xingyi variants, shanxi and hebei?

[I-mon]

my questions got swamped in the dai xinyi thread so i'll ask again:

what are the different types of shanxi and hebei xingyi?

is shanxi xingyi basically che style and song style, or are there other types?

did hebei xingyiquan start with li cun yi?


maybe i should post this question on jarek's site instead.

[mixjourneyman]

my questions got swamped in the dai xinyi thread so i'll ask again:

what are the different types of shanxi and hebei xingyi?

is shanxi xingyi basically che style and song style, or are there other types?

did hebei xingyiquan start with li cun yi?


maybe i should post this question on jarek's site instead.

1) I only know about hebei but in my opinion there are two important branches from which the lineages come. Guo YunShen and Liu Qilan. Both of them learned from Li Luoneng (I consider Li to be the original hebei xingyi).
After that, the lineages separate even more. The most important two IMO being Li Cun Yi and Zhang Zhao Dong, but there are others too.
After that you have more modern xingyi with other masters

2) dunno anything about shanxi

3) no, not with li cun yi.

[I-mon]

ok, i thought Guo Yunshen learned from Li Cunyi. guess i got the two Li's mixed up.

so tell me about Li Luoneng.

[edededed]

Shanxi:
Che Yizhai style -> Li Fuzhen, Bu Xuekuan
Song Shirong, Song Shide style -> Song Huchen, Song Tielin

Hebei:
Li Taihe style -> Li Zhenbang
Liu Qilan style -> Liu Wenhua, Li Cunyi, Zhang Zhaodong, Geng Jishan, Wang Fuyuan
Guo Yunshen style -> Sun Lutang

Li Cunyi was Liu Qilan's disciple, but he also learned some from Guo Yunshen (not the other way around).

Li Cunyi did not start the Hebei style, but he was very influential (along with Sun Lutang).

[mixjourneyman]

ok, i thought Guo Yunshen learned from Li Cunyi. guess i got the two Li's mixed up.

so tell me about Li Luoneng.

Li Luoneng learned Dai style from ? (can't remember the name) and created xingyiquan. He taught all of the masters who would later spread xingyiquan around China.

[Chris Fleming]

I'm not going to act like I know more than I do, but having trained Shanxi and Hebei methods, I can say that the Shanxi is much more sophisticated and circular. Hebei is good and powerful too, but many practitioners seem to want to make their movements very hard like karate and not learn the style to it's fullest extent. I find the Hebei style to be defensively lacking too.

[mixjourneyman]

I'm not going to act like I know more than I do, but having trained Shanxi and Hebei methods, I can say that the Shanxi is much more sophisticated and circular. Hebei is good and powerful too, but many practitioners seem to want to make their movements very hard like karate and not learn the style to it's fullest extent. I find the Hebei style to be defensively lacking too.

Maybe you just had a crappy hebei teacher.
Hebei is fine for defense, offense, and trained power. Yep hebei trains "gang" pretty heavy duty. It doesn't mean that its not good. Actually, just the opposite. Hebei is very good indeed. You just have to find a good teacher to bring out the subtlety of the art.

[mixjourneyman]

I figured this thread would turn into a shanxi VS hebei debate sooner or later, but gawd! that was fast.
I hear BTDT singing her sweet lilting melody.

[C.J.Wang]

I'd say don't blame the style, blame the pracitioners.

[mixjourneyman]

Anyways, in my opinion shanxi style is really riding on the coattails of hebei style, since hebei brought xingyi out into the world and made it famous for its vicious fighting methods. Shanxi just sort of stayed quietly in the countryside and did its own thing, but now Shanxi style is trying to make itself famous and one killer way to do that is to say that not only is it the "original" xingyi, its also way more complex that hebei style.
90% of famous xingyi fighters of the past practiced hebei style. I can name probably like 20 or 30 famous fighters from hebei style and just about none from shanxi. I'm not gonna say thats because shanxi can't produce fighters, but instead will say that hebei was out in the world with masters proving themselves before shanxi was. Its really ridiculous to say that one is better than the other, they are like twin sisters who grew up in different houses from each other.

