Di Guoyong - Peking University Lecture - Part Two

[wushutiger]

Here is the second part of this series

[Bob]

Very much appreciated - thanks for posting

[Bob]

toward the end of his lecture he makes provides some interesting insights about "stability" and "liveliness" in the movement of xing yi and why the simplicity of xing yi is so important in its ability to generate power.

It sparked some thinking on the bajiquan that was taught in the Li Shuwen/Liu Qunqiao line - the starting point for this baji is the horses stance which is different from other styles in its measurement and execution - upper body held relaxed, fists relaxed and open and lower body sunk, aligned and focused on qua. This moves to single moving and then to xiao baji xia where postures are held and practiced in the horse stance (stability) - that is the only form that employs a horse stance in its training and movement - all other forms are executed in a half horse half bow stance (liveliness).

Again nice lecture which got me to think more about bajiquan.

[wushutiger]

Again nice lecture which got me to think more about bajiquan.

Interesting. Glad you enjoyed it!

[Tom]

I remember reading that Guo Yunshen trained in bajiquan for several years before taking up xingyiquan under Li Luoneng. I don't know how much influence baji had (if any) on santishi or other training practices of Guo Yunshen's lines, though.

[Trick]

I don’t know any baijiquan and I don’t really know the origin of XYQ Santishi posture and it’s practice method(is it suggested that santishi came with Guo Yunshen ?)
From my experience of Tongbeiquan and XYQ my wild guess about the santishi thinks of an connection within those two...,

[Tom]

....
From my experience of Tongbeiquan and XYQ my wild guess about the santishi thinks of an connection within those two...,

Li Luoneng is said to have trained for a number of years in some line of Tongbeiquan before seeking out yraining with the Dai family at the age of 37—so your guess may have some truth to it. Li was already highly-regarded for his martial skill before beginning training in Dai family XYLHQ—and at age 37 one may not be able to easily shed previous training and shen fa to take on another art.

[dspyrido]

The most stand out things he says are the things many people in ima like to ignore.

Power comes from drilling the same move over and over. As my sifu used to say 1000/1000 & more!

The next point was speed. In the same way this only comes from drilling efficiently.

OTOH I would not get fixated on horse stance of Baji vs xy's santi. Stances need strong flexible supple legs and need to flow in and out of various positions. Drilling continuous movement in and out of these and other stances is what's important to get speed and power. Using this foundational structure to hit and defend as a single unit is what makes all the difference.

[Tom]

The most stand out things he says are the things many people in ima like to ignore.

Power comes from drilling the same move over and over. As my sifu used to say 1000/1000 & more!

The next point was speed. In the same way this only comes from drilling efficiently.

OTOH I would not get fixated on horse stance of Baji vs xy's santi. Stances need strong flexible supple legs and need to flow in and out of various positions. Drilling continuous movement in and out of these and other stances is what's important to get speed and power. Using this foundational structure to hit and defend as a single unit is what makes all the difference.

+1000

Baji mabu vis a vis xingyiquan's santishi . . . just historical curiosity, idle speculation about what entered into Li Luoneng's or Guo Yunshen's thinking about training methods. Ultimately as you say it's about the quality of the training, and in a fight fluid transition between stances at realistic speeds maintaining the central equilibrium and the ability to deliver force with whole-body power.

[Bob]

[quote="dspyrido"]The most stand out things he says are the things many people in ima like to ignore.

Power comes from drilling the same move over and over. As my sifu used to say 1000/1000 & more!

The next point was speed. In the same way this only comes from drilling efficiently.

OTOH I would not get fixated on horse stance of Baji vs xy's santi. Stances need strong flexible supple legs and need to flow in and out of various positions. Drilling continuous movement in and out of these and other stances is what's important to get speed and power. Using this foundational structure to hit and defend as a single unit is what makes all the difference.[/quote


While I would agree with most of what you say and indeed, at the beginning, the 1000/1000 & more was also part of the class.

But there was more. Without structure, alignment, relaxation, repeating 1000 misalignments is not an efficient way to reach desired outcomes.

