LIANGYI QUAN, Origins, meaning and other. 
   

1991, Liuhua Lake Park, Guangzhou

I  learned   Liangyi Quan in 1991, in Guangzhou, from the nephews of his creator Fu Zhensong and precisely from Fu Meilan and Fu Wenlong. This is certainly the  most difficult form of the Fu family school  and to succeed to train it well requires  for a lot of ability and continuity.This form is a great deal long and complicated,  it is Taijiquan but it is also Baguazhang:in effects its structure  is that of a form of Taiji but the shenfa, that is the techniques of the body are more from the Baguazhang that from the  Taijiquan. It is therefore the only true form that I know of BaguaTaijiquan. There are in effects, in China, other forms (two or three) that are called Bagua Taijiquan and I have seen them but in effects none of them distantly has even the taste of Bagua of the Liangyiquan of Fu Zhensong. Fu Zhensong it was mainly a  Bagua teacher and only in secund order of Taiji; it seems that the first type of Taiji, Taiji Shandian Zhang - ‘The Taiji Lightning  Palms' - has been taught him by the famous teacher of  Wudang sword Song Weiyi; subsequently he probably mixed this native form - of which I am one of the rare experts, having studied it in Guangzhou in 1998 from Fu Meilan - with the forms of Yang Chenfu (style Yang) and of Sun Lutang (style Sun) and  created his own style of Taiji, the Fu style ; subsequently he felt the demand to create a synthesis of Taiji and Bagua and it created  Liangyi. Liangyiquan is the form that I have seen first of this school, many years ago, when the Bagua was for me a dark object of desire. Was my dear friend Roberto Sforza of Rome, also him a passionate teacher of Martial Arts, to furnish me an advertising notice in which the Chinese teacher moved  to USA, Bowsim Mark, furnished a list of brief films in super-8 to the price of over 80 $ each  - (notice that every film lasted around three minutes!). Always thanks to Roberto I had read, on an article of Adam Hsu in Inside Kungfu, that Liangyi was  a Bagua form  performed in the school of Gong Baotian. Years after I have been able to see Liangyi, in the execution of some Taiwaneses, and I have to say that it appears a great deal as a rough form and a great deal linear. But when I bought the first one film of Bow Simmark I was convinced to see  that Liangyiquan! After a while however I started to think that it was not so since Adam Hsu defined a great deal it as a simple and brief form - and decidedly this was not the case of the Liangyi of Bowsim Mark! I remained so stunned by the beauty, length and complexity of this form that almost I didn't dare to look at it! There was too much of what I looked for, it was really as a too much sweet  dessert. It was only quite a lot years after I succeeded in satisfying that thirst! 

By the way it was the same Bowsim Mark that, as the best student of Fu Yonghui,  Fu Zhensong son, definitely systematized the form together with her teacher. Here I give other data on Liangyi.

 MEANING Of LIANGYI. 

 Chinese Cosmology says:  From Voidness  came the One, the One produced the Two, Two produced Four, these the Eight  and the Eight finally the Sixty-four. The Sixty-four produced the 10.000 beings and things of the Being and Not-being. In other words the Beginning was the No-thing, the Void, the Source: this gave origin to the Great Limit, TAIJI that in turn  gave origin to the two significs (yin-yang, the two aspects of Reality), LIANG YI. Liangyi gave origin to SI XIANG, the Four Forms, that  gave origin to BAGUA, the Eight Diagrams etc., etc..  

ORIGIN Of LIANGYI QUAN. 

In origin there were schools and forms of martial exercise representative of the Dao as taiji and Bagua but not  representative of Liangyi and Sixiang: these last two forms were respectively completed from Fu Zhensong and from his son Yonghui. Liangyi was created in 1925 and it is structured as a form of Taiji. In this theory we need to be a balancing of the two Polarities, Yin and Yang and it is what Liangyi proposes to do. 

SIGNIFIC Of LIANGYI. 

Liang it means Two and also Balancing. Yi is characterized by two Chinese expressions that mean an expression of movement and an endless number of changes. 

FEATURES Of LIANGYI

 It is a fast QUAN. The movement is both slow and fast . 
The mind  drives the movements.. 
From slow to fast always changing. 
From the tangible one to the intangible one. 
To open and to Close. 
To jump and to lower. 
To entwine to the right  and to the left. 
To turn and to overturn . 
Tall and Low  reciprocally follow . 
The movement is continuous, a movement after the other.They are balanced by both the parts. 
You use the waist as axle. 
The whole movement is produced by the waist.The techniques of hand are more complicated than in the powerful and fast, vivacious and agile Taiji.

Movement, it is
 live and fast, elegant and harmonious, slow and soft, fluid and integrated , 
Hard and soft, light and firm . 
 Because the whole movement is focused around the waist, the inside organs around it  also are trained. As a result of this exercise, it develops a power tantamount to that of the  Qigong training. This power can be released and to have the same result of the power derived by the  Qigong. 

HEALTH

 Liangyi is considered a fast Taiji. It is done with speed and with  power mixed to softness and slowness. It is a form of Kungfu both hard and soft, it is both aerobic and anaerobic, isometric and isotonic. All the articulations are employed to full field in the movement and all the most greater muscular groups  are fully practiced. Therefore, as such, Liangyiquan, regularly done, it is one of the best exercises to practice.The practice of the first movement it is considered of help for the nervous and hypertensive disorders, reducing and checking the hypertension. Chanshen zhang (Palm of the winding body ), brings to wind and to rotate, is considered as a good exercise for the prevention of the rheumatisms and the arthritis since they provoke a massage effect.The movements that include to Open and to Close  help to prevent the chronic illnesses as the gastro-intestinal disorders. Coming to movement n. 11 (to press and to push with fast footsteps) it is said to  help against the tuberculosis. To contract  and to relax strengthen the functions of the heart and  improve the blood circulation. To twist and to bend improve the functions of liver, backs and pancreas, strengthening at the same time the waist. [1] 
 

 LIANGYI TECHNIQUES 

The principal techniques of Liangyiquan, “besides understanding the characteristics of the Taiji, they also have chanyao xuanniu ‘to rotate and to twist on the sides, ningyao zhanbao ‘to extend and to embrace ,winding around the hips, yangyun gongcheng ‘to make upward clouds with the turned body and to push in position gong(bu), huobu ji'an ‘to press and to push with fast footsteps, sizheng pu'an(tengkong) ‘to  push in the four directions (jumping)' , molun zhuantuo ‘to rub and to make rotations, to turn  and to lift, jinbu xietuo ‘to advance and to sideways lift, siyu jiatui ‘to protect and to push to the Four Angles, etc., these are developments based on the taijiquan,”. [2] As I have said above, this development of the taiji is based abundantly on the Baguazhang and it will furnish abundant joy to us lovers of taiji and Bagua. 

See other pictures of LIANGYIQUAN IN GUANGZHOU

[1] from an article of Victor Fu. 
[2] from an article of Chen Zhengqing on Fu Yonghui and on his form  Sixiangquan that also includes a section of Liangyi.

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