 Hey everyone and welcome to our very first episode that actually dives into the Chinese martial arts. Now a while back we released an episode called What Is Kung Fu? and that set up a series of kung fu videos to follow. If you have not seen that one yet I definitely encourage you to do so if you want to get a rundown of what defines kung fu, the terminology, philosophy, and distinguishing features of the systems. Today we are adding the first art to that playlist with a two-part episode on Xingyi Twin. Now I want to thank scholar and shifu Jonathan Blucine who provided us with the research and presentation of his art and we're going to use our platform here today to share it with all of you. Now I also apologize to shifu Blucine ahead of time for my attempt at the Chinese words. I promise I'm going to do my best. So we now present to you part one of What Is Xingyi Twin? Now this episode is going to be broken up into two parts. Today we're going to focus primarily on the history and theory of the art and in the next episode we'll dive into the curriculum, movements, and methods and call that. So when and where did Xingyi Twin start? Legend has it that Xingyi Twin came down to us from the famous Chinese general Yue Fei. Famous and renowned in Chinese history Yue Fei was one of the nation's greatest generals who lived in the 12th century. Now it's common in Chinese culture that when a wonderful art or skill is created it is attributed to a great man of the past as the creator himself was too modest to assume ownership or otherwise to glorify what was created and give both it and the ancestor more credit. Now either way there's really unfortunately no evidence that Xingyi Twin actually came from general Yue Fei but he is still commonly considered the founder of the art even though this continues to be disputed today. In truth Xingyi Twin is a martial art which came to us from an ethnic minority. Now when you have a country that has a large mix of minorities you often wind up with such a wonderful mix of culture, cuisine, traditions, and so is the case in the Chinese martial arts where Chinese minorities will often have their own unique systems. Now China is a very big place though so even when you speak about a minority you would be talking about a very large group of people. One such minority are the Muslims who today make up for over 20 million people. Nowadays the majority of Muslims live peacefully among the other Chinese but for many centuries they had to protect their closed communities from outside threats and to do this they created several martial arts which were essentially secret as only the family and clan members were taught to them. Now they did however keep their religion and martial arts separate. A notable characteristic of the Muslim martial arts in China is that their emphasis is on practical self-defense and effective combat taking president over spirituality. Now initially the martial arts created by the Chinese Muslims were mostly used to defend the community, teach physical exercise, and have a nice cultural common ground between people. But by the 1700s these martial arts were being used for business as well. What kind of business? Mostly that of physical protection. You see China of the 17th through the 19th centuries did not have what we know as a police force and in fact they didn't even have a mail or shipping service so how do people send envelopes and packages? Well you had to physically embark on a journey with the caravans to deliver things from point A to point B. Now this was very dangerous as such caravan parties were easy prey for various gangs and thieves. So the insurance policy of the day was to hire tough and capable martial artists to escort your caravans. Now this was good business for the Muslims and non-Muslim martial arts alike. Otherwise for similar reasons bodyguards were also in high demand all over. Now one Muslim martial art which shown and stood out of the time in northern China was called Xinyi Lui Chun. Over 250 years ago it was already popular among the northern Chinese Muslims. Xinyi Lui Chun was one of these martial arts which were used by the Chinese Muslims to fend for themselves and as bodyguards or caravan escorts. Over time the secrets of this art spilled out though and it arrived to the hands of the rich clan. Now this Chinese clan is called the Dai. They developed the art to their own taste and understandings creating their own branch of the style with its distinct flavor. The Dai clan kept their own traditional Xinyi Lui Chun to this day being their family's treasure. Their martial art is still alive and well taught by many teachers in China and abroad. Now it was from the martial art of the Dai clan that the style known as Xinyi Chun eventually developed. So let's take a look at how that came to be. Around the year 1845 an outsider arrived at the village where the Dai clan resided. The stranger's name was Li. This man came to the Dai clan with the intention of learning their martial art secrets knowing that they had great martial arts and they were very successful with their business. Now the Dai clan was not enthusiastic about teaching the