Xingyiquan of the Chinese army reviewed

[GrahamB]

this topic seems to be more about personal drama than martial arts...

theatrical Ian, theatrical drama...

[bruce]

to me scott seems to have a great sense of humor (much needed in martial arts) and some of the stuff on his youtube channel looked pretty cool. i liked his push hands clip and the george xu "on the ball clips. looking at his chen tai chi i am not sure where he learned it but it does remind me of bkf so if he learned it from him it looks as if he is doing as he was taught. he also has some silly stuff that i dont really like but that is ok.

anyways welcome to the rsf ... i hope you continue to post here.

[bruce]

>>Site for serious martial artists who don't take themselves too seriously. << quote from scott on his youtube channel.

i like it.

[kreese]

Looks like RSF is finally getting over its time of the month.

[Andy_S]

SNIP
The Japanese by all accounts were more adept at the bayonet than Western forces in China at the time. In fact the British had to rethink their approach to training after being beaten by the Japanese in a friendly competition in Shanghai.
SNIP

Well if that is true, they were fast studies: The Japanese art of Juken-do (Way of the Bayonet) was learned, IIRC, from the Royal Marines.

[Andy_S]

RE: Theatrical, Religious, Military CMA
Certainly, CMA interfaced with these different aspects of culture, but I would have thought that HsingI was perphaps the least theatrical (I dont see HsingI peeps being invited to Chinese opera, or even to demonstrate the beauty of their forms in front of the local warlord) of them. As for its alleged Daoist input: Of that, I cannot speak.

[JoseFreitas]

I am beating myself on the head and kicking myself in the butt for wading into this discussion, but it seems I just can't avoid posting on any Xingyi discussion.... Damn!

On the book, which I have (without the DVD so it must be the older version): I didn't like it, but the truth is I don't like ANY of the old manuals, as they are generally unclear, unprecise, lacking in good illustrations or pictures and essentially full of "platitudes" that do not seem to help much unless you're already an expert. I'll take any of Di Guoyonng's books, for example, over Sun Lutang's or this one. Generally, I am of the opinion that distance in time makes wonders for the old practitioners skills, and remain unconvinced that any of them was as AMAZING as we're supposed to believe, and am convinced that today's practitioners are probably the best of the generations of martial artists ever. I think that Liu Jingru or Uncle BILL are AMAZING as it is, for example. This is of course a controversial view, and it could be I'm wrong.

I also think that to call any program of military training "Xingyi" is the height of optimism. If the book had been called "A series os simple straightforward, beginner level drills to be practiced with a bayonet and can be learned in under 20 hours" it would have been closer to the truth. It is impossible to marry Xingyi and military training, and in this I agree with Scott. It's not Xingyi, and much like the Taiwan styles forms for the Western Saber, it seems contrived and not really Xingyi. This is not to say it's not useful. If someone who is really good at Xingyi is asked to create a program to teach bayonet fighting to the army, it makes a lot of sense to generalize what he already knows and use the same movements as a "platform" for training soldiers. It's still not Xingyi. Also, and I would like other people's input - not having been in the miltary, and knowing nothing about bayonet - it doesn't seem like the bayonet is much like a spear, except perhaps on the most basic of levels. I don't know why the idea that Xingyi is based on spear means it's good to create a bayonet method ever appeared. In my experience with the spear, I think the two don't seem to have much in common, but perhaps someone more knowledgeable about both both the bayonet and the spear can explain it better.

I am not saying that the book is "bad" though, since it is mostly Huang's book, and has some historical importance. But I don't think it's really "good", and I sometimes wonder at why some of those books were published and then hailed as something really special. There are a bunch of better military combatives out there (Fairbarn's for example), and they don't say "Xingyi" on the cover. And although this book says Xingyi on the cover, it might as well not have said so.

On Scott's ideas, I think he is sometimes a little forceful and argumentative, but I do think that there's a big part of the martial arts in China which is about religion, trance, performance art and social component. There's been a lot of propaganda that was put in place in the 20's and 30's, but it's hard not to be struck by the similarities between the Boxers, for instance, and some of the more recent Armies of God in Africa. So I think he does have a point. Most of us CMA's tend to be overly serious and we also tend to confuse training for body-method and movement with ttraining for fighting, something which I think very few people, if any, will be able to teach us. It will either happen, or not. Martial arts is something else. It may help, but it's something else. So, as someone who definitely does not train MASs for fighting or self-defense, I tend to agree with Scott on a lot of issues, if only because they give more reasons to continue training beyond the "I'll be able to rip the #$%/&%$ OUT OF HIM!" motivation. Also, I don't think he moves too bad, but maybe I am prejudiced, because I think that anyone who can do a single leg squat (Pistol) during a sword form and make it look as easy as he does deserves some credit!

And I think he's funny.

