As I was reading Glen Board’s excellent new book Xing Yi: A study of Tai and Tuo Xing I thought there really needs to be a video of these linking sequences he’s presenting in the book so people can see how the moves work and get a flavour of it. So I made one myself in a bit of free time instead of my usual morning practice.

During filming I got a visit from a local village Peacock (we call him Peter) who decided to bless my video with his presence. Tai is the flycatcher, a small to medium bird with a long tail. Now, while Peter may also have a long tale, he’s a very large bird. Also, he’d be more like Chicken Xing (Ji Xing), so he’s a not a perfect fit with Tai, but you have to use what you’ve got.

Peter, standing proud.

Here’s the first video:

The problem is, (as I discovered) if you want make a video of animals Xings that if useful for people to follow along you have to take a lot of the character of each animal out, and it becomes a bit bland and (dare I say it….?) more like Tai Chi…

So I did another video that had less emphasis on relaxed movement and accuracy and more on expressing the Xing of each animal. Glen described the Xing well in his book, but in short, I’m trying to generate more torsion through the dragon body in Tuo and more agility, abrupt change of direction and surprising strikes in Tai.

My Xing Yi is always a work in progress, and I’ve been out of the loop with it for a few years, but Glen’s book has inspired me to pick it up again, so I’m not presenting myself as a “Laoshi” or expert here or anything, just a glimpse into my personal training. Anyway, here it is and hopefully people who buy the book will find it helpful in some way: