Just watched a great clip of 1980s Wushu in China – featuring Sun Jianyun, Sun Lu Tang’s daughter performing Bagua. But there’s also some clips of Tai Chi and some kids doing Northern Shaolin (at least I think it’s Northern Shaolin). Well worth a watch. The martial arts are on their way to being the heavily performance-based WuShu we have today, but are not quite there yet, with martial technique still a priority.
China
Wudang mountain’s martial arts tourism empire
This is an excellent article called The Sacred Cash Cow: Wudang Mountain’s Martial Arts Tourism Empire by The_Neidan_Master on the massive amount of commercialisation of the martial arts in Wudang, which has really leaned into its claims as the birthplace of tai chi.
I don’t think it’s worth debating the authenticity of these claims again, I’ve done a couple of podcasts with people who have lived at Wudang and trained there, one with Simon Cox, and the other with George Thompson – both very different experiences, which reflects the diversity over such a wide area, since Wudang is a vast collection of mountains and temples/schools, rather than a single place – and I don’t know what more is gained by going over that ground, but I think it’s better to simply accept that there is a growing cultural force that is pushing Wudang, a traditional home of Taoist studies, as one of the centers of modern tai chi training.
If your goal is to train tai chi at Wudang then its worth reading the article to get a balanced view of the place before going there.
Here’s a great quote:
“For travelers seeking authentic martial arts experiences at Wudang, awareness of these commercial realities provides crucial context. Understanding that most schools are modern businesses rather than ancient temples allows for more informed decisions about where and how to invest time and money.”
I think we have to accept that for ancient traditions to exist and continue in the modern age there needs to be some soft of commercial aspect, but that means that you need to approach these traditions with eyes wide open.
What is the role of forms, or kata, in martial arts?
Traditional martial arts, which are perhaps better described as “martial arts that are not sports”, tend to have a lot of forms, or kata. I’m thinking of karate, tai chi, wing chun, choy li fut, etc.
But what exactly is the role of kata, or forms? And has it changed over time?
In this new episode of the Heretics podcast I discuss the role of kata with Damon Smith who has extensive experience in various martial arts over decades.
It certainly became very trendy once MMA became a big deal to describe forms as useless, however, I think they do have uses, even today. As usual Damon has some pretty interesting insights into how forms have changed over time, and he can look back to the way they used to be trained in the 1980s compared to today.
Give it a listen!
Mike Sigman on the Practical Development of Qi
And why you shouldn’t train with weights when developing your qi
Mike Sigman has sent me an article to publish on this blog. I don’t normally publish other people’s work, or agree to their requests, but I’ll make an exception because it will hopefully generate some discussion. Regardless of how you feel about him, there’s is always a real depth to Mike’s writings and ideas that you can get a lot from, that you don’t really find anywhere else.
The article is primarily about one of the trickiest subjects in Chinese martial arts – qi (or chi).
I have a few thoughts about it:
1) The article starts by trying to “separate the skin-related qi, which includes the subconscious mind’s involvement, from the theoretical qi of traditional Chinese medicine”.
To some, particularly those people who relish Chinese history and the evolution of the concept of qi as it appears in Taoist thought, or medicine, that just won’t be acceptable, but I think this works for me. It moves the discussion into the realm of the physical and practical. It becomes a feeling and a doing thing.
2) It appears to be written partly as a reaction to a recent trend of mixing, or doing, Chinese martial arts conditioning through the medium of kettle bell or weights training. The question is, is that a waste of time if you want to get to the root of the subject, which is what the Chinese martial artists call qi?
Look, I don’t think there’s anything wrong with making yourself physically stronger at all. In fact, it’s obviously advantageous if you’re learning martial arts… But the article states that to master the internal movement, “the body must be completely retrained to learn to move with the qi, jin, and dantian”, and using weights will not help you in that respect. If you have retrained the body, then you could probably add them.
