Xingyi Roots Series – Dai Style Xinyiquan
Anyone who has studied the history of Xingyiquan (形意拳) will know that the ancestor art to modern Xingyi is Dai style Xinyiquan (戴氏心意拳), where the name of the art is written with the characters for ‘heart’ and ‘intention’ rather than ‘form + intention’. Historically Dai style practitioners have been extremely conservative in showing and teaching their art to outsiders, so it has been hard to piece together the puzzle as to which parts of Dai style became modern Xingyi. However, over the last 10-15 years, thanks to opening up by certain teachers such as Wang Yinghai and Guo Jingang, as well the efforts of dedicated martial arts researchers like Jarek Szymanski, more and more material has become available in the public domain.
Jarek’s research on Dai Style can be accessed here: http://www.chinafrominside.com/
As such, on our trip to Shanxi we could not pass up the opportunity to visit some Dai style masters to learn more about the art, especially as the home of Dai style (Qixian or Qi County) is only an hour’s drive from Taigu. The key figure in recent history for Dai Style Xinyi is Dai Kui, who was the first member of the Dai family to teach the art to outsiders, who taught over a dozen disciples both in Qixian and also in Baotou in Inner Mongolia, where he lived for several years. Some of his most famous disciples were Yue Guining, Wang Yinghai, Ren Dahua, Ma Erniu and Duan Xifu among others. Almost all current teachers of Dai style descend from one of these dozen or so disciples.
The first teacher we visited was Guo Jingang, who studied from Yue Guining (aka Yue Yunzhong), one of Dai Kui’s main students in Qixian. Guo laoshi has published a book and several VCDs on the art, and very kindly welcomed us into his home in downtown Qixian, which coincidentally is near to the wuguan (dojo) he has set up with his son. He was very forthcoming on both the history and practice of Dai style, even showing some basics of Squatting Monkey pose (dun hou shi), which is the key foundational practice for Dai style, as well as having his son and other students demonstrate some Dai style forms for us:
Our second visit was to M Duan Tianlin, who studied from his uncle Duan Xifu, another of Dai Kui’s hometown disciples. Duan laoshi lives in the countryside quite far out from the centre of Qixian in a large rural courtyard house with high walls, which are typical across much of northern China. With such high walls, it is easy to imagine how in days past the locals could hear about Dai style their entire lives but never once see it demonstrated!
With M Duan we talked more about the differences between Dai Style and modern Xingyi. M Duan made several insightful comments as to where parts of modern Xingyi come from, for example they believe that Xingyi’s Pao Quan actually comes from a Dai Style move call She Qiu Shi (射球势, shooting a ball pose), and so on. It also became obvious that there is little to no linkage between Dai Style’s Zha Shi and Xingyi’s Za Shi Chui – it is more likely that Xingyi’s Za Shi Chui was put together by Li Luoneng based on a combination of Xingyi’s 5 Elements and other moves. M Duan was also kind enough to demonstrate several applications of Dai Style Tiger (hu xing), Cannon Fist (Pao Quan), etc. M Duan is in great shape for a 76-year old, he is very strong and is a real testament to the value of his method.
For me, personally the most interesting visit during the trip was to another Dai style master called Mu Jinqiao, who does not come from the Dai Kui lineage but instead comes from Dai Kui’s cousin, Dai Hongxun (戴宏勋) through his teacher Duan Xian (段仙). Unfortunately, Mu laoshi is rather conservative and did not allow us to take any video or photos of him or his students (internet photo of Mu below).
Several of the points put forward by Mu laoshi were entirely new to me and I had not seen them in other published works or articles about Dai style. For example, Mu confirmed that Dai Guilan, Dai Hongxun’s daughter, did practice Dai Style Xinyi and he called her shigu (kungfu aunt), adding that Dai Guilan stayed very healthy all the way into her 90s, only needing the aid of a walking stick after a fall when she was 96 (she is 101 years old this year)!
One element which sets the curriculum of Mu Jinqiao’s branch apart is they have a separate yang sheng (health nourishing) set called Fu Shan Quan, which consists of 9 movements performed 9 times, for 81 movements in total. Mu laoshi had two of his female students demonstrate the initial movements of Fushan Quan, which displayed the obvious bowing/unbowing of the back and overturning of the dantian (fan dantian) which is characteristic of Dai Style.
According to M Mu, the Dai family originally practiced an art called Yiquan (意拳), which was totally unconnected to the modern art of Yiquan taught by Wang Xiangzhai. Dai Tingshi (戴廷轼), who lived during the late 1600s (early Qing dynasty), was good friends with a local polymath called Fu Shan (傅山), who taught him the set of exercises which would later become incorporated into the Dai family art as Fushan Quan. Two generations later, Dai Longbang spent many years working in Henan as a caravan guard (biaoshi), which is how Xinyi Liuhe came to be incorporated into the Dai family system. It was also Dai Longbang who exchanged Praying Mantis techniques with mantis master Jin Shikui (金世魁) – all 3 masters we visited confirmed that much of Dai Xinyi’s Zha Shi routine is supposed to be based on the praying mantis material learnt from Jin Shikui.
M Mu confirmed that Dai style does not have any paired routines but does have a form of push hands in which both parties are allowed to fajin the opponent. He allowed us to feel some of his fajin – like many accomplished masters of the internal arts, he is extremely rooted and connected with all power coming from the dantian / belly area. His belly feels like an inflated tyre, and he was easily able to launch me three feet away onto the nearest wall.
All in all, it was a very fruitful visit, but raised more questions than it answered. It is obvious to me that many of modern Xingyi’s moves and routines do not come directly from their counterparts in Dai Style Xinyi, e.g. modern Xingyi 5 Elements (Wuxing) does not come from Dai Style 5 Elements. There is much more research to be done, and I encourage readers to visit the area for themselves if they ever get the chance.