Formosa Neijia

The following is an article by TK Lam that was submitted by reader Myles. Lam is a Chen style guy under Ma Hong, so he addresses Yiquan from an outsider’s POV.

This was submitted in response to my earlier post quoting He Jin-han on Wang Xiang-zhai, which may have been seen as small slight to Yiquan. For the record, I ADORE Yiquan. If I could go to Beijing and train one art it would be Yao’s version of Yiquan. They have a fantastic way of breaking down internal power and have a VERY clear training regiment that leads to real skills. I highly suggest that anyone interested in IMA thoroughly research the art and take what WXZ wrote very seriously.

However, I came to that conclusion after having studied many years in other arts, something else that I also suggest anyone interested in Yiquan do. I see Yiquan as a powerful addition to any MA style, but I just don’t see it standing on its own. I stand by my assertion that these ideas were best expressed in xingyi, and I note in the article below that the five elements, etc. are still being trained by them.

Yao Cheng-Rong and Yiquan
By Tu-Ky Lam

Master Yao Cheng-Rong
In order to do a research on Yiquan, I made a trip to Beijing, China in June 2005 to see Master Yao Cheng-Rong, founder and head coach of the Zhongyi Martial Arts Academy.

Yao Cheng-Rong is one of the 3rd generation Yiquan masters. He began to learn Yiquan at the age of 9 with his father Yao Zongxun, who was one of the top students of Yiquan founder, Wang Xiangzhai. At the age of 53, Yao Cheng-Rong has over 40 years of experience with Yiquan. He first helped his father teach Yiquan. Ten years ago, he founded his own training school, and has since trained about 10,000 people, of whom many are now Yiquan teachers.

What has struck me most about Yao is that he is very humble and polite, even to his own students. The next thing is his power and skill. He has the strong power to send a much bigger person than he off flying. In push-hands, he can suck in his opponent who cannot escape no matter how hard he tries. Most of his opponents (in push-hands) find it hard to stand firmly on the ground and have to move around as he wishes and then get thrown off balance. His controlling technique is incredible. He can make you go left, right, front or back as he wishes and there is nothing you can do about it. He can spin you like a top or throw you off balance and then quickly hold you back so that you will not fall or get injured. In other words, his push-hands skill is so good that he can play around with you in the same way a cat does to a mouse.

Master Yao’s frankness is also very impressive. He frankly states in his website1 that he will not hide any secrets from his students and he means it. He showed me clearly how “Hun-yuan li” (whole body force) is produced and answered to my satisfaction any questions that I asked him. I mentioned to him about the conservatism of some teachers. He said it was not because they did not want to teach you but because they did not know how. Anyone who had accepted a student’s tuition fee would always try to teach his students something. This may be the case with teachers like him.

The majority of Master Yao’s students are locals, but there are also some foreign students in his classes. Some of them come from Germany and France while others from Switzerland and the United States. Master Yao does not speak English. The foreigners learn by watching and copy what master Yao does. In some classes, some local students who can speak English help with the translation. The foreign students are very impressed with Master Yao’s skill and learn a lot from him.

Introduction to Yiquan
What is Yiquan? It is a relatively new style of Chinese martial arts based on Xingyi quan2, but also taken into its system the best elements of Taijiquan, Bagua zhang and other styles. Taiji, Xingyi and Bagua practitioners can often relate themselves to Yiquan because they can see something similar to their own practice in Yiquan.

The most distinguished characteristic of Yiquan is that it does not have routines because they are considered to be a waste of time. Wang Xiang-zhai said routines are useless in self-defence. Teachers teach a lot of routines so that they can make money out of their students.

What do Yiquan students learn then? From day one they are taught various standing postures to improve their health and fitness and also develop their internal strength. Wang said the main purpose of practicing Yiquan is for health, fun and self-defence. Standing postures are the foundation of Yiquan training. Yiquan practitioners spend about an hour a day doing standing postures called Zhan-zhuang in Chinese.

Zhan-zhuang is very simple and effective. It can improve our health quickly, and is suitable for people of all ages. Just stand half an hour a day and you will see the result in six months: cold and flu will almost disappear, your mind is clearer, you eat better and sleep better, and more importantly feel more relaxed and happier. No stress, fear, or worries can bother you. Zhan-zhuang improves both our physical and mental wellbeing quicker than anything else can.

Zhan-zhuang is also indispensable for all internal martial arts systems. People who practice Taijiquan, Xingyi quan or Bagua Zhang without doing Zhan-zhuang will find that after ten or twenty years of practice their form is still empty because they do not have internal power. The only way to make up for it is: stand, stand and stand. That is the reason why in Yiquan classes you can often find people who have learned Taijiquan or other internal styles happily learning Yiquan3.

Yiquan students do not stand all the time in their training. Once they have gained some internal strength, they will put it into use in push-hands and sparring. Before they take part in these, they practice a few simple movements that are useful in pushing hands and fighting. These exercises are called “shi li” (moving or testing your energy) and “fa li.”4

All “shi li” movements are done slowly and gently. They look like Tai chi but are much simpler. For example, there is the “push the water” movement where your hands from a wide open positions on both side of your body move toward the front of your chest, and then move them back to the starting position. Other useful movements are “throwing a ball” (pao chiu), “splitting” (fen gua) and “spinning” (xuan fa) shi-li. These are the basic techniques used in push-hands to control or unbalance our opponents before throwing them out. Like Taijiquan, the shi li movements are beneficial to our health.