3) As I’ve said, nobody else really talks about this stuff, or if they do it’s watered down with a lot of other guff. If the article is correct on qi then what exactly are all the big names in modern tai chi seminar circuit and online courses out there actually teaching? Because they talk about qi a lot… but they don’t approach it in the same way as this article does, at least as far as I can see.
4) The article describes internal movement, quite simply and quite succinctly: “Ultimately, you develop a form of movement that uses the solidity of the ground as the focus of all forces to and from the body, while the qi covering of the body is manipulated by the lower-body and the middle to bring power to the arms and upper body.”
I find it hard to disagree with that definition, probably because it’s pretty broad. Sure, we can argue over what the “middle” is, or what the “lower-body” means,etc.. but as a succinct definition, it’s not half bad.
Now, let’s move on to how you do it…
The article talks about breathing exercises as a starting point: “Breathing techniques that stretch the surface of the skin and the involuntary muscle layers are the usual start of the progression.”
Now, I have personally trained in some of the methods that Mr Sigman uses (there’s a link to a video at the end of the article), and experienced what he’s talking about, and I’d agree that I can feel what he’s talking about. But I wouldn’t count myself as an expert in it, or knowledgeable about anything to do with it beyond the initial foot in the door stages, however, I have found that alone to be incredibly valuable and shone a light on some of the other things I was already doing. Even getting a foot in the door took a lot of work and a lot of time.
Anyway, I’ll leave you to read the article now and feel free to comment with your thoughts below.
Graham
Practical Development of Qi
And why you shouldn’t train with weights when developing your qi
by Mike Sigman, March 2025
Discussing qi is difficult because the definition of qi has become a bird’s nest of related topics. Let’s try to narrow the discussion and then describe an approach to practical development.
Most of the skills related to qi, in the physical body, have to do with an area near the skin of the body that is referred to as the “protective qi” or “wei qi”. While the protective qi is often referred to as an “energy”, it is actually a physical set of tissues that is controlled via the autonomic nervous system … but when you learn to control it via the subconscious mind, it does indeed feel sort of like an “energy” because it is apart from the topical sensations of the somatic nervous system, and the qi indeed feels odd, like an energy.
So, let’s separate the skin-related qi, which includes the subconscious mind’s involvement, from the theoretical qi of traditional Chinese medicine: that’s where most of the confusion lies. The skin-related qi and the subconscious mind are the artifacts which give us heightened toughness of the skin, odd sensations of qi, added strength by supplemental our muscle-bone strength, and dantian control of the body as whole connected by skin-related qi, among other things. Jin forces, the manipulation of the solidity of the ground and/or downward forces of gravity, are also the product of the skin-related qi: jin is defined as “the physical manifestation of qi” in many Chinese sources.
The qi of traditional medicine theory is/was an effort to explain the workings of strength, including the strength of our involuntary systems. We don’t need to know all the theories about meridians, putative different types of qi, etc., in order to develop the qi. Breathing exercises and focused physical and mental exercises are more important than complex qi-paradigm explanations.
The skin-area wei qi is initially controlled by respiration and “breathing exercises” are our initial approach to control and development of the qi tissues. During inspiration, if we are slightly extended or stretched out, we can feel a slight inward pulling of the tissues of the fingers and hand. Other areas of the body, upon being slightly stretched taut, can also be felt during the inhale, but many tissues in other areas of the body can’t be felt. They must be developed over time by breathing exercises before we can feel them respond to our breathing and before we can develop them further.
Some Chinese texts mention the fact that this superficial qi is something that animals still use (think of a horse quivering its flanks, for example), but which has atrophied in humans over the course of evolution. In order to regain our qi, we must use deliberate exercises of breathing, mental imagery, and posture manipulation.
Training the Qi in General Movement
Jin force-manipulation is a product of the qi tissues applying stressors within the body’s frame. That’s why jin is defined as “the physical manifestation of the qi”, among other things. We use jin unconsciously in our everyday movements, so another common definition of jin is as an “intrinsic strength”. The full-blown traditional movement methodology that permeates the Chinese (and related) martial arts involves both qi and qi’s subset, jin. Qi and jin. Jin forces are the mind-directed forces from the ground and gravity; qi can be thought of, in a simplified sense, as a superficial muscular layer that connects the whole body.
