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The exact origin of xingyiquan is unknown. The earliest written records of it can be traced to the 18th century to Ma Xueli of Henan Province and Dai Long Bang of Shanxi Province.Legend, however, credits the creation of xingyiquan to the renowned Song Dynasty (960-1279 AD) general Yue Fei. According to the book Henan Orthodox Xingyi Quan written by Pei Xirong (Chinese: 裴锡荣) and Li Ying.
1,What is Xing Yi?Xing Yi (or called Hsing I, Body-Mind Boxing) is an internal martial art very popular in China from the day it got created. It has an important place in the history of Chinese martial arts since its unique characteristics. Xing Yi as a well-developed system was created based on Xin-Yi(Heart-Mind Boxing) through fundamental evolution, such as Stance, basic movements and special quick-pace training method. These changes ensure that people will get maximum martial result in the comparatively short period of time of practice. This style emphasizes the unity of internal and external as one in order to make body generate power for combat; Xing means the body, the external aspect or animal movement parts, and Yi means Mind, the internal aspect or Five-Element part. In Chinese martial art community, Xing Yi has been a dominating style for more than one century.
For example, at the national full contact competition which happened in the 1930s, most of the best fighters were from Xing Yi school, or Hebei school. This style does not have any fancy movements, instead of, Xing Yi focus on internal power training and real-situation application. For health purposes, Statistics show that Xing Yi practitioners tend to live longer than other styles' people, Although this style will not emphasizes the health benefits but people will live longer since the internal power make practitioner stronger and healthier.
In China, there is a proverb that 'Xing Yi does not play games.' Or 'you can not go out the door with Tai Chi before doing it for 10 years but you can kill someone with Xing Yi in 3 years practice.2,The Brief History of Xing Yi.Xing Yi is generally considered as the oldest of the traditional Chinese internal style if we take the history of Xin yi, the previous style which Xing Yi came from as consideration. The basic theory between these two styles does not have dramatic difference but their practice or the interpretation of the old theory is different.
Most people in China believe that the founder of Xin Yi was Ji Jike(or Ji Longfeng, a native of Shanxi province in north China in the late Ming Dynasty (1368-1644) and early Qing Dynasty (1644-1911)) instead of Yue Fei, the famous general of Southern Song Dynasty (960-1279).The history with written proof which most people believe is: a businessman who lived in Hebei province traveled to Shanxi province after he heard that there was a best style of martial art named Xinyi in Qi town of Shanxi province. Eventually he learned that style from Dai family(Dai Long bang and Dai Kui, the son of Dai Longbang) who was the only family kept that style among their family members at that time, but in the beginning Dai family refused to teach him since he was not the member of Dai family. This person was the founder of Xing Yi, the legendary master Li Luoneng. Li Luoneng's another name is Li Laoneng, he was born in 1803 and died in 1888. He was from Douwang Village in Hebei province, he loved martial art from a kid. He was very famous already before he learned Xin Yi. He learned Five Elements and 10 animal forms of Xin Yi in Shanxi. Then he created a style named Xing Yi after he mastered the previous style, which was Xin Yi.
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After he created Xing Yi, he was invited to Taigu, a city of Shanxi province to teach his new art. At that time, he had eight famous students from Hebei province and Shanxi province.At there, he added Tai and Tuo, these two animal forms plus the 10 animal forms he learned from Dai family became the Xing Yi style practice. He changed cat form into tiger form, he created five-element linking form and other routines, especially two person forms for quickly help students master this difficult style. After he passed away, his students kept developing the art which he initially created and promoted it around the north of China.So that, we can say that Li Luoneng should be the founder of Xing Yi. Many people get confused in China about the progression of the development of this style, even worse, they confused the differences between Xing Yi and Xin Yi. This is why many people call Xin Yi as Shan Xi style Xing Yi.
Actually it is totally wrong. Shanxi style Xing Yi was from Heibei style although Xing Yi was from Xin Yi, the style was created in Shanxi. So Xing Yi is Xing Yi, Xin Yi is not Xing Yi. There is no Hebei style Xin Yi although there is Shanxi style Xing Yi.Now, let's talk about the Hebei style.
There are different branches Hebei style as well. All of them share the same characteristics.
Most of the time, people without deep training cannot tell the differences between these branches. Overall, there are Li Cunyi branch, Shang Yunxiang branch, Zhang Zhaodong branch, Sun Lutang Branch and Xue Dian branch. If we take Li Luoneng as the first generation of this style, then the third and forth generations really made this style well-developed. Since the first and the second generations did not make a lot of routines and weapon training methods. The later generations abounded this system based on Xing Yi original theory and principle.When we talk about any style, there are many standard figures of each of them, Xing yi is not exceptional.
In the last century, most of these Xing Yi masters learned or practiced in Tianjin, especially Li Cunyi, Zhang Zhaodong and Xue Dian branches since they were the Xing Yi figures back to that time in the Chinese martial art world. The official martial art institute of Tianjin only taught Xing Yi back to that time. Tianjin is the place where people still keep the original practice of this style. When Xing Yi moved to Beijing and other cities of China, Xing Yi have been modified in certain aspects such as for the purpose of demonstration or for health purpose mostly. Some even combine Xing Yi with other styles such as southern Chinese styles. In outside of the mainland of China, some Xing Yi even mixed with Karate, the style from Japan.
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