong has moved. Later, Liang asks him why he didn’t move. Didn’t he care about his life? In true Eastern-stoic fashion, Xiong tells Liang that he obviously has no internal development. Of course, he wasn’t concerned with his own life! Personally, I’m with Liang on this one.

I’ll try to get more info on Xiong and his taiji in the weeks ahead. When I do, I’ll be sure to post it. Stay tuned.