Yin Style Baguazhang under the Xie PeiQi lineage

Yin Style as passed down by Xie Peiqi is notable for having eight distinct animal styles within the body of the art. In other words, Xie's Yin Style is a complete system, which is made up of other complete systems. These include the eight animal systems as well as several 'unorthodox' systems, such as the Penetrating Palm and Backhand systems.^[1] Each of the eight animal styles is related to one of the eight trigrams of the I Ching. The following table describes this relationship:^[2]

Each animal is a complete system in its own right, possessing its own personality, skills, applications, and functions. Each of the eight animal systems contains eight striking methods, and each striking method has seven strikes. Three of those seven are considered the 'primary' strikes and are emphasized more than the others in single practice. Therefore, the animal systems of Xie's Yin Style Bagua have a total of 448 unique strikes. However, Xie's Yin Style Bagua also contains other unorthodox systems outside of the eight animals, such as Penetrating Palm and the Backhand systems. Hence, there are more than 448 strikes, though 448 are contained within the animals. (Note that the animal relationships with the bagua diagram are not unique to Xie's art; these relationships are also often used for other styles of bagua, including Cheng substyles, such as that of Sun Lutang.)

Other substyles of Yin include different forms and methods. For example, Cao Zhongsheng's system's technical base is the 64 palms (also taught by Wang Peisheng); other substyles focus on only 8 main palms (such as that of Liu Zhenlin, Li Baosen, or other Men Baozhen lineages). Gong Baotian's version has many forms and a strong emphasis on Yin Fu's Luohan forms. Each substyle also includes many supplementary forms (such as luohanquan) and training methods (such as hand hardening methods).

Four Basic Practices

There are four basic practice methods in Xie Peiqi's Yin Style Baguazhang: standing, turning, striking, and changing. These practices are the basic pillars of the style, and are all considered equally important.^[3]

Animal Styles in Xie Peiqi's Yin Style

Yin Style BaguaZhang under the Li Bao Sen lineage

The Yin Style passed down through Li Bao Sen (李寶森) differ's in many ways from the Men Bao Zhen lineage speaking to the diversity of training methods taught and developed under Yin Fu and by his students. While not much is known about Li Bao Sen's personal life he trained a number of students who went on to win large national fighting tournaments during the Republic era. Li Bao Sen's most notable student's include Meng Lian Fu (孟連富) and Zhang Qing Lian (張慶廉).

Brief History of Li Bao Sen's students

Meng Lian Fu studied both Yin Style Baguazhang and his family's 孟氏太極拳 Meng family taijiquan system and went on with his younger martial brother Zhang Qing Lian to represent the Beijing Martial school (at the time called BeiPing Martial School) and win the 1923 Nan Jing National Guo Shu tournament which included them fighting in empty hands and weapons fighting categories where Meng Lian Fu won in empty hands using the short staff and Zhang won empty hands fighting. Zhang Qing Lian went on to compete in competitions in 1924 in Tian Jin and 1925 in Shang Hai.

Meng Lian Fu went on to gain notoriety for his win in NanJing and taught Meng Family Taiji and Yin Style Baguazhang passing his teachings on until his death on February 6th 1963.

Zhang Qing Lian continued to live in Beijing maintaining a private life working as one of Beijing's first western style pastry chef's in a hospital in Chong Wen Men. According to his daughter he had a life long habit of rising at 4:30 every morning to train Baguazhang until about 8 AM where then he would get ready and go to work. He wrote in small autobiography that when training BaguaZhang at the 北平第三國術館 BeiPing #3 Martial School that he and his classmates would often rise early and train in the morning before work and then after work or school return to the academy again for evening training. He privately taught a number of students but ultimately passed down his lineage of Yin Style Baguazhang to Xu Shi Xi (徐世熙). Zhang passed away in November of 1988. Shortly before passing away Zhang hand wrote a large manual on Yin Style BaguaZhang. Xu Shi Xi taught openly in Beijing's in Temple of Heaven Park until January 2020. This lineage's structure of Yin Style varies in a few ways from the Men Bao Zhen/Xie PeiQi lineage.

