the rum soaked fist: internal martial arts forum

I have been experimenting with using the idea of a square form in Xing Yi Pi Quan.

What is "square" about it? (I am just trying to understand...)

if its a 1.2.3.4 kind a way from start to stop, then thats haow i prefer to practice my XYQ splitting, i found it to have great value when i touch-hands.
however i do kind of combine that practice with the flowing swing of TBQ splitting

It's similar to how I learned the elements.
Similar in approach, at least.

We would work on them in a wuji stance, but broken down into explicit movements. It was really the only way to get all of the parts of the movement.

what is the idea behind being "very square"?

cant see the OP video, so no real idea of his Pi-quan square method.
Xingyiquan Pi-quan and the following elements are worked through the santi-stance,if not XYQ pi-quan lose its function and is not XYQ...

Trick wrote:cant see the OP video, so no real idea of his Pi-quan square method.
Xingyiquan Pi-quan and the following elements are worked through the santi-stance,if not XYQ pi-quan lose its function and is not XYQ...

That integration comes separately. Remember the isolate and integrate concept. You train a static san ti, and then in wu ji there is the upper body movements, then you do the square stepping with the upper body, then the smooth stepping.

three parts by three parts, right?

i have some difficulty understanding your language, but then im swedish living in China, prabably the reason.

when one is ready for pi-quan practice one has done santi practice for some time beforehand and by so be perfectly ready. the five elements are about understanding the opposing forces in front of you and timingly moving as in stepping into those forces, the front leg/knee is part of reading those opposing forces,
standing in wuji stance doing upper body moves might be good for just health and probably suited for those with weak/injured knees..

The problem with this particular square version is the student will probably never get the correct coordination of the kua. The drawback should be the kua drawing the hand back, and on the Pi there should be a v strong forward snap of the kua. YMMV, IMHO etc.

Trick wrote:i have some difficulty understanding your language, but then im swedish living in China, prabably the reason.

when one is ready for pi-quan practice one has done santi practice for some time beforehand and by so be perfectly ready. the five elements are about understanding the opposing forces in front of you and timingly moving as in stepping into those forces, the front leg/knee is part of reading those opposing forces,
standing in wuji stance doing upper body moves might be good for just health and probably suited for those with weak/injured knees..

I'll try to be more clear.

I wouldn't suggest abandoning santi or stepping in favor of wu ji standing elements.

What I see value in doing is isolating parts of the body to help strengthen particular aspects of movement related to those parts.

By keeping the hips static and isolating the movements to the yao and above, we accomplish several things.

1) Reduced mental load - we have less to think about, less new synapses to coordinate wiring. We get familiar with small pieces and then we can fire them in clusters with less mental/neurological energy, which is a finite resource, particularly when learning and conditioning.
2) Improved form - the more freedom of movement the more places for error to creep in when there isn't enough attention or intention to cover everything that needs to be addressed, we dial in the small pieces and then hook them into the bigger pieces.

Trust me, you can figure out how that translates to moving, but the value you get out of doing it standing is exponentially better when you get to that part of class.

In The Taijiquan the standard method of moving and coordinating the body is what other arts would consider advanced method. The beginner is thrown into something quite hard to do. So I can see a value of breaking up movements and "isolating body parts" as a square form. I still don't think it helps a lot or, that it's a very good practice, as it's quite different from doing a standard form "correctly". But I guess there's a value as it helps students to get a feeling of postures without having to put everything together at once. But I have a hard time seeing any benefit trying to do the same with xingyiquan. Xingyi is already clear and well structured for beginners. The first stage is "ming", it's evident. Evident movements, evident power. Everything is done precise and clear. It's first in later stages the movements flow and becomes less evident and more "circular" (connected). So why try to fix something that isn't broken? It makes no sense.

nicklinjm wrote:The problem with this particular square version is the student will probably never get the correct coordination of the kua. The drawback should be the kua drawing the hand back, and on the Pi there should be a v strong forward snap of the kua. YMMV, IMHO etc.

