Yiquan: Han Xingyuan

[jjy5016]

Of course some people can be happy with basic stuff, and keeping to the ways from early days of yiquan development, and not fighting (not sparring) but just dreaming about how they defeat opponent with one-touch skill (yi chu ji fa). But it's dozens years already from the time, when Yao Zongxun demonstrated that it's daydreaming, because others can get it, and can move further - work a lot on neutralizing it, work on more alive footwork, and you cannot demonstrate your wonderful one-touch skill on them. It was understood years ago, proving that you need to work on normal fighting training, because you cannot count on your opponent being an not moving dummy, so you could enjoy your dream of one-touch skill being the only skill you need.

One still needs the "basic stuff" that you seem to be discounting in order for everything else you've written about to work properly dacheng. Most don't seem to have been willing to spend the time getting the basics down before wanting to move on to the more advanced things. They want to move onto a phd degree before graduating from high school so to speak. After laboring through 5 vcds of demonstrations from the Wang Xiang Zhai memorial celebration in Beijing one can clearly see this. What I saw was a lot of bobbing up and down, feet coming off the ground, imbalance, disconnected arm pushes and big guys throwing around smaller ones. Little evidence that the basic skills were present. At least from what I saw.

Too much emphasis on boxing - like techniques. Several people speak about Wang incorporating western boxing principles into yiquan in his later years after he "developed" it more but really how much of this can we say is true. Remember that Wang was victorious in his meeting (s) with western boxers. Why would he want to incorporate into yiquan the tactics of someone he defeated soundly with.....just a touch?

There's nothing wrong with trying to improve the system and doing research but we must not deny the obvious which is that Wang himself had to master the "basic stuff" before further developing his art. His students had to learn the basics before they could move on to research. While you might feel that the one touch skill is not very important it is one of those little things that one needs in order to move on to greater things. It proves connection and proper method is present in one.

The one touch skill that you dismiss should be there no matter what more advanced training and methods you might practice. Not only in yiquan but in taiji, hsingyi, bagua etc. All of the great ones before us could do it without thinking. Wang Xiang Zhai, Dong Hai Quan, Ma Gui, Guo Yun Shen and others all mastered this ability and was evident when they encountered others whethe when walking, fighting or just standing there.

It's hardly the "daydreaming" you dismiss it as dacheng. It's not everything but it is something.


John

[Strange]

heya, dacheng, whats your poison huh? i like islay single malts. i am greatly honored by your steel and passion. we should drink through the night and sort out this stuff; JB should come along and we'll have ourselves a real party.

i heard an ad-man say; if we both agree, one of us is redundant.

first of, zz is not kata. its basic premise is to illicit a natural response entire human system based on self-induced imagery and condition. you guys have a scientific name for it - something like 2nd level something - like when you salivate when you imagine a sour plum. you know what i really like about this very basic assumption? is that a any human already has in him the ability to fight; but just lost it. my teacher said once that "quan shi bu yong lian de"- something like the fist is not acquired by training. it took me a long time to understand; but i'm slow.

WXZ said that all the form make numb the muscles of the masses. i like to think that he did away with the forms and concentrated on zz that are largely natural in their position so you dun have a situation where: on one hand your doing great zz and on the other hand, doing odd forms cut away your gongli.

In latter part of his life Guo Yunshen said that having xing and yi are all bluff; it is when executed with no heart, nor intent that it is truly exceptional. just like what you said huh- moving all over the place and being all connected when and where it counts.

so i disagree with you when you say what wang did was research - cutting away what he felt was unnecessary and preserving the core is just his inability to suffer fools.

i also have to disagree with you on the "one-touch" skill. WXZ did it, and his opponents are advanced fighters. also lhbf Li DongFeng, also said in his 5 word "guide" - "enemy falls flat upon a touch" (am sure drake can come up with something more elegant). it has nothing to do with whether the oponent know or not know. my shigong tells his opponent that he is using piquan. wxz tells opponent that he'll send them sitting in the sofa behind. do all the dancing you want; if my gongli is higher, i CONTROL the situation; i CONTROL you.

i am sorry if i dun make much sense; you wrote lots!
cheers
S:)

[Strange]

"...others all mastered this ability and was evident when they encountered others whethe when walking, fighting or just standing there. "

拳拳服膺- i asked my teacher what they heck this meant once; he smiled and said it means all the simple movement and actions in your daily life conforms to the principles of martial art

[dacheng]

Rising and sinking is one of the basic useful principles about which Wang was talking . Feet coming off the ground is normal thing - people learned it from Wang too Learning how to unify body and generate power in situation when you haven't got full support on the ground is also part of yiquan curriculum (not so long ago I posted clip of Yao Chengguang teaching sitting variant of combat posture - which is important part in this).

Of course you need solid basis, I completely agree on this. I don't say you should neglect basis. Only I see that people often concentrate on basis so much, that they don't see anything more. We don't neglecting basis - actually you should work on the basis all your life - but you better understand it's value and meaning when you got some wider perspective.

As for things like imbalance, disconnected arm pushes etc., well this is not nice, but you put those great masters who like to demonstrate perfect balance and connection, not in situation when their partner is playing their part such that makes it easy (being trained to react in way which helps), but changing and disconecting chaotically, waving and bobbing, creating much complex situation, and you will see exactly the same - lack of balance, disconected pushing - this is reality which people don't realise when they train in "ideal' conditions. Ideal is great, but in real life you cannot make everything ideally in ideal conditions. So in yiquan we say (probably Wang himself said this, but I don't remember exactly now) that you seek balance in unbalance. You start from simple situation, but at beginning it's difficult and you cannot perform well. After some time you can present structure, balance, connection in such situation, and you move to more challenging enviroment, and again there is no balance, and you need to seek it again, and repeating this on gradually more and more challenging levels.

You can have a great master, who demonstrates perfect balance and connection, but it is because he is doing it in very favourable conditions - openly speaking: when partner reacts right way (could be cooperating, could be being surprised, could be being not skilled). Take such master and let him do this on someone who is trained to destroy balance and connection - suddenly so many factors appear in the equation, that the balance and connection is broken, and those who don't know about reality, only dream about ideal, start criticizing. So what you do? Make the demonstrations in ideal conditions, with partner cooperating right way, so people say it's really nice internal stuff? Haha, at the same time you will have others, who will tell it's fake and ask for real fighting demonstrations. You do real fighting demonstrations, and some start complaining, not understanding that beauty of demonstration is due to cooperating or very big difference of levels. No matter how high your level, when you meet opponent on similiar level, there will appear a lot of unbalancing and disconecting. That's life.

And I don't dismiss one-touch skill. You could even see at some of my clips, that I actually demonstrate it quite regularly, only I don't boast of it being something that great, that you can limit your training only to this.

As for Wang Xiangzhai defeating boxers, well, nice sounding stories, but the same stories tell us clearly that it were not serious fights, but something closer to demonstration, where boxers didn't really fight with him, but agreed to just doing some single attack.

And yes, it was not Wang who was taking inspiration from boxing so much, but his students, while he approved their attitude.

Hmm, I don't remember when last time I wrote so much on forum

[dacheng]

See more stuff posted while I was writing. Will be back later, after tonight classess. Still have some time for writing tomorrow. But then 2 months of intensive courses starting, and again will need to limit myself with forum activity

[jjy5016]

See more stuff posted while I was writing. Will be back later, after tonight classess. Still have some time for writing tomorrow. But then 2 months of intensive courses starting, and again will need to limit myself with forum activity

Have a good intensive.

[dacheng]

Thanks John,

Strange,
as for single malts, I'm in favour. No blends anymore after I tried great pure stuff brought by certain Dan Docherty to one of IMA meetings
But what I offer to our students at parties when completing some course, usually is Polish Bison Vodka. The original. Unfortunately the stuff sent to US is deprived of some funny alkaloids

Then there is a lot of material for good discussion or even writing some articles. Will try to remember some ideas.

But still a bit about one-touch skill - you have a good boxer, it's just bang and fight is over. You have a wrestler, who just touches you and makes you sit on the chair he wishes - this is only matter of the difference of skill level. But if you train specifically only for it, you meet someone with similiar skill, and you cannot do much. No matter what martial art, you want to finish fight as soon as possible, just contact and issuing power, just bang and it's over. But there is someone who disturbs you - this bad ugly opponent, who's gongli and skill could be similiar or maybe higher then yours.

And situation when you tell someone what you will do, and you just do it anyway - I noticed that in many cases it's easier this way, because you limit number of possible reaction of your opponent (partner in this game), the situation is more predictible, and it's easier for you to manipulate with timing and small changes. It's quite like with doing pushing hands blindfolded - it's not any difference for you, but opponents psychology is affected, when he sees that you can do what you want even this way, he becomes more stiff and clumsy, and makes thing even easier for you. It's just things which could be used as jokes, for fun, and not something to be taken too seriously.

[Strange]

"No blends anymore" - heh, i know what you mean... like you say, no? not "homogenuos". my new fav word!

"the stuff sent to US is deprived of some funny alkaloids" - well fag me! what?!? the US has an issue with polish humour now! hee just kidding

the one-touch
no one is not suppose to train specifically for it. both sets of "our books" says specifically that the practitioner must let it happen naturally. about the bad ugly fella- i guess thats who we all train for; some ppl here keep reminding me my forearm alone will settle the issue. but if we lose, we'll just say, we are way more handsome.

i dont think my shigong was joking when he told his opponent he was going to pi him hee

cheers
S:)