Structure of Li Bao Sen/Zhang Qing Lian lineage Yin Style

The system is divided up into Shaolin basics training, BaguaZhang empty hand martial training, BaguaZhang weapons training and QiGong/DaoYin. The techniques are taught both as drills solo and partnered to develop leg and foot skills, footwork, body methods and striking methods to become proficient at grasping and seizing, throwing, tripping and striking opponents with both hands and feet. It is said Yin Fu had a base in Shaolin martial arts whether taught to him by or before he met Dong Hai Chuan. This lineage of Yin Style kept its Shaolin JiBenGong (basics training) intact with 3 forms being the core of the Shaolin techniques. Techniques and drills are trained applying the Shaolin techniques. The BaguaZhang empty hand training contains fixed posture training called 八式掌 '8 postures palms' that is both standing and done turning a circle, the 八掌 '8 palms' or 八手老掌 '8 old palms' (sometimes referred to in some systems as the 8 old palms or 8 mother palms), 八形掌 '8 forms/animals palms' also referred to as 八行掌 '8 moving palms' - referred to this because the foot work continuously moves with less stopping).

When the first palm set is considered adequately trained, the next palm set is learned of different strategies and so on.The fixed postures training is for training the basic body method and building power in movements. It focuses a lot on breathing to be controlled in conjunction with movement and static body postures held for extended periods of time in both stationary and moving postures. In the 8 palms or 'mother palm' the basic Bagua techniques of the system are trained with wide footwork to build stability and power while walking the circle. In the 8 'moving palms' second set the focus is more complex and dynamic body movement and quicker closer foot movements to develop quicker continuous footwork with tight turns and feet landing close and tight together. Each of these sets have multiple levels of training with the techniques evolving over time as the practitioner's body methods and abilities advance. Palm changes and techniques when first training will often not resemble the what the palm changes always look like or how they are applies at more advanced levels due to the change in strategy as ability and skills change. The palm changes in each of the BaguaZhang sets are considered linked to the trigrams with various hand positions in the fixed postures being ascribed to a certain trigram and the strategies and energies of those trigrams interwoven into the practice of the postures both fixed and moving. These ideas are then further extracted into 64 hands which are a series of strategies applied either through hand techniques, body methods or footwork.

The 64 hands are a series of strategies which include striking with the hands, arms, legs feet and body, throws, joint locks, submissions and other techniques that can be done both while turning the circle or in straight lines. While many systems of Baguazhang have straight lines of 64 hands drills, this particular lineage of Yin Style has 16 sets of 4 linked strategies or techniques that are done on a circle and in straight line patterns. Each of the 64 strategies can be linked to a strategy idea of one of the hexagrams but it is not necessarily heavily weighted as each technique can have different strategies attached to it depending on how it is applied and the focus should not be all about theoretical strategies but rather actual application. The 64 hands as well as the palm changes are often dissected and pulled apart to drill different combinations together. Xu Shi Xi taught that all techniques were to be pulled out of the forms and drilled in a myriad of combinations and variations and so taught the 64 hands primarily as a series of drills both with partners and solo in many variations. He rarely trained the 64 in the manner his teacher Zhang Qing Lian documented them in his book as Xu was known to say much like palm changes they were merely for memorization like understanding a dictionary which lists the basic techniques and those techniques should be also extracted and reshuffled many times over to become natural in any variation and combination for any situation. This leads to a myriad of techniques which are just multiples of the 8 palms which become 64 techniques and eventually hundreds if not thousands of possible combinations.