The drilling, in my experience, has never been a linear A --> B --> C development.

We did 100 one punches up and down a 75 yard lawn in conjunction with stance training and it was the order of day one.

These 2 clips are but a small subsample of how it happens -

At the .35 mark - you can see a "transition" of going from the baji ma bu, slowly into what we termed the one punch and then executing it fast with the one punch (as a note this also maps onto the da qiang drill too!)

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xHiRqDjTGPw



The transition into a moving 1 punch and this done both fast and slow (100+) up and down 75 yard - backyard (no Youtube during that time LOL)

Again this is just a small sample of the jiben gong that always included some aspect of nei gong/qi gong from the very day students started.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Q1Xs4hft2UM



In this line you could never learn a form but yet reach a relatively effective level of baji by following this method of jiben gong.

Many similar comparisons could be made to the hebei xing yi I learned (including xing yi 5 element da qiang training)

Interesting note - take the baji half horse/half bow stance - shorten it a bit, turn rear foot 45 degrees and front foot either 30 degrees or straight forward and you have a xing yi stance.

Liu Yunqiao once said Northern traditional Chinese Martial arts are all sons of the same mother - I can see that much clearer after all these years.

[Trick]

things many people in ima like to ignore.

Power comes from drilling the same move over and over. As my sifu used to say 1000/1000 & more!

The next point was speed. In the same way this only comes from drilling efficiently.

OTOH I would not get fixated on horse stance of Baji vs xy's santi. Stances need strong flexible supple legs and need to flow in and out of various positions. Drilling continuous movement in and out of these and other stances is what's important to get speed and power. Using this foundational structure to hit and defend as a single unit is what makes all the difference.

If we just stay with the three - XYQ, BGZ and TJQ they all drill over and over.
Whether doing form or an “singular” exercise, one is always drilling the core the essence. I believe this apply to BGZ too? And for certainly it apply to TJQ forms practice, actually in TJQ doing for example BKTS over and over would not be as beneficial as doing the whole TJQ form.


Santishi vs Mabu - Both has their values, however the Santishi and the ‘higher/deeper’ aspects of it one may be taught by ones teacher is absolutely crucial for truly understanding XYQ combat method.....now this doesn’t mean one necessarily must stand in the posture for hours a day, it’s enough being taught the right method, then a few minutes a day is enough.....it’s not quantity here, it’s about quality. When one understand Santishi one can go on drilling the forms, also here no need drilling a thousand a day....quality over quantity
Mabu has a more stationary soul to it so different methods apply to it and is not really important for XYQ effectiveness...

[Bob]

Not to belabor the point as to my thanks for posting the lecture and its generation of insight for me - baji mabu (at least in the line I have cited) is to baji as santishi is to xing yi.

The baji mabu is more that simply done for structure and leg strength - it is a way of learning how to store and release energy (power)

Below is the "lively" step derived from static and moving baji mabu (each posture initially was taught as a single moving posture and in the training phase each posture is held for 8 breaths to 8 body structural points - in addition there is a two person fight associated and practiced with either single postures or the entire form and there is no need to go onto to the mapping of the postures to some of the da qiang drills as I have already posted this in previous discussions)

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7kE5FvEmBTg



I will stop here as my objective is not to argumentative but simply to share what was provided by the lecture

[dspyrido]

But there was more. Without structure, alignment, relaxation, repeating 1000 misalignments is not an efficient way to reach desired outcomes.

The drilling, in my experience, has never been a linear A --> B --> C development.

Completely agree. I've jumped to the end point but the development was usually along the lines of:

- Basics & coordination exercises.
- Do the move slowly. Get corrected by sifu until it starts to sink in.
- Do the move medium pace. Still mess it up but start to self correct. Sifu occasionally comes over & makes a few points.
- Do it faster & continuously without the look & feel of a robot. Student has graduated to self correcting. Sifu rarely needs to say anything. They have reached the medium level.
- Keep refining & repeating so that it is lower, longer & faster. Moves become smooth & number of repetitions increase into the 100s. Relaxation happens because anyone truly tense won't be able to get to 100s of reps.
- Student is now self correcting & then thinking about the movement to the point where they are refining & testing it in applications. Student just graduated to a level where they don't need a sifu at all.
- Keep doing the last step. Mix the movement with other movements. Create new sequences. Style is adapted & things start to become sufficiently different but with an essence on the original moves. Happy times on the martial arts journey.