The basic idea of movement with qi and jin is that the power from the ground and lower body is used as the power source for the upper body. The qi and the jin work from the lower body (including the middle/dantian), so what we have with “internal” movement is a system where the arms and hands are controlled and powered by the lower body and the middle.
The general admonition is that muscle and power are used in the lower body, as needed, while the upper body is moved without the use of local muscle. I.e., a person has to learn to control his/her upper body via manipulation of the lower body and the middle. The person who thinks the internal arts would be best supplemented with typical weight workouts at the gym has lost the plot and is giving away a total lack of understanding about how the “internal” martial arts work.
Developing the Qi
Jin skills are actually fairly easy to learn, although it generally takes a few knowledgeable pointers and some personal, hands-on demonstrations to get someone started. There are a number of written attempts at jin explanations on the internet, particularly through the 6H forum.
Qi is difficult to develop because it takes time and the feelings we need to focus our attention are tenuous at first. Breathing techniques that stretch the surface of the skin and the involuntary muscle layers are the usual start of the progression. Many traditional Chinese martial arts talk about “100 Days” of breathing exercises to develop the qi to a usable status.
Movement of the involves directing all forces upward from the solidity of the ground (so you must “sink your qi”) or use the weight of the body as a basis for downward movement.
Ultimately, you develop a form of movement that uses the solidity of the ground as the focus of all forces to and from the body, while the qi covering of the body is manipulated by the lower-body and the middle to bring power to the arms and upper body.
All Asian martial arts that are labelled as “internal” martial arts, formal calligraphy, qigongs, traditional dance, etc., use this combination of qi and jin for movements. Learning the external choreography and appearance of a martial art, a qigong, etc., no matter how much it resembles the movements of an expert, will not be correct until the system of movement is changed over to the qi, jin, and dantian type of movement.
Almost all of the movements we so often see in western semblances of “Tai Chi”, Aikido, Xingyiquan, Baguazhang, etc., are based from normal movement parameters, rather than qi and jin mechanics and it will take effort to re-learn these arts with the correct movement basis. There is an old saying to that effect: “Taijiquan is easy to learn, but difficult to correct”. So, if your goal is to learn Taijiquan, Aikido, or related arts, remember that all the talk about “relaxation”, “don’t use weights”, etc., is because the body must be completely retrained to learn to move with the qi, jin, and dantian.
Here’s a video of Chen Zhaosen, with translation by John Prince, teaching basic movement drills for the Chen-style Taijiquan. Notice his comment about no strength in the upper body, but whatever strength you need in the lower body.
https://vimeo.com/141009942
New podcast! The formation of the Ming army
A new episode of our Heretics podcast Xing Yi history series is out. This one tackles the formation of the Ming army. Episode 18 is available now.
The Heretics by Woven Energy podcast is available on Spotify and Apple Podcasts.
Forget Mount Wudang, the latest hot Kung Fu mountain is Mount Emei, and this time it’s girl groups leading the way
It’s all about the needles
Emei Mountain is the latest hot Kung Fu trend coming out of China, and a group of Kung Fu girls is leading the charge, according to a new article in China’s GlobalTimes.
In April 2024 a video appeared showing nine female Kung Fu performers doing Kung Fu moves against the backdrop of Emei Mountain.
Chen Yufei, 23, one of the group members is quoted in the article: “Unlike the dramatized versions of Emei kung fu in TV shows, which focus on legends, our practice is rooted in the practical skills and traditions of Emei martial arts.”
The video shows performance with a variety of Kung Fu weapons including double whips, swords and of course, the famous Emei needles *, but the phrase “traditions of Emei martial arts” raises a few red flags for me.
A standout line from the article reads “In 2008, Emei martial arts, with a history spanning over three millennia, were designated a National Intangible Cultural Heritage.”
Ok, hang on, what?
