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XINGYIQUAN
My relationship with Xingyiquan (shortened: XYQ) or more simply
Xingyi (this name means "Form and intention") has always been
alternante.Cause my interest has always been turned mainly to the
Baguazhang, the Xingyiquan, with its linearity and apparent simplicity,
has been at times from me left apart. On the other hand its easy
applicability has always been a rubber band for its use. At times I
had hot flashes of interest that lasted a period, then the Xingyiquan
returned in the shade of the Baguazhang. It also has very in common with
the BGZ. Right the position is similar (but not equal) and some schools of
Bagua as that of Gao Yisheng (<Cheng Tinghua) use it as a basic and
as static meditation (zhanzhuang) to pick up inside energy, to develop a
solid rooting and to create the calmness. The form of the hands is the
same one of the BGZ of the Cheng school with the difference
that the back hand is not near to the elbow of the anterior one but next
to the navel and as pushed downward. The footstep of the XYQ is more easy
of that of the BGZ and it touches earth with the heel and not with the
foot level (but it can be remembered that the famous Bagua master Ma
Gui used this same footstep, as ago also the Fu Zhensong school );
the foot behind it follows (genbu) . This also happens in the linear BGZ
of Gao Yisheng. In all the schools of Bagua the influence of the
Xingyiquan, or better of the fa-jin (to express the strength) of
the Xingyiquan, it is evident. To make it the Xingyi gives a lot of
importance to the feet; every hit is generally accompanied by a footstep
with the idea that we want to penetrate in the ground and that the ground
returns us the push. This, "bouncing", it goes up again along the body
and, medium the waist, it is transmitted then to the arms and to the hands.
Also when giving more hits from a single position and therefore the feet
are relatively firm, however "they work", directing the energy in the
ground and reabsorbing it upward . The same thing is found in the
Taijiquan of the Sun school (Sun Lutang was mainly in effects a
teacher of Xingyi; he practised with various teachers : already a mature
man, he went to the Shanxi area to learn at the school of Song
Xirong - to which he transmitted its BGZ). Sun practised the BGZ with
Cheng Tinghua for only three years and the Taijiquan of the school Wu/Hao
it was a slow acquisition (it became then the TJQ of the Sun school,
distinguishing itself because it contained a lot of techniques of XYQ and
some BGZ). It must be said that in the orthodox school of Sun Jianyun the
strongest features of XYQ have been a little dissolved but in the Fu
Zhensong school they have been retained. | |
YAOZI
SHUSHEN ("The Hawk with the tied up body") first movement of "Bashi." |
XINGYI/XINYI schools
SCHOOLS OF XINGYI/XINYI
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