I love xingyi for its straight-forward power development and training routine. Training santi, then the five elements and then the animals is a great progression of training. There are just so many things to love about xingyi.
But one thing that I find interesting about many xingyi guys is this blind obsession with power and “banging.” Banging is what I call the clashing of force-on-force that too many xingyi guys relish. Doing xingyi that way is pointless. You may as well be doing karate.
What many people don’t realize is that there is a more subtle, even more effective way to use xingyi. But using the elements, etc. in a more sophisticated way requires additional skillsets that may be best picked up elsewhere — specifically taiji push hands.
Taiji brings the excellent tactile skills of zhan, nian, lian, sui to the IMA table. Alone among the arts, taiji excels at this. Taiji has a whole vocabulary and training regimen devoted to developing the sticking skills as described by these four terms.
By learning zhan, nian, lian, and sui, a xingyi guy could use the elements to bridge and then stick to what is presented by the opponent — making the fighting techniques much more effective. Some sensitivity to the opponent’s actions allows you to open him up, leaving him vulnerable to your attack. Just trying to use the elements to “bang through” whatever he sets up is dumb and practicing that way will insure you get picked apart by someone with better tactile skills.
I know xingyi guys hate the word sensitivity, but it’s a necessary skill for IMA. Most xingyi guys seem to hate taiji too, but we shouldn’t let people with terrible taiji skills make us think that the art is worthless and nobody can use it in combat. That just isn’t the case.
Another thing that taiji brings to the table that xingyi usually lacks is finesse. Since many xingyi guys are obsessed with power, they tend to think that power alone will win the day. Putting all your eggs in one basket like this is a mistake. BTW, many baji people I’ve met fall into this category, as well. The thing is, using obvious power all the time is fairly easy counter if you know what you’re doing. Having a little finesse by holding back some of that aggression until the opponent is in a bad spot (a specialty of taiji again) will make your xingyi more effective.
This is just one advantage to training the three sister arts.
14 responses so far ↓
1 Jose de Freitas // May 8, 2007 at 8:45 pm
It’s interesting you should say what you do. I am basically a Xingyi guys, as you know from Emptyflower, but I’ve never heard a XY teacher advocating what you say, and basically, all my XY teachers have been Taiji practitioners (Sifu Wu Xuan in Yang, Sifu McNeil in Chen), both also thinking that on some weird, “on principle” level Taiji is superior to XY..
In our XY practice, at more advanced levels, the two-person sets that explore the Five Fists change considerably from their initial outward appearance. They get in closer and closer, and gain a “stickiness” that almost turns them into push hands, and jumps over to sensitivity training, especialy if you add the element of spontaneity (ie attacker can initiate with any of the Five Elements and defender tries to respond adequately, then defender counterattacks with any of the Five Elements etc…).
I would STRONGLY resent your affirmation that XY guys hate Taiji (other than the well known fact that it makes people gay… Inside joke!). I love Taiji, I just wish I had more partners to play with. And that is a pretty strong argumnt for the way things are in XY: at least power is something you can cultivate on your own, with no partners, and still become reasonably good at, whereas Taiji without Push Hands…
In any case, I think you’re right about “entries” and “sensitivity”, if considered on a general case, ie. aknowledging that most XY/Taiji people are probably already doing this.
Best
2 jonathan liljeblad // May 8, 2007 at 9:44 pm
so if you’re advocating learning all 3 sister arts, then do you recommend any particular sequence of education (i.e., should someone learn 1 before the others)? or do you think it’s possible to cross-train simultaneously between them?
3 seeker6 // May 8, 2007 at 9:46 pm
Xing yi and baji emphasize power; so some students focus on it too much. Taiji emphasizes relaxation; so some students and teachers over emphasize this. Most styles have a particular focus and it is easy for students to focus too much on this.
So I agree that it is a good idea to study a few styles to prevent too much narrowing of the mind. However, although the internal trio could be studied together other ‘external styles’ could also usefully be practiced at the same time.
4 seeker6 // May 8, 2007 at 9:52 pm
Jonathan; if you have access to great teachers of all 3 styles choose the one you love the most. Otherwise choose the one for which you can find a good teacher. Worry about the order later.
5 Jose de Freitas // May 8, 2007 at 9:57 pm
Seeker, that’s actually a pretty good sum up of the situation!
Some external styles also complement the internal ones pretty well. Six Harmonies Praying Mantis, for instance, plays well with Taiji (up-close range, push hands type practices, relaxed power) and XY as well (footwork, explosive release of power), and a Snake style I learned from my teacher here, for example, blends really well with Taiji (for its circular footwork, and snaking type push hands drills).
