Of course, as a student of Song style a visit to Taigu would not be complete without reporting in to the Song family courtyard to get corrections from the Song family. They very kindly allowed us to film demonstrations and interviews at the courtyard, and to observe some of the regular daily training.
It was great to see my grand-teacher Song Guanghua again as he had health problems last year, from which he seems to have fully recovered. Given that he is 87 years old this year he is in very good shape for his age, a testament to lifelong practice of his family’s art. He was kind enough to give an introduction to the unique elements of Song style which differentiate it from other branches of xingyiquan, mainly:
- Deer antler knives (Lin Jiao Dao)
- Coiling Root (Pan Gen)
- 16 Seizes (Shi Liu Ba) – paired routine of different kinds of palm strikes
- The split into Yin and Yang power for each of the 5 elements and 12 animals.
Currently Song Guanghua’s son, Song Baogui is mainly responsible for the teaching at the Song family courtyard, and was kind enough to give a demonstration of some aspects of how Song style should be practiced:
Shibo Song Baogui demonstrated the difference between Yin (renmai) and Yang (dumai) versions of Tiger (hu xing – starting around 8:20 in the video), and discussed how often one version of an animal or element will actually defeat the version of the same element, and how one can actually change the power even as you are using it. He also explained that Yin power is primarily chest-rib power (xionglei jin) and Yang power is from the back and shoulders (jianbei jin).
After filming had finished, shibo also later gave me corrections on my Santi and 5 Elements linking form. One interesting point he raised on Santi that I had not paid enough attention to before is that in Santi there should not only should there be a strong forward push from the back leg (deng jin) but a strong backward push from the front leg (cheng jin), so that the forces balance, this is one of the keys that makes Santi such a strong structure. He also talked about the importance of rounding the crotch area and the reason for the requirement to line up the 3 extremities (san jian xiang zhao)
Just by chance, I also had the good fortune to meet Wang Tianbao, a fellow Song family disciple who is known in Taigu for his skill with the spear and also featured in the HK documentary several years ago. One of the things that Wang emphasized to me was the importance of warm-up movements in developing the ‘xingyi’ body – he pointed out that many of our warm-up exercises directly help to develop the extremely mobile, relaxed shoulder, backbone and chest area which is essential to Song style fajin.