Like a lot of xingyi practitioners, I am intensely curious about how xingyi was actually trained in the early days of the style, i.e. the second and third generations of practitioners who really made the style famous in China. Unfortunately, during the late Qing and early Republican era photography remained the preserve of the well-to-do merchant class and was mostly out of reach of ‘blue-collar’ xingyi masters. This is one of the reasons there are so few pictures of even very famous masters who lived into the modern era – often all there is, is a portrait photo with barely any photos of them actually practicing xingyi.
With that being said, at a friend’s request I thought it might be educational to share some pictures of Shanxi Che style masters from the 2nd / 3rd generations who are no longer with us:
