Wudang Form and Mind Fist

武当三丰派形意拳

Form and Mind Fist (xingyiquan 形意拳) is a quite practical, immediately applicable form of traditional Chinese martial arts centered around five basic techniques that are associated with the five phases 五行: metal 金, water 水, wood 木, fire 火, and earth 土. These five elemental fists are linked together into the main practice of our style, the five elements linking form 五行连环拳. Beyond the five elemental fists there are an additional twelve practices associated with different animals.

This style, along with Taijiquan and Baguazhang, is categorized as an internal martial art 内家拳. Where Taiji is relatively defensive in its application, and Baguazhang has equal amounts of defense and offense in how it is used, Xingyi is an eminently offensive style, employing “integration power” 整合力. This manifests in linear motion where the joints of the body are imagined like the gears in a machine 齿轮 and the fists smash forward with locomotive power.

Xingyi is all about alignment, both inner and outer, so the practice begins in our style with lots of standing meditation 形意桩. In this practice you stand in the basic Xingyi posture (santi shi 三体式), focusing on the “six harmonies” 六合. Beginning with the physical body, you align your wrists with your ankles, elbows with your knees, and shoulders with your hips. These are the three external harmonies 三外合. Internally you align your heart or conscious mind with your intentional mind 心与意合, intention with your energy 意与气合, and energy with your power 气与力合. In this Xingyi ideal, your physical movements end up being outward expressions of the innermost depths of your heart. The martial art is an expression of total body-mind integration, hence its name Form and Mind fist 形意拳.

Beyond the standing meditation, we spent the early days of our training focusing strictly on the footwork of the style: advancing 进步, retreating 退步, and turning 转身. Shifu would always tell us how he was going easy on us, as he and his kung fu brothers used to practice Xingyi stepping all the way from Purple Cloud Palace to Southern Cliff Palace, which is quite a hike even when you’re just walking normally. After the footwork is familiar enough you move on to the five elements fists and eventually the twelve animals.

Our Xingyi style comes through Grandmaster Zhong’s teacher Guo Gaoyi 郭高一 (1900-1996) who studied it during his years as a monk on Lüshan 闾山 in northeastern China under the 23rd generation head of the San Feng Ziran sect 三丰自然派 Yang Ming Zhen 杨明真. The San Feng Ziran sect is a sister lineage that also claims Zhang San Feng as its founder. They trace their genealogy through his disciple Zhang Xuan Qing 张玄清, who brought Zhang San Feng’s teachings Lüshan 闾山 in the 14th century. This mountain still has a whole temple dedicated to Zhang San Feng, big golden statue and everything.

Xingyi has a mytho-history all its own, however. Attributed to the Song dynasty folk hero, Yue Fei 岳飞 (1103-1142), Xingyi was supposedly developed as an unarmed style inspired by more ancient spear techniques. After defeating the Jurchens with this martial art, General Yue Fei wrote the secret techniques in a scroll and hid it inside a cave in the Zhongnan Mountains 终南山. Hundreds of years later, a master of Shaolin martial arts named Jiji Ke 姬际可 (1588-1662) found the mythical scroll and learned Xingyi from it. Or according to another myth he created Xingyi after seeing a bear and an eagle fighting. Or yet another version has the art stemming from him witnessing two roosters fighting. I personally like the scroll in the cave story the best.

Leaving myth and entering into firmer historical territory, the art subsequently developed into various regional forms, the southern styles from Shanxi 山西 and Henan 河南 provinces, and the northern branch from Hebei province 河北. Though initially learning the Lüshan Xingyi of the San Feng Ziran sect, over subsequent decades master Guo Gaoyi learned from numerous masters who carried various lineages of Xingyi with them. Our grandmaster Zhong also learned Xingyi from a number of masters during his years of cloud wandering, including northern master Shang Ji 尚济 (1921-2016) and southern master Huang Wan Xiang 黄万祥 (1938-2000). So even if it is ultimately Lüshan Xingyi we practice in our lineage, it has been thoroughly informed by other major styles, and is pretty consistent in both theory and content with how the main regional lineages practice the art.

Curriculum 目录

As mentioned above, Xingyi starts with standing meditation and footwork drills, eventually branching into the five element fists, the real substance of the style. The linking form uses movements both from the five elemental fists as well as the twelve animals, which in our lineage are: dragon 龙, tiger 虎, monkey 猴, horse 马, alligator 鼍, rooster 鸡, sparrowhawk 鹞, swallow 燕, snake 蛇, globefish 鲐, eagle 鹰, and bear 熊. Applications are uncomplicated and to the point.

基本功 Basics

1. Warm ups 热身

2. Footwork 步法

3. Hand Techniques 手法

4. Conditioning 强身訓煉

套路 Forms

1. Xingyi Five Elements Fist 形意五行拳法

2. Xingyi Twelve Animals 形意十二形

3. Xingyi Linking Fist 形意连环拳

散手 Partner Training

1. 五行散手 Five Elements Partner Exercises (15)

2. 十二行散手 Twelve Animals Partner Exercises (36)

内功 Inner Training

1. 立禅 Standing Meditation

2. 六合 Six Harmonies