[GrahamB]

I also think that to call any program of military training "Xingyi" is the height of optimism. If the book had been called "A series os simple straightforward, beginner level drills to be practiced with a bayonet and can be learned in under 20 hours" it would have been closer to the truth. It is impossible to marry Xingyi and military training, and in this I agree with Scott.

Well, that's an interesting perspective - can you explain more fully what you mean? Historically there does seem to have been a link between XY and military spear usage (not civilian, if such a think were possible), but that would be in an army that was very different to today's...

[Josealb]

Its an all too common failure to think it was...but Xingyiquan was never used for war. To say it was, or that its methods and uses are directly related, is to say that Li Luoneng (creator of Xingyiquan) and all his students and grand students, who were civilians, practiced an over dated martial art which was meant for battlefields...like a fish out of water.

I personally give Li Luoneng much more credit than that.

If someone sincerely wants to research weapons and keep "the battlefield" alive, then he/she should look at what was before xingyiquan...like Dai xinyi or Xinyiliuhe. Oh wait..i guess the postures dont fit the picture....oh well.

[GrahamB]

I was talking about Ji Long Feng who was a soldier in the Ming army.

Did big letters help?

Li didn't create his art out of thin air you know. If you want to make a big thing about the difference between the name "XingYiQuan" and "Xin Yi" then that's up to you, however many, many practitioners and teachers consider these two names interchangeable.

[JoseFreitas]

GrahamB: I will answe from two different points of view, both or none of whom may be germane to this discussion.

There is a general answer, which is what I meant previously, which is very simple: it's hard to teach martial arts to recruits. Whatever you teach them is generally a dumbed-down version of the martial art it's based on. It cannot have the nuances and body methods which take too long to program for someone who needs to be trained in the next 2 to 8 months (or whatever). Most recruits are physically stronger than the general population and therefore it makes sense to teach them more athletical methods. In modern warfare, other stuff is much more a priority for the soldiers, including firearms and such, but also, and mainly, to move as a unit, to obey commands, etc... This has been so since the 19th century or so (and in some cases, it has been so since the legions which did defeat warriors that were probably individually better than them), and it was already true in China. And the Chinese KNEW it, just read Qi Ji Guan's books where he says that "Boxing" is generally useless to soldiers, except perhaps as a form of exercise or a method to teach self-confidence, and that weapons are primary but they must be "reduced" to the simpler components because those are the ones soldiers will use on the battlefield.

In todays martial arts communities we all know what "battle tested" and "taught to SEALs and Marines under rigorous conditions" means: a watered down, simplifed, EASY TO TEACH method, which may very well be useful for the soldiers, but is hardly the primary method they are learning, or their priority. I will admit there may be exceptions, but most soldiers nowadays spend a really small part of their total training hours in hand to hand combat. And it's mostly been that way for a long time. I would hazard that whatever spear techniques were taught to soldiers during the 17th century in China were probably simplified, easy, watered down methods that could be drilled in great groups (remember the Seven Samurais).

There is another, more complex reason to be made here, which is that China did not have a warrior class, like Japan, and that in fact, the soldierly profession was generally not very appreciated, a "tainted" pursuit as a rule. Unlike the samurais, who made fighting the center of their world, Chinese never viewed warfare through the same prism of personal honor and accomplishment. The martial arts in China have been civilian affairs for a very long time, as can be readily seen by most of the old stories about hermits, peasants, poor people who became great fighters, caravan guards and such. These people expected to survive to old age, and they trained in a completely different way, which I think is the main reason that the Bujittsu and the Chines styles are different. Ellis Amdur summarizes it best when he says: Japanese styles taught you to fight , and to win, regardless of what happened to your body after you reach the age of 50 or 60 (at which time no one expected you to continue to fight or have more kids, you've done your bit), whereas Chinese styles taught you to fight and SURVIVE, but never at the expense of what it did to your body, you were after all, expected to survive to old age, and not to be stupid and go and die in some dirty battlefield.

This is to say that I think 1) no manual on combatives for the army can actually be any sort of martial arts, just a simplified method (ie. Huang's book is not Xingyi, just some basic training drills adapted from Xingyi), and 2) I seriously doubt that any Chinese martial art was based on a military training method (ie. if Xingyi is based on spear it's because Ji Long Feng was one heck of a good spearmaster, not because he went to the army and learned spear there).

[GrahamB]

GrahamB: I will answe from two different points of view, both or none of whom may be germane to this discussion.

Thanks, good answers.