Mount Emei has long been a sacred mountain for Buddhism, sure. But a 3,000 year old tradition of Kung Fu?
If you look up Kung Fu training camps on Mount Emei you’ll find a complete history of the martial arts and styles there: “Emei School has 1,093 bare-hand fighting skills, 518 skills with weapons, 41 pair practice routines and 276 practice methods.”
Call me a cynic, but I don’t believe any of this. It appears to me that the Kung Fu traditions of Emei Mountain really belong to the work of modern wuxi fiction of author Jin Yong who wrote a lot about a fictional Emei Sect. In his book, The Heaven Sword and Dragon Saber, the Emei School is founded during the early Yuan dynasty by Guo Xiang around the same time as when the Wudang School is established.
Of course, this being a complete fiction hasn’t stopped the Kung Fu tourist industry from setting up shop on Mount Emei. As this 2012 article describes, there was not much Kung Fu on the mountain back then, but it was starting to be set up, complete with a history. But if you look up Mount Emei today you’ll find Kung Fu competitions are held there, and very much like the operation at Mount Wudang, you can go there to study Kung Fu, for the right price.
The all-female Kung Fu troop heralding from Mount Emei seem to be as much a creation of the Kung Fu tourist industry as anything else, at least to me.
So where does their martial arts come from? Looking through various pages on the Internet I found a Reddit post that sounds true to me: ” “Emei” is just a generic term for martial arts from Sichuan, extremely few styles have any actual direct relation to anyone who loved or practiced on Emei shan. Also almost everything called “Emei” today are modern offshoots of northern Chinese martial arts brought to Sichuan with nationalist troops as they were forced westward by the Japanese in WWII.”
None of which, of course, is to take away from the performance of the Emei all-female Kung Fu group, who are pretty damn good at WuShu.
- Note 1: Mount Emei even has its own weapon, the Emei Ci which are sharp steel rods known as needles or piercers, that can be worn on a ring on your finger and spun around.
A visit to Mount Emei by Will of Monkey Steals Peach:
Episode 33: Daoyin and Qigong with Tina Faulkner Elders
My guest for the latest episode of The Tai Chi Notebook Podcast is Tina Faulkner Elders, chief instructor of the RuYi School of Taijiquan and Qigong in Aberdeenshire. We talk about Tina’s training in qigong, first with her father, then in Beijing, China, and then on Wudang mountain itself, the legendary home of Taoism.
Links:
RuYi School of Taijiquan and Qigong
Facebook page
YouTube Channel
Gong Li Quan, “power-building boxing”, and the truth about Ching dynasty martial arts
At the recent 2024 Martial Arts Studies conference in Wales I had the good fortune to meet Randy Brown of Mantis Boxing and Brazilian JiuJitsu in Massachusetts, USA. We had a blast at the conference discussing martial history, theory and even demonstrating a few techniques on each other into the small hours in a pub in Cardiff city center! Not only is Randy highly skilled in mantis boxing, but he’s also a black belt in Brazilian Jiujitsu, so we had a lot in common.
When I was exchanging techniques with Randy he noticed that the Choy Li Fut I was showing was identical to moves from a form he knew called gong li quan, which translates as “power-building boxing”. It was a form he had learned that was used as foundational training for various Ching dynasty martial arts, like long fist, eagle claw boxing and praying mantis boxing.
On gong li quan, Randy writes:
Gōng Lì Quán, or Power Building Boxing, is a unique boxing set from northern China, and is included as a training routine amongst a variety of boxing styles in the north to include: long fist, eagle claw boxing, and praying mantis boxing. This form likely intermixed with the latter two styles when it was included as part of the Jīngwǔ Athletic Association’s fundamental wu shu curriculum. At Jīngwǔ, gōng lì quán was one of the mandatory six empty hand and four weapons sets taught to kung fu practitioners. These ten sets were required as a prerequisite to the study of: xingyiquan, bagua, taijiquan, eagle claw, or mantis boxing; considered by Jīngwǔ founders to be more ‘advanced’ styles.