foreigner to say the least. He was not of their clan or ethnicity and he came to them without any prior acquaintance or recommendations. But Li was very stubborn and he set up a shop in the village growing and selling vegetables. Now Li already had a lot of martial arts experience prior to coming to live with the Dai clan and he was willing to buy his time and prove that he was worthy. After several years of this Li warmed his way into the hearts of the locals and he was finally taught the Dai clan's interpretation of the art. Now after learning from the Dai clan for a number of years honored farmer Li as he was now called traveled around northern China and he taught various groups of students. His interpretations of the art was now called Xing Yi Chuan. And from the various groups Li taught arose the various lineages and branches of this new martial art. Now this all happened roughly about 150 years ago. Xing Yi Chuan. Now what does that even mean? The name is pretty interesting. Xing means shape. Any shape you can make kind of like a baking mold which creates a shape. Yi means your mind's intention. So the name Xing Yi means to use your intention to create any shape you want. Now this martial art tries to teach people how to understand movement and fighting concepts so that they could mold their mind's intention into any shape. Meaning that no matter how you move or use your body you could always apply the principles and make it work either for combat or promoting one's own health. So that's the concept in a nutshell and a deeper explanation would be a full discussion in its own right. Now the word chuan simply means fists. It is common to put the word chuan or fist at the end of names of Chinese martial arts much like the Japanese will add the words dou or jitsu for the names of their martial arts. Dou means way and jitsu means technique or method. So karate dou translates to way of the empty hand. Jiu jitsu translates to gentle method or gentle technique. So with that being said the name Xing Yi Chuan literally translates as the fist of the shape and the intention. Or if you want to get even more broad you could say it stands for the fist method which allows you to use your intention to make any shape work. Now Xing Yi Chuan does not approach the learning curve like one would expect from Taekwondo karate or Muay Thai. The people who historically studied this art were Chinese farmers. They were already strong, fit, and flexible from lifelong work in the fields. So although the art does become very physically demanding it does not begin at that point for the novice practitioner. It assumes that the person is either already versed in the martial arts or at least physically fit. What Xing Yi Chuan does instead is teach people the very basics of how to move the body very differently to what is normal and intuitive. So first taught methods are called Jiang Zhuang. These are standing practices. You stand and hold one posture for prolonged periods of time typically anywhere from five to even 60 minutes. Now such postures one holds are initially static but over time they become very dynamic. These postures are used to teach internal body mechanics. The practitioners gradually instructed how to move the body from the inside emanating from the core. Now the advanced result of this after a decade or so of practice can be that the body will move and behave like a miniature vibrant and powerful ocean waving its flesh about with minute and subtle motions. Now depending on the lineage there might be anywhere between two to 12 types of standing postures taught and in fact it can even be practiced sitting and lying down in bed if one is injured or sick. It is a form of internal practice which can be used to benefit health, fighting ability or both. Now after Jiang Zhuang comes the walking practices and methods. These methods are often called plow stepping or mud stepping. They teach the practitioner to use special bodily skills and structure learned with Jiang Zhuang while you move around. Now this is an important part of the curriculum for beginners during the first two to three years of practice and it serves as a bridge between Jiang Zhuang and their fighting skills. The advanced version of walking methods is called chicken stepping. Chicken stepping teaches you how to rapidly advance and retreat in all directions. The idea is that each step is used to recycle the momentum of the previous one so that the whole body is continuously charged with kinetic energy ready to explode at any moment. Now before we go any further let's review some of the fundamentals about Chinese philosophy medicine and culture because without these fundamentals Jing Yi Qin would be very difficult to understand. Like any other internal martial art of China Jing Yi Qin has a strong connection with Taoism. The theories of Yin Yang, Tai Ji, Ba Gua and others which are part of Taoism are commonly used in the language of these martial arts. Now in the episode what is kung fu we went over the basis of the three main philosophies in the Chinese martial arts and their culture. So aside from Taoism which we will cover in a minute there's also Buddhism and