DaoYin/QiGong methods are also included throughout the training of Yin Style in this lineage. These methods are both for martial development and health maintenance. These methods include sitting, standing and walking methods. Many breathing techniques to open up the chest, ribs, diaphragm and abdomen while circulating Qi in the Dantian and the channels. Absorbing and Emitting Qi from and to the environment for health is an aspect of the health maintenance. One particular method which Xu Shi Xi taught as advanced DaoYin training for BaguaZhang martial development was 丹田運轉 Dantian rotational training where the person trains their dantian to the point is acts as a ball rolling and rotating throughout the body eventually joining these movements of the abdomen with the movements of the whole body to create a strong dynamic power that helps to drive all the movements of the body.

Weapons training is also another aspect of this lineage. Weapons training includes the traditional Broadsword, Straight Sword, Staff, Spear and also chainwhip, Bagua Broadsword, 子午雞爪鴛鴦鉞 Zi Wu Ji Zhua Yuan Yang Yue (something similar to but not exactly the same as deerhorn knives), and a series of short knives referred to as 'Night Fighting 8 directions knives' .

Xu Shi Xi

Xu Shi Xi was born into family of Chinese Medicine Physicians. Though never formally become a clinical physician he was educated in Chinese Medicine from an early age. He learned Yin Style BaguaZhang privately from Zhang Qing Lian starting in his teenage years. According to Zhang's daughter, her father found him to be the most clever and brightest pupil he ever had and so he enjoyed teaching Xu. Xu studied with Zhang for many years later modifying some of what he had learned to make it easier for him to apply. Xu Shi Xi was about 5' 5" much shorter than Zhang who stood closer to 6' according to his daughter therefore some of the overhead chopping and high techniques were much more difficult for Xu to pull off leaving him to develop aspects of techniques that looked to strike from underneath a person's line of sight or further develop body method skills that increased the power and leverage of a person when in close to be able to seize, conrol and topple their opponent with greater speed and ease.

Xu Shifu took a special interest in 快跤 Fast wrestling techniques and Qinna in Bagua and became very adept at them in an effort to help in defeat opponents who were much taller and bigger than he was. At the time he was studying BaguaZhang, Taiji became very popular in Beijing and so he often joined Chen Taiji groups to have people to practice with. Over time, although not claiming a specific lineage of Chen Style, he developed a very strong practice of Chen Style taiji that was based on the power generation and much of the explosive body methods he learned through his Yin Style training. Often referred to by other Taiji players as strange or unorthodox compared to standardized Chen Style, he continued to train this way, infusing his Chen Style Taiji with Yin Style Baguazhang and developing a greater understanding for the mechanics of both. Through his exchanges with Taiji practitioners and other martial artists in Beijing, he became very adept at push hands and closing the distance using applications of BaguaZhang's fast wrestling. Over time he became known for this specialty and advanced the depth of techniques for Qinna and Wrestling within his lineage of Baguazhang.

Later he took the core principles of the Yin Style system he learned and modified aspects of areas of practice to better fit his size and skills leading to variations of the 8 Animal/Moving palms and the 8 fixed postures. He took aspects of the softer practices of Taiji Quan and utilized them when practicing aspects of the Shaolin sets and techniques ultimately creating a merger between his Taiji and Bagua practices which he referred to as 'Bagua Taiji'. He also utilizing line drills taught many of the 64 hands and their variations.

Distribution

Yin stylists are most concentrated in Beijing, where practitioners of the lineages of Ma Gui, Yin Yuzhang, Cao Zhongsheng, Li Baosen, Li Yongqing, Men Baozhen, and others still practice and teach today. Certain Yin styles have moved to other locations as well, however, such as the Cui Zhendong lineage in Shanghai and the Gong Baotian lineage in Shanghai, Shandong, and Taiwan. Famous practitioners in Beijing today include Zhang Zhao Ren, He Puren (deceased), Wang Shangzhi, Zhang Lie, Zhu Baozhen (deceased), Xu Shi Xi and He Jinbao. Others include Huang Zhicheng of Shandong, He Jinghan of Taiwan, Michael Guen of California and Tu Kun-Yii of New Jersey, USA.