6 chessman71 // May 8, 2007 at 10:37 pm
I often get the feeling that XYQ guys hate taiji from reading EF. Haha. Maybe that’s not the case.
I would recommend training hard in one of the three first. I don’t think it matters which one you start with, although I would recommend XYQ or BGZ first. If you’re going to do one of those, then crosstraining in the other at the same time might be okay. But I would save taiji for latter and do it separately. I say this because I think that XYQ and BGZ share more similar concepts as far as application goes.
The problem with the two-person sets is that they are often done in the “banging” manner I describe above. Pi bangs into beng, beng bangs into heng, etc.
A slightly different approach gets taken in some Shaanxi styles, where a more sophisticated approach is allowed.
7 Jose de Freitas // May 8, 2007 at 11:15 pm
As I said, the uual order is the initial training way. Then you get to mix the elements (although the other guy still responds with the adequate element) and then you progress to An Shen Pao (which doesn’t really use the elements as its basis except in a conceptual framework of attitude or something). Also, banging becomes something else, very fluid with almost no motion being discernebly “terminated” in a clean way - your ability to not issue all the power at once and be able to stop and move and change to something else in reaction to the other guy’s reaction being what is tested at higher levels.
To me, playing An Shen Pao with my teacher was a revelation, because one day, he simply threw something at me from the set, and started doing techniques from it out of order and I had to respond. This was a pretty up close thing, as it is when you’ve trained a lot, and this stickyness requires a lot of feeling to what the otehr guy is doing. So Push Hands training is almost a must. This type of training comes just before free sparring, and although don’t really enjoy too much sparring it feels like the natural progression.
Actually, I trained Yang Taiji before doing XY (and did Taiji and Snake Fist almost exclusively for at least three years before picking up XY). XY is easier than Taiji in some sense, especially at the level of simply training the body to issue power and realign postures. I have to say that I became completely enamored of the style… except for Dragon Form.
I think most Emptyflower XY guys secretly train Taiji. They are closet Taiji guys, they need to come out…
Best
8 Graham // May 9, 2007 at 5:17 pm
Chessman, I think what XingYi guys hate the ‘flower power’ attitude of some Tai Chi players, not Tai Chi the martial art
Like Jose above says, I practice XingYi and my teacher never advocates ‘banging’ or using force against force.
I think you’ve just seen a lot of bad XingYi, or rather not so much ‘bad’, just beginner level. Most people never go deep into XY, just stick with the 5 fists instead, because it’s martial art no.13 on a list of 20 they practice!
I think instead of jumping ship to learn Tai Chi it would make more sense to find a XY teacher who can take you further.
Like Jose says, once you do you’ll find that the 2-man sets (like An Shen Bao) become extremely fluid - force is never applied against force. If the arms do strike each other, then it’s an attack, rather than to force them out of the way - i.e. you are actively destroying the limb.
One of the main reasons for not pressing or leaning on your opponent in XY is simply that it gives away your intentions. And if, as a XY guy, you are fighting a Tai Chi guy, who loves nothing more than to sense through his arms what your intentions are, it makes no sense whatsoever to give him any feedback at all. In fact, you don’t even want to touch his arms - just hit him. That’s good XY.
9 chessman71 // May 9, 2007 at 5:28 pm
Graham,
I once thought as you do. But I think differently now. I see crosstraining as adding something that wasn’t really there to begin with, even in the two-man sets. But i do think anshenpao is great.
I’ll post about it soon.
10 GrahamB // May 10, 2007 at 5:55 am
Gou Yun Shen was about as ‘bad ass’ a martial artist as anyone could ever hope to be and he didn’t feel the need to cross train outside of XY
I cross train myself, but thats because of the amazing teachers in different arts that I’ve found.
I think 3 systems is about right - gives you a good mix.
Anyway - have you ever found a video of An Shen Bao online?
11 C.J.W. // May 16, 2007 at 9:26 pm
That’s why I train ba-gua. It falls right in between Taiji and HsingI, giving me the option to be hard or soft.
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14 Oleg // Jun 19, 2007 at 2:58 pm
Hi Chessman,
I feel that your understanding of xing-yi is similar to mine. I think we may be able to learn some things from each other. If you are interested in practicing together - can you please send me an e-mail to fatyogi at gmail dot com. I am currently staying in Taipei.
yours,
Oleg
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