I think I know what you mean. I've been working on this in san ti shi, as I noticed I tend to twist my upper body too much to get the chop. It feels like drawing the bow to me. So I have the same idea, sink the chi, and "draw the bow". Thanks, it's a good tip. I'm going to have to talk to my teacher about this.

Bao wrote:In The Taijiquan the standard method of moving and coordinating the body is what other arts would consider advanced method. The beginner is thrown into something quite hard to do. So I can see a value of breaking up movements and "isolating body parts" as a square form. I still don't think it helps a lot or, that it's a very good practice, as it's quite different from doing a standard form "correctly". But I guess there's a value as it helps students to get a feeling of postures without having to put everything together at once. But I have a hard time seeing any benefit trying to do the same with xingyiquan. Xingyi is already clear and well structured for beginners. The first stage is "ming", it's evident. Evident movements, evident power. Everything is done precise and clear. It's first in later stages the movements flow and becomes less evident and more "circular" (connected). So why try to fix something that isn't broken? It makes no sense.

I believe the intention of my teacher in doing this was to keep the lower body from doing the job the yao should be doing.

He found one day that even though his elements were looking good and powerful, he wasn't actually getting as much waist rotation separate from the hips as he wanted. By isolating the lower body it helped to train and stretch and loosen the waist with more clarity. It's easier to work on when you're not also on a moving platform, if you get what I mean?

When the lower body is moving, we can turn with the hips and change height with the knees. That can hide errors of over or under turning or bending elsewhere. Not from your teacher, per se, if they are bothered to look, but from your own perception. Even if your perception is good there, the time spent on the focused attention is helpful in my opinion.

Bao wrote:In The Taijiquan the standard method of moving and coordinating the body is what other arts would consider advanced method. The beginner is thrown into something quite hard to do. So I can see a value of breaking up movements and "isolating body parts" as a square form. I still don't think it helps a lot or, that it's a very good practice, as it's quite different from doing a standard form "correctly". But I guess there's a value as it helps students to get a feeling of postures without having to put everything together at once. But I have a hard time seeing any benefit trying to do the same with xingyiquan. Xingyi is already clear and well structured for beginners. The first stage is "ming", it's evident. Evident movements, evident power. Everything is done precise and clear. It's first in later stages the movements flow and becomes less evident and more "circular" (connected). So why try to fix something that isn't broken? It makes no sense.

I believe the intention of my teacher in doing this was to keep the lower body from doing the job the yao should be doing.

He found one day that even though his elements were looking good and powerful, he wasn't actually getting as much waist rotation separate from the hips as he wanted. By isolating the lower body it helped to train and stretch and loosen the waist with more clarity. It's easier to work on when you're not also on a moving platform, if you get what I mean?

When the lower body is moving, we can turn with the hips and change height with the knees. That can hide errors of over or under turning or bending elsewhere. Not from your teacher, per se, if they are bothered to look, but from your own perception. Even if your perception is good there, the time spent on the focused attention is helpful in my opinion.

If you pick up a heavy enough kettlebell and learn to swing it correctly ("hard style" by Pavel), you might do it wrong for a while, but soon you cannot help but do it correctly, and it is very "self correcting". All parts are coordinated. If you try to do it incorrectly, the bell is going to correct/punish you.

I find (not having learned any xingyiquan) that pi quan is very similar. If you pick up a heavy/long enough pole/staff/whatnot, and try the movements, give it some real intent and force, after a while, unless you have various bad movements / imbalances, are incredibly unathletic/uncoordinated, or have some kinds of body issues already (that you should deal with), it's quite self correcting and "ming" as Bao put it. It's hard to follow the reasons for very consciously and deliberately "doing things incorrectly". Once the "weapons form" is locked in, it's hard to imagine being extremely wrong in the bare hand version. If you start with the bare hands (and just "wave your arms around"), it seems quite possible to do all kinds of wrong things (but why you'd want to, I don't know)