The week-long National Day (国庆节) holiday is one of the longest public holidays in the mainland Chinese calendar, and traditionally is both a time when people make longer trips at home and abroad. Also in the last few years it has become very common for teachers of taiji and other styles to hold ‘intensive seminars’ during the National Day holiday for students from other parts of China who otherwise might not have access to the top teachers.
This October I decided to combine a trip to Guangfu, the hometown of Yang and Wu(Hao) style taiji, with my regular visit to Taigu in Shanxi, the cradle of Song and Che style xingyi, to see the Song family, which proved to be a worthwhile decision.
Whilst in Guangfu, I was able to train Hao style for 3-4 days with M Yan Zhilong, who is not perhaps the most famous teacher in Guangfu but who studied under the famous master Zhai Wenzhang, who is known in the area for producing at least a dozen students who excel at applying the art (both push hands and applications). M Yan did not disappoint, and was more than happy to show both striking / grappling applications for several of the moves and also train me in push hands basics, despite the limited time I had with him. One point that he strongly emphasises is that in orthodox taiji one needs to develop the sunken heavy power (songchen jin) both in the arms and the rest of the body. He could easily switch it on and off at will – if ‘off’ I could at least push him as in a normal push hands pattern such as 4 corners (si zheng shou) but as soon as he turned his songchen jin ‘on’ his arm became almost immovable, despite still being very relaxed (see video below).
After bidding adieu to M Yan, it was on to Taigu to reconnect with the Song family, for the first visit since 2019 (due to the extremely strict Covid restrictions which were put in place for much of 2020 – 2022). Fortunately the days I visited there were a few discipleship ceremonies so fellow Song style enthusiasts from several other parts of China (Zhejiang, Shaanxi, Hebei, etc) had all gathered in Taigu to celebrate, inevitably leading to lots of friendly exchanges of technique (jiaoliu) over the next few days. The video below shows kungfu brother Cheng Wenbin demonstrating his 5 elements:
The highlight of the Taigu part of the trip for me was a chance to meet Su Ying, one of the youngest students of Che style master Yang Fansheng, widely acknowledged in Che style circles as one of the best of his generation locally, who unfortunately passed away almost ten years ago.
Su Ying runs a martial arts school together with her husband (who himself is a shuai jiao champion!) only a couple of miles from the Song family courtyard in Taigu and still practices and teaches the xingyi as she learnt it from M Yang. Personally I think it would be very worthwhile for any xingyi enthusiast to take a couple of lessons from her, regardless of style, as it could very well change how they view their xingyi.