The next teacher in our Xingyi Roots series was Tang Shengjun, whose great-grandfather, Tang Weilu, was another prominent disciple of Li Cunyi. After being forgotten for most of the 20th century, Tang was again catapulted to prominence within the Chinese MA community by a book called ‘Shiqu de Wulin’ (“the lost martial arts world”), which documents the experiences of Li Zhongxuan, an old man who lived in obscurity as a security guard but who had studied with three great xingyi masters of the early 20th century, namely Tang Weilu, Shang Yunxiang and Xue Dian.
Sections of the book have been previously translated by myself (https://wulinmingshi.wordpress.com/2009/03/29/departed-warriors-the-xingyiquan-of-li-zhongxuan/) and also Israeli martial arts teacher and scholar Jonathan Bluestein (http://cookdingskitchen.blogspot.com/2013/06/the-world-of-martial-arts-that-has-long.html). As with our previous visit to Zhang Jun, as M Tang Shengjun’s xingyi has been transmitted mostly within the Tang family for 3-4 generations (through his father Tang Fenghua), they have a stronger claim than most to having faithfully preserved the ‘complete’ training system of Hebei xingyiquan as it was taught by the early generations of masters – not just the forms but stance training, weapons, supplementary exercises, partner drills, etc.
Like a lot of good martial art masters, M Tang’s solid build, assured bearing and piercing gaze, combine to signal that here is someone who has mastered his art. As one would expect from a Hebei xingyi master, he displayed excellent sunken connected power (zheng jin). He also emphasised the importance of there being spiralling (ning zuan) in every movement, not just in the arms but in the spine and other parts of the body, an aspect that is often neglected in wushu-ized versions of xingyi.
What I found most interesting about his line is that they emphasise that one of the keys to improving power and skill is to practice xingyi – in particular the 5 Element fists – in a relatively soft, slow manner (rou lian), which can be seen early on in the video (around 3:20 and 4:28 in the video):
Also as the Tang family practice Cheng style baguazhang alongside their xingyi, they practice bagua’s 9 Palace stepping (jiu gong bu), and have gone on to create a Dragon-shape Bagua routine which combines both bagua stepping with recognisable xingyi striking:
All in all, a very educational experience and certainly a good representative of his family’s art! Once again, thanks also to Will of Monkey Steals Peach for organising the trip and producing such a professional video: (https://monkeystealspeach.com/).