Xing Yi saved my Tai Chi

CAN IT SAVE YOURS?

Xing Yi and Tai Chi emerged in neighboring regions of north-central China. From the start, there was overlap and exchange. Since it was first taught to the public Tai Chi has had a tendency to become watered down, watching a class today it should be clear this is the norm. This is not through any fault of Tai Chi itself. As a rule Xing Yi attracts better students and teachers, and is not yet a commodity in the west. Injecting Xing Yi into the dying corpse of Tai Chi has been done before and thankfully we are seeing this happen again somewhat.

The Problem

Casual Tai Chi practitioners are content to learn choreography of tai chi without learning it’s uses, and teachers are happy to charge them a lot of money to learn this choreography. The problem is that to a new student, you can’t really see the difference between mid tai chi and master tai chi, so much of the art is below the surface. Eventually those seeking authentic tai chi will come to the conclusion that intermediate and advanced Tai Chi practices are extremely difficult to find let alone practice and master.

Xing Yi recognizes three stages of progress: obvious force, hidden force, and transformative force.

If you throw an opponent with obvious force, an observer can see the movement that made him fall. If you use hidden force, the observer cannot see what caused the fall. Training begins with obvious force and gradually reduces it until it becomes hidden force.

Most Tai Chi, by contrast, assumes the student already possesses hidden force at the start. That assumption was reasonable in the past. Today many Tai Chi students arrive with no martial-arts background at all, let alone hidden force. As a result, progressing beyond a basic level in Tai Chi is often difficult.

Similarities

Both Xing Yi and Tai Chi begin in the Wuji posture and from there first train vertical force. Both emphasize lifting the crown point and rooting into the ground. Both develop the dantian. They also share several animal postures, including rooster, monkey, snake, and tiger. Most importantly, they share core body principles—especially the idea that when one part moves, all parts move.

There are not so many similarities, however, that training both becomes redundant. Practiced correctly, Xing Yi alongside Tai Chi balances and enriches internal development and can greatly accelerate progress. Training Baguazhang with Tai Chi is different: it is harder to keep the methods from crossing, and the overlap is more redundant.

The Method

The concept is using Xing Yi as a raw material to feed into the refinery of Tai Chi and get a transformed material out of the other end. This is the approach taught by the master Luo Dexiu, which I take as the foundation of my practice. The basic premise of Transformative Tai Chi is to use Xing Yi as raw material for refinement in Tai Chi. The aim is to transform body and mind—and, through practice, the day itself—into more refined, stable, and powerful states.

The practices taught in class are:

1. Xing Yi standing meditation, to develop the grounding and peng jin that form the foundation of Tai Chi.
2. Xing Yi’s Three Pins and Seven Stars as the basic body method.
3. Tai Chi’s gong bu stance, used to train Xing Yi’s Five Elements transformation cycles.
4. Xing Yi’s ji bu, cu bu, and bai bu steps, together with the natural walking cycle, to inform Tai Chi footwork which has been largely lost.
5. Xing Yi’s Twelve Animals—especially tiger, bear, snake, monkey, and rooster—to inform Tai Chi applications.
6. Xing Yi’s twist, wrap, drill, and overturn, combined with Tai Chi silk-reeling, to keep the joints connected through movement without breaks.
7. Smooth Tai Chi-style movement when not warmed up, especially in the morning, to cultivate energy and protect the joints.