Confucianism. Now I recommend checking the episode out for an overview and understanding of how they may overlap with each other as part of a person's beliefs. Now in Taoism there exists the idea of as above so below. Taoism holds that the human body for example is a reflection of the heavens. So for instance in Chinese medicine there are 10 major internal organs and 12 main meridians. These are called the 10 celestial stems and the 12 earthly branches. Now this is all Taoist theory. The 10 celestial stems and 12 earthly branches are not solely the 10 internal organs or the 12 main meridians. They are thought to be the human embodiment of the five main planets that affect the earth and the 12 main constellations that we see in the sky. Now we said 10 celestial stems but we only mentioned five planets. Well that's because the so-called 10 celestial stems are made of both the yin and yang aspects of each five planets so that brings the total to 10. Xing Yi Chuan is based on this Taoist theory. Its curriculum is structured around the 10 celestial stems and the 12 earthly branches via what are called the five phases and the 12 animals. Now let's break down how that philosophy applies. Everyone knows the game Rock Paper Scissors right? Easy peasy. You've got three options either creating or destroying the other. We all know the rules. Scissors cuts paper, paper covers rock, rock smashes scissors. Now some people also know the more complex version of that game known as Rock Paper Scissors Lizard Spock. Now many of you might have known this from the sitcom Big Bang Theory but it was actually a game invented by Sam Kast and Karen Bryla prior to the show using it. Now in this version of the game you have five options instead of three and once more each option is either created by or destroys the other. Now the five phases of Taoism and Xing Yi Chuan is very similar to the game of Rock Paper Scissors Lizard Spock. With the five phases of Taoism we also have five options and they can be many types of five things for example. The classic five phases often mistakenly called the five elements are metal, water, wood, fire and earth. Metal creates water, water destroys wood. Water creates wood and destroys fire. Wood creates fire and destroys earth. Fire creates earth and destroys metal and so forth. But in fact the five phases can be many groups of five. For instance the five organ pairs of the body, the five major planets affecting the earth, the five senses, etc. It's in all these five groups that you have the similar dynamic of influence of creation and destruction or some prefer to say creation and restraint. Now when old farmer Lee created Xing Yi Chuan he wisely used the same model. He picked five basic movements to serve as the base and basics for his entire martial art. Now these five movements correspond to the five phases and each either creates or restrains the other. These five movements are called Pi Chuan, Dwen Chuan, Bong Chuan, Cao Chuan and Hung Chuan. These are collectively called the Five Fists of Xing Yi Chuan. The Five Fists of Xing Yi Chuan uses the structure and internal methods from Zhang Zhuang and the stepping skills that we discussed before to create the combative framework of the style. Now these five fists can be practiced as single exercises or solo practices or with partner Talu. Now if you're unfamiliar with what Talu is it is a very similar Chinese counterpart to kata but with some distinctions. We also cover this topic in what is kung fu and you can find a direct link to that section in the description below. So this concludes part one of what is Xing Yi Chuan? In the next episode we're going to take a dip into the training practices of the art and explore some of the movements and combative ideas that make Xing Yi Chuan what it is. Now I would like again to extend my greatest gratitude and appreciation to Xifu Zhang and Bluestine for his role in this project. He provided us with the research and the script for me to present to all of you today. Xifu Bluestine is also the author of two great books on the martial arts called The Research of the Martial Arts and the Martial Arts Teacher. Now we've recommended these books before and they're a really great read and you can find them in the description below. He is also the headmaster of an international martial arts organization called Blue Jade. In Blue Jade international schools is taught the art of Xing Yi Chuan alongside several other arts. To reach Xifu Bluestine search for Xifu Zhang and Bluestine on Facebook or click the link in the description. For Blue Jade international schools we have a link for that below as well. So be sure to come back for part two of this video. Click on the little bell icon and that way you will get a notification when the episode drops. Now this effort has been part of our initiative to bring you more art history videos and if you like these videos and you want us to bring you more please please help us by joining us on Patreon. I really appreciate your contribution plus you get a bunch of exclusive content that isn't released anyone else on the main channel. So thank you again everyone see you next time.