There is a lot of difference between Yiquan and Taijiquan push-hands. Firstly, Yiquan does not have many push-hands patterns. They do only two kinds of push-hands: single and double push-hands. The single push-hands looks like Taiji single push-hands but with smaller circles. When doing this kind of push-hands, the students’ or practitioners’ arm is always maintained in the “Embracing-a-Tree” posture and will not let it collapse. They always try to guard their center line from attacks. They will change the angle of their arm to let the incoming force go downward to avoid the danger of getting pushed over. This is to neutralize. After this, they will move to an attacking position by applying force pointing to the opponent’s center. And the opponent will do the same drills.

The other arm that is not in contact with the opponent will still be held in the embrace a tree position to guard an elbow strike from the opponent or push the opponent when the chances arise. They often push the opponent with both hands when doing single push-hands.

In double push-hands, they will make their right hand (fore-arm, to be more exact) stick to the opponent’s left hand, and their left hand to the opponent’s right hand. At the start, they hands move in circles similar to what Taiji practitioners do. But soon afterwards, they apply force pointing to the opponent’s center and try pushing from any angle that is favorable to them, aiming to control, unbalance and finally throw out the opponent. The techniques used are totally different from those used in Taijiquan.

Taiji practitioners will find Yiquan practitioners use a lot of force to attack or deflect, which they are not used to. Some Taiji practitioners comment that Yiquan practitioners use force against force. I think Yiquan people do use force to attack and redirect incoming force, but not use force against force.

Before Yiquan students start to spar with each other, they are taught some punches and then stepping. Stepping is important because it can put you in a good position to defeat your opponent. The most basic stepping is “mud walking,” where we stand firmly on one leg and lift the other up as if we were lifting our foot from mud and move it slowly forward. After putting this foot down, the other foot is lifted up and moved forward in the same manner. The other stepping is: stepping backwards, turning around, stepping forward like a worm, and “circle walking.” The stepping evolves from Bagua zhang but is done differently.

Then students are also taught some punches such as zuan quan (drilling fist), zhai quan (punching down), pao quan (cannon fist, which has been modified to called straight punch that is not so straight), beng quan (crushing fist), pi zhang (splitting fist), etc. which derive from Xingyi quan Five Element Fist.

They also practice some kicks too. I was somewhat surprised to find that we have these kicks in Chen style Taijiquan. For example the low kick to the ankle in “Pounds the Mortar”, the kick in “Wade Forward” and “Kick with the Heel”. They also have similar power discharge movements too. All of these make me think I am practicing Taijiquan and Xingyi quan.

Without the burden of learning and doing the routines, Yiquan students and practitioners can concentrate on standing to develop their internal strength and then use it in self defence. It is a shortcut to learning internal martial arts.

Conclusion
In short, there are six major parts in Yiquan training: standing, moving energy, discharging power, stepping, push-hands and sparring. Breath control or yelling technique, which is exhaling with sound when discharging power, is similar to what some Chen Taiji practitioners do when discharging power.

People may think Yiquan only suits young people who are interested in martial arts. But that is not the case. Wang Xiang-zhai said, “Fighting is the last and so the least important purpose of Yiquan.”

Yiquan movements are as gentle as Taijiquan, but its benefits to health are at least as great as Taijiquan, if not greater. Its movements are much simpler and much less physically demanding than Taijiquan. You can stand and do a few movements till you are over 90 years old, but you probably cannot complete the whole Taiji routine at that age.

Yiquan was invented from other styles of marital arts. Its no nonsense approach to learning martial arts provides a strong base (internal power) to develop people’s martial skill and so can be used to great advantage by other internal stylists. I find Yiquan supplements Taijiquan training extremely well as it concentrates on the foundation (standing, and moving energy) and the application (push-hands and sparring) of martial arts while Taijiquan’s major concern is in the routines.

Endnotes
http://www.yq-zywg.com. This is a Chinese website. Click at the language, say English, near the bottom of the home page, you wish to read. The English site is being developed.
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I tend to think Yiquan is a new generation of Xingyi Quan. The family history is like this: Xinyi quan – Xingyi quan – Yiquan.
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In one of Master Yao’s classes, there is a Chen style Taijiquan and Liang style Bagua zhang teacher. He has been in this class for over a year. He is quite a character, who has visited and tested many Taiji masters and Yiquan teachers. 15 months ago, he rang Master Yao and said, “I have learned Taijiquan and Bagua zhang for many years. I have seen quite a few masters in order to improve my skill. None are very good. Are you good enough to teach me and are you willing to teach me without any reservation?” so he had an appointment to see Master Yao and had a push-hands contest. He was impressed by Master Yao’s skill and decided to learn Yiquan from him.
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“Fa li” means discharging power. “Fa li” movements are “shi li” done with speed and force near the end of the moves. When a practitioner discharges power, he lifts his head top up and moves it forwards. His torso, hips and legs also move forwards to propel his arms. His feet push hard into the ground. His back leg pushes forwards while the front leg pushes into the ground. Force is used only at the point of contact.
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