As for the modified stance of ma bu to santi - I noticed the same thing happened with some baji guys who did 5 element. They had the legs & the modification was not such a big leap. I also even went the other way as ma bu has some interesting application in throws & qinna which santi doesn't.

[dspyrido]

If we just stay with the three - XYQ, BGZ and TJQ they all drill over and over.
Whether doing form or an “singular” exercise, one is always drilling the core the essence. I believe this apply to BGZ too? And for certainly it apply to TJQ forms practice, actually in TJQ doing for example BKTS over and over would not be as beneficial as doing the whole TJQ form.

I think the drilling to the level I am discussing is more of exception than a standard.

Walk into many TC shools & most I have seen they will be following a long sequence of 24, 32, 48 ... moves. Some never even hitting a surface in their life.

It's as was stated in the lecture ... they are not taking one move & drilling it. This apparently happens behind closed doors which would be very infuriating. I have also heard from others that they train this way. In public show the form. At home do drills, hit pads & lift tc weights (tc ball, pole, sword etc.). Some would break off with specific senior partners to really train a lot of the drills & test things.

Drilling exists more in BG with 8 palms & XY with 5 elements.

But many schools graduate a student to more "advanced" forms of linking forms/palm changes etc. This is even before they have actually learnt to use it.

At this stage I would say it is more sensible to hold off on additional forms (chains of sequences) & just let people do techniques & combinations, hit pads & graduate to some form of sparring. That said the student should be expected to take the basic drills & keep doing them on their own. Why waste the opportunity to meet other people only to do moves that can be done on their own time?

Then over time more moves/links forms can be introduced but they are on a competent base.

[Bob]

But there was more. Without structure, alignment, relaxation, repeating 1000 misalignments is not an efficient way to reach desired outcomes.

The drilling, in my experience, has never been a linear A --> B --> C development.

Completely agree. I've jumped to the end point but the development was usually along the lines of:

- Basics & coordination exercises.
- Do the move slowly. Get corrected by sifu until it starts to sink in.
- Do the move medium pace. Still mess it up but start to self correct. Sifu occasionally comes over & makes a few points.
- Do it faster & continuously without the look & feel of a robot. Student has graduated to self correcting. Sifu rarely needs to say anything. They have reached the medium level.
- Keep refining & repeating so that it is lower, longer & faster. Moves become smooth & number of repetitions increase into the 100s. Relaxation happens because anyone truly tense won't be able to get to 100s of reps.
- Student is now self correcting & then thinking about the movement to the point where they are refining & testing it in applications. Student just graduated to a level where they don't need a sifu at all.
- Keep doing the last step. Mix the movement with other movements. Create new sequences. Style is adapted & things start to become sufficiently different but with an essence on the original moves. Happy times on the martial arts journey.

As for the modified stance of ma bu to santi - I noticed the same thing happened with some baji guys who did 5 element. They had the legs & the modification was not such a big leap. I also even went the other way as ma bu has some interesting application in throws & qinna which santi doesn't.

This is what I completely agree with - previously tried to post from my phone and just kept getting errors so the responses are choppy

I think you have captured the process I was trying to convey - good clarification

I just want to be careful I am not generalizing to all lines of baji - I was also lucky that my teacher got about 3 years of hebei xing yi training from a master San Dang Qi who was living at the Wutan Center (his family moved to New York and he chose to stay in Taiwan) - Liu Yun Qiao told my teacher to learn xing yi from him and even with all the baji training San Dang Qi made him work with santishi for the first 3 months and did nothing else

Appreciate the discussion and insights provided