Our meeting seems to have sparked a desire in Randy to delve further into gong li quan and resurrect this old form he’d forgotten about and try to bring the movement to life with grappling applications. He’s been kind enough to share video of his research.
3 Rings Trap the Moon
This was the original move we discussed in Cardiff, 3 Rings Trap the Moon, which in Choy Li Fut would be a gwa choy (back fist) followed by a sau choy (sweeping fist) followed by a biu choy (an outward forearm strike). Randy shows the original move from gong li quan, then his grappling applications. It’s pretty cool!
Twining Silk Legs
Randy has been updating his blog post with new applications as he goes, so keep checking back. One of his latest is the move Twining Silk Legs:
Twining Silk Legs is two upper cuts followed by two kicks. Again, Randy shows the move and then his grappling interpretation of the applications. What’s really interesting to me is that, once again, there’s a parallel in Choy Li Fut with this move. If you look at the move starting at 1.22 in the following Choy Li Fut video you’ll see what is essentially the same move as Twining Silk Legs – two upwards strikes followed by a kick. (Ok, just the one kick here, not two, but still…)
You could look at this as further proof that gong li quan and Choy Li Fut share a common ancestor back in the mists of time, but since I’d be willing to bet that other Chinese martial arts practitioners would also recognise these moves from their own systems, I’d venture to say that is is further evidence for Randy’s theory that the explosion of different martial styles during the end of the Ching dynasty (which is where we get Choy Li Fut, mantis, Wing Chun and the other well-known styles) was more about branding the martial arts, for commercial reasons, and that they actually shared a common pool of knowledge.
An extract from the abstract of Randy’s excellent presentation reads:
“A question needs to be asked, did ‘Chinese boxing’ of the era, have a similar common pool of knowledge? Qī Jì guāng’s manual would hint at such. Within ‘Chinese Boxing’, attributes, feats, or skills defining one fighter over another became definitive styles of their own right due to events of the time”.
(The Qi Ji Guang he’s referring to is the Ming dynasty general who fought off Japanese pirates and because a hero to the people. He wrote a famous manual which documented the martial arts of the time. The techniques in the manual seem to crop up in all sorts of Ching dynasty martial arts.)
You can learn more about the the tumultuous events of the Ching dynasty and the explosion of martial arts styles that happened during it in Randy’s video of his presentation from the 2019 Martial Arts Studies Conference:
2025 Martial Arts Studies Conference
Today I heard the exciting news that next year’s 2025 Martial Arts Studies Conference will also be held in Cardiff, Wales. This will be the 10th anniversary of the original 2015 conference, which was held on the 10th-12th June in Cardiff, and will be held on exactly the same dates. It’s almost too perfect. See you there?
The Martial Arts Studies Network has also released a new (and free as always) issue 15 – check it out, it’s full of top-quality articles on martial arts. Oh, and don’t forget, I also recorded a podcast with Randy while we were at the conference – here it is:
The origin of internal arts, with Peter Lorge
“The origin of internal arts” is probably what I’d have called this really interesting podcast with Peter Lorge about the history of internal martial arts, however Kung Fu Genius decided to name it “Chinese Martial Arts History is Mostly FAKE” because, well, it probably generates more clicks, or something. Anyway, Lorge turns over a few sacred cows here, and I also liked what he had to say about BJJ.
Have a listen:
I think Peter makes a great point about all these different ‘internal’ things throughout Chinese history all definitely existing, but all being completely separate and unconnected until the 1920s Guoshu Institute needed to create the category of “internal” to exist in opposition to shaolin and external, so it brought them all together. (The gentleman whose name he forgets when talking about this is obviously Sun Lu Tang.)
I do wonder if instead of looking back for mentions of “internal” throughout Chinese history a look back for the phrase Liu He “six harmonies” would make a better connection between the dots of Chinese martial arts history. While the term “Neijia” may not appear very often pre-1920s, Liu He definitely did. If we’re looking at how we got where we are today, then that’s probably a better bet.