[beegs]

Anyways, in my opinion shanxi style is really riding on the coattails of hebei style, since hebei brought xingyi out into the world and made it famous for its vicious fighting methods. Shanxi just sort of stayed quietly in the countryside and did its own thing, but now Shanxi style is trying to make itself famous and one killer way to do that is to say that not only is it the "original" xingyi, its also way more complex that hebei style.
90% of famous xingyi fighters of the past practiced hebei style. I can name probably like 20 or 30 famous fighters from hebei style and just about none from shanxi. I'm not gonna say thats because shanxi can't produce fighters, but instead will say that hebei was out in the world with masters proving themselves before shanxi was. Its really ridiculous to say that one is better than the other, they are like twin sisters who grew up in different houses from each other.

shanxi was the place where the bodyguard services were needed most as many important businesses and banks were in shanxi, theres plenty of shanxi professional bodyguards who put their stuff to the test in real life situations often such as li and che
. Hebei is a different art, some similarities, but not all students of li were taught the same, just as today, not all students are shown the same material, etc.

hebei is very good, and very different, shanxi the same.

shanxi is not trying to make itself famous, it always was famous and known as the mecca of xingyi, thats why hebei guys went their to learn in the first place.

[I-mon]

thanks guys.

no need to get into which arts have what in this thread (although i guess it's bound to happen), just trying to trace things back.

so did Che Yizhai, Song Shirong and Song Shide all learn from Li luoneng as well?

[Coach DAi]

thanks guys.

no need to get into which arts have what in this thread (although i guess it's bound to happen), just trying to trace things back.

so did Che Yizhai, Song Shirong and Song Shide all learn from Li luoneng as well?

Yes, they did.
Any system of XY is potentially devastatingly effective. Depends on the practitioner and the quality of instruction. Hebei's special quality imo is its simplicity - one can develop more quickly in terms fighting skills. Shanxi style's special quality is a more in depth repetoire of neigong methods for building internal power for fighting, but it takes a little longer.

Song style to me has seemed to be the bridge between Shanxi and Hebei. The shapes are more similar than in Che, but Song style is of course and much smaller frame and a totally different shenfa.But for example they both use the palm in Pi Jin and opposed to the fist in Che style which is an obvious sign of it's similarity with older Dai methods. When you look at various players from both Shanxi and Hebei youre bond to see some individuals from both that possess delightful skill. Ive seen some really wack Shanxi and some atrocious Hebei.

As a Hebei player theres nothing wrong with researching some of the more traditonal systems to see what elements may have not made it down the "pipeline", and as a Shanxi player one can easily see that the Hebie style does in fact put out more "winners" sooner due to its simplified approach.

[Chris Fleming]

I'm not going to act like I know more than I do, but having trained Shanxi and Hebei methods, I can say that the Shanxi is much more sophisticated and circular. Hebei is good and powerful too, but many practitioners seem to want to make their movements very hard like karate and not learn the style to it's fullest extent. I find the Hebei style to be defensively lacking too.

Maybe you just had a crappy hebei teacher.
Hebei is fine for defense, offense, and trained power. Yep hebei trains "gang" pretty heavy duty. It doesn't mean that its not good. Actually, just the opposite. Hebei is very good indeed. You just have to find a good teacher to bring out the subtlety of the art.

Zhang Yun isn't a crappy Hebei teacher. And as for Hebei vs Shanxi you didn't have to take it that way. Sorry, I can't disclaimer every statement when I am asked to talk about what are the differences between the two, which is what was asked right? I like Hebei style very much. Can't help but notice the strength of one when I see it though. And, I can say for a fact that Shanxi is much more involved, sophisticated, intricate and circular. Not taking anything away from anyone. It just is. Even books about Xing yi say that Shanxi is more rare/sophisticated. I don't know what you mean by riding coat tails. The way it was explained to me was that the xing yi masters had their Shanxi style and only taught it to indoor students. How else do you figure Hebei became so popular?

[Coach DAi]

Gentlemen it has become my opinion that the only complete study and practice of XY is the research of all of the methods. This pretty much the approach in the system I train. We're all unique so you research them all and find what wprks best for you.