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r0177v31
Newbie
USA
56 Posts |
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r0177v31
Newbie
USA
56 Posts |
 Posted - 03/26/2007 : 11:19:47
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| btw, anyone ever take xing yi before? |
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najoha75
Administrator
USA
73 Posts |
Posted - 03/29/2007 : 13:36:00
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| Hey... look into Yichuan! It's pretty cool too! I like the poetry written by the founder, Wang Xiangzhai. They're posted on my Yahoo Groups (in the files section)!!! Anyway, Master Wang was a Xingyiquan master before devising his own system (Yiquan) which is (as I've read) virtually identical to Xingyiquan but without a focus on choreographed forms. Instead, the focus was toward developing expressions of different types of power through movement in general, liberating the practitioner from predetermined structures and movements. I may be totally wrong, but it seems Master Wang was aspiring to create something like what Bruce Lee theorized--a formless, shapeless art. According to him, before the early 1800's all the Chinese martial arts were like his Yichuan and that choreographed forms were a catching trend that was intended to convey the art in a more tangible way and shorten the learning process, benefiting the novice students. According to Master Wang, this was appropriate for the masters who already understood the essence of the Art, but for the novice, the choreography had a tendency to keep the student focused on "external" details, inhibiting the "internal" development. I think he was implying there is not a difference between "internal" and "external" Chinese martial arts (keep in mind he speaking from the reference point of a long-time Xingyi practitioner), but the distinction appeared due to the students' misunderstanding of forms training. Students were training the movements without the content (the essence of the motion, the essence of the Art). Then, by Master Wang's generation (early to mid 1900's), in his opinion (or as I understood what I was reading), the essence was so obscured (and being forgotten) due to the misunderstood training methods that he felt the martial arts community as a whole was in dire need of a cooperative reform, as to preserve a fading culture. In writing Wang Xiangzhai comes across as a bitter man, but his perspective is interesting to think about. |
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Xing Yi