What the name tai chi chuan means
What’s in a name? When it comes to tai chi chuan (taijiquan), then the answer is… quite a lot.
Firstly, there’s the issue of how you write it. Occasionally, you will see an attempt to guess at the spelling of the name that makes the mind boggle, such as an email asking if somebody can come to your “thai chee” class, but usually it’s some variation of “tai chi” or “taiji”.
Tai chi was first romaised into English using the Wade–Giles system as “tʻai chi chʻüan”. But English speakers soon abbreviated it to “tʻai chi” and dropped the mark of aspiration. Nowadays, in the UK at least, we tend to use “tai chi” and forget about the “chuan”. Perhaps a better translation would be “tai chi boxing”, but this goes against the image of the art, which is usually practiced as a health exercise, so that’s never going to catch on. There really isn’t much “boxing” going on in most tai chi classes.
Then there’s he newer pinyin romanisation system, which has replaced Wade–Giles as the most popular system for romanizing Chinese. In pinyin, tai chi is written taijiquan. It’s popular to use taiji or taijiquan in English now to also remove any colonialist connotations of the term from a bygone era.
I get that, but I think the written phrase tai chi has slipped so far into the general populations consciousness that a lot of people have no idea what you’re talking about if you write taijiquan. I use tai chi myself.
Step back into the Qing dynasty
Then there’s the issue of when the art was given the name tai chi boxing. Tai chi emerged into public life in the royal court during the Qing dynasty, yet it wasn’t freely called tai chi until after the dynasty ended. If you try and find a written occurrence of the name published before 1912 you’ll draw a blank. There are certainly written documents that claim to be from years earlier that contain the name “tai chi boxing” yet not a single one of them was made public or published before 1912. What happened in 1912? The Qing dynasty collapsed and the new Republican era began.
My best guess as for the reason that this is the case is that Hong Taiji (1592 – 1643), the founding emperor of the Qing dynasty had adopted the name “Taiji”. It’s unclear if this was his personal name or a title, but there was certainly a taboo around using that name because it belonged to an emperor. It therefore became impossible for a marital art to be called “tai chi boxing” without breaking that taboo and suffering the (presumably harsh) consequences. However, once the Qing dynasty fell, the name was back on the market. (Credit to my friend Daniel Mroz for bringing this to my attention).
The taiji symbol
Then there’s the meaning of the name. The name taiji has obvious connections to the philosophical concept of the taiji symbol – the circle with the two fishes representing yin and yang and their constant interchangeable position. One state increase till it exhausts itself leading to the other in an infinite loop.
In Yang style tai chi lineages, the art has long been associated with Taoist ideas, which the taiji symbol is representative of. Chen style seems less Taoist in origin, however, the concept of taiji is a universal symbol, and used throughout all of Chinese thought.
The name taiji can be translated as “supreme ultimate”, which has lead many to conclude that tai chi boxing must have got the name because it was the boxing system par excellence of the Chinese martial arts scene. It is literally, the best! If only!
I wish that was true, but I think it’s just a common misunderstanding, which is perhaps played on as a marketing device in modern times. I mean, who wouldn’t want to be learning the supreme ultimate boxing system, right?
The concept of being a supreme ultimate is more to do with supremely different positions being harmonised. Extreme yang and extreme yin. Polar opposites that work together and find harmony. That’s the real meaning.
In Tai Chi your body moves through position after position – we call these ‘postures’ usually – in the transition between them the body will open and close in a repetitious cycle. Once yang (open) is exhausted the body will move to yin (close) once you’ve reached the extreme position of yin, you move back to yang again, and so on.
The opening and closing is a whole body action. So, you are literally enacting the taiji diagram with your body.
That’s the general idea. Of course, you can break down your body into sections and look at how each one of those opens and closes, there is seemingly no end to the level of detail you can drill down to, but on a basic level your body is always moving from yin to yang and back again, which is the reason for the name of the art – tai chi chuan.
The Tai Chi Notebook 