There is a general answer, which is what I meant previously, which is very simple: it's hard to teach martial arts to recruits. Whatever you teach them is generally a dumbed-down version of the martial art it's based on. It cannot have the nuances and body methods which take too long to program for someone who needs to be trained in the next 2 to 8 months (or whatever). Most recruits are physically stronger than the general population and therefore it makes sense to teach them more athletical methods. In modern warfare, other stuff is much more a priority for the soldiers, including firearms and such, but also, and mainly, to move as a unit, to obey commands, etc... This has been so since the 19th century or so (and in some cases, it has been so since the legions which did defeat warriors that were probably individually better than them), and it was already true in China. And the Chinese KNEW it, just read Qi Ji Guan's books where he says that "Boxing" is generally useless to soldiers, except perhaps as a form of exercise or a method to teach self-confidence, and that weapons are primary but they must be "reduced" to the simpler components because those are the ones soldiers will use on the battlefield.

I'd agree with you (and General Qi) based on modern martial arts being taught to soldier.... BUT in the case of XinYi/XingYi we have to flip it around:

It all depends what you think of in your head as "martial arts"...historically XinYi was originally military methods (from Ji Long Feng) being taught to civilians, not the other way around. So the whole thing requires a 180 degree shift in perspective. I guess that after all its centuries of modification for barehand, it still contains some of its military essence, so I guess if you were going to teach anything back to solders form the (modern) martial arts world, then it would be a pretty good candidate, except obviously firearms have changed everything.

In todays martial arts communities we all know what "battle tested" and "taught to SEALs and Marines under rigorous conditions" means: a watered down, simplifed, EASY TO TEACH method, which may very well be useful for the soldiers, but is hardly the primary method they are learning, or their priority. I will admit there may be exceptions, but most soldiers nowadays spend a really small part of their total training hours in hand to hand combat. And it's mostly been that way for a long time. I would hazard that whatever spear techniques were taught to soldiers during the 17th century in China were probably simplified, easy, watered down methods that could be drilled in great groups (remember the Seven Samurais).

I think this assumes that "martial arts" is "hand to hand combat". Ji Long Feng and his fellow soldiers were full time - they would have devoted a lot of their time to training. Enough to make something very subtle (i.e. effective) I'd imagine.

There is another, more complex reason to be made here, which is that China did not have a warrior class, like Japan, and that in fact, the soldierly profession was generally not very appreciated, a "tainted" pursuit as a rule. Unlike the samurais, who made fighting the center of their world, Chinese never viewed warfare through the same prism of personal honor and accomplishment. The martial arts in China have been civilian affairs for a very long time, as can be readily seen by most of the old stories about hermits, peasants, poor people who became great fighters, caravan guards and such. These people expected to survive to old age, and they trained in a completely different way, which I think is the main reason that the Bujittsu and the Chines styles are different. Ellis Amdur summarizes it best when he says: Japanese styles taught you to fight , and to win, regardless of what happened to your body after you reach the age of 50 or 60 (at which time no one expected you to continue to fight or have more kids, you've done your bit), whereas Chinese styles taught you to fight and SURVIVE, but never at the expense of what it did to your body, you were after all, expected to survive to old age, and not to be stupid and go and die in some dirty battlefield.

Agreed - in civilian life, you need to practice something that also is good for your long term health, since you're not about to go into battle tomorrow.

This is to say that I think 1) no manual on combatives for the army can actually be any sort of martial arts, just a simplified method (ie. Huang's book is not Xingyi, just some basic training drills adapted from Xingyi), and 2) I seriously doubt that any Chinese martial art was based on a military training method (ie. if Xingyi is based on spear it's because Ji Long Feng was one heck of a good spearmaster, not because he went to the army and learned spear there).

Well, I think it's true to say that his spear work was learned in the army. He never claimed to have learned it from a martial arts master of some kind, and he was actually using his spear to kill the enemy in battle. Battle-tested, as the old saying goes.

[Josealb]

I was talking about Ji Long Feng who was a soldier in the Ming army.

Sorry, i didnt realize you practiced Ji longfengs art. You're one lucky guy.

however many, many practitioners and teachers consider these two names interchangeable.

Really? who? I've always wanted to practice quality Xinyi...i guess ive always had it without knowing.

Seriously, who?

[GrahamB]

I just typed "Ji long feng" into Google. First hit:

http://www.chiflow.com/hsing_i_overview.htm

Want me to keep going?

But anyway, there seems to be no disagreement that everybody who practices XingYiQuan today is in a lineage descended from Ji Long Feng. We're talking a huge span of history here, with many, many changes, sure, but there's an unbroken teacher/student link. If he hadn't decided to teach anybody then there would be no "XingYiQuan". It all depends how you look at it.

I wrote about this once:

http://wusource.org/content/are-xinyi-a ... erent-arts

[Josealb]

Gotcha. Gerald Sharp.

So...Li Luoneng...practiced what Ji Long Feng practiced? Of course not, how silly of me. Li trained in Dai, and then made some changes according to his personal experience. But somehow he never forgot how all of it was related to the all mighty spear in the battlefield. He was a very smart farmer, that one.

Sorry, theres just so many holes in there...not worth the time. Have fun writing assumptions on your blog. Im out.