Xingyi Boxing
01 · Historical Records
Xingyi boxing is one of the finest schools of traditional Chinese martial arts. It evolved from Xinyi Liuhe boxing (Heart-and-Will Six-Harmony Boxing) and was created by Li Laoneng of Shenzhou.
02 · Core Techniques & Process
Xingyi boxing is a perfect combination of traditional Eastern philosophy, medicine, daoyin (guided stretching) exercises, and combat technique. The art was devised according to the principle by which all things are generated from heaven and earth; internally it connects the organs, the meridians, and the eight extraordinary vessels. Shenzhou Xingyi boxing takes the three-body posture (santi) as its basic stance, the five-element fists as its basic training method, and the twelve-animal forms as its applied patterns. Its routines include Interlocking Advance and Retreat, Anshen Pao, and Miscellaneous Hammers, and it further encompasses internal training and free-fighting (sanshou) methods and techniques; its weapons include the sabre, spear, sword, and staff. Both its theory and its technique are highly complete. Shenzhou Xingyi boxing is vigorous and plain, with movements that are simple, practical, and uniform; it emphasizes close-range striking and swift, direct attack. Its basic routines, such as the five-element fists and the twelve-animal forms, are mostly solo drills in which a single movement is alternated left and right and walked back and forth. Day by day, year after year, a single movement may be repeated tens of thousands of times. When finally facing an opponent, one can achieve astonishing progress in speed, power, and accuracy. Wang Xiangzhai, a disciple of Guo Yunshen, once knocked out Ing, the Hungarian world flyweight professional boxing champion, with a single move. He also repeatedly answered challenges from Japanese judo experts, felling each of them with a single move. Xingyi boxing integrates physical fitness, technique, and health preservation into one; through training it strengthens the body and provides self-defense, and it also serves a sports-medicine function, with marked therapeutic effects on many chronic ailments.
The three-body stance
The basic stance of Shenzhou Xingyi boxing, named after heaven, earth and man, from which the five-element and twelve-animal forms are all built.
The five-element fists
The five mother fists named for metal, wood, water, fire and earth, practised left-right in endless repetition until speed, power and accuracy become instinct.
The twelve animal forms
Twelve forms modelled on the dragon, tiger, monkey, horse, alligator, rooster, swallow, sparrowhawk, snake, eagle and bear, used as the applied pattern of the style.
Interlocking advance-retreat routines
The main linked routines of the Shenzhou style, stringing single techniques into complete attack-and-defence sequences.
Saber, spear, sword and staff
The weapon sets of the style, which carry the logic of the five fists into saber, spear, sword and staff.
Wang Xiangzhai's single-move victories
Guo Yunshen's pupil Wang Xiangzhai felled the world lightweight boxing champion and several Japanese judo experts with single moves, illustrating the style's close-range directness.
Zhang Yulin and the Shenzhou martial arts school
The state-level inheritor Zhang Yulin opened the Shenzhou martial arts school in 1999, organised two international Xingyi gatherings and protected the tombs and former residence of the art's masters.
03 · Regional Records & Related Items
The boxing styles of Li's disciples divide into the Hebei school and the Shanxi school (the Japanese researcher Matsuda Ryuchi divides them into Hebei, Shanxi, and Henan schools, of which the Henan school is Xinyi boxing). The Hebei school is represented by the boxing transmitted by Li Laoneng's son Li Taihe and by Li Laoneng's disciples Guo Yunshen and Liu Qilan, and is mainly transmitted in the Wangjiajing Town, Shenzhou Town, Mucun Township, and Bingcao Township areas of Shenzhou City, Hebei Province.
Other submitting regions for the same item: Xingyi Boxing.
04 · Cultural Value & Contemporary Safeguarding
In recent years, with the successive passing of many veteran masters, Shenzhou Xingyi boxing has gradually declined and lacks successors; this requires the attention of the relevant authorities and the adoption of necessary protective measures. Zhang Yulin (per the official archival record of the associated inheritor): Male, of the Han nationality, born in February 1953, a native of Shenzhou City, Hebei. An Xingyi boxing master, holding the ninth grade (duan) of Chinese wushu. He organized two editions of the China Shenzhou International Xingyi Boxing Exchange Conference and the first National Xingyi Boxing Sanshou Challenge Tournament, serving as chief evaluator and chief referee. He has made the promotion of Xingyi boxing his life's work, travelling throughout China; many of his disciples teach and give lectures abroad, advancing Chinese martial arts. He is a representative inheritor of Xingyi boxing, a national-level intangible cultural heritage project of the fourth batch. In the 1970s he began taking on disciples and running classes; in 1999 he raised funds himself to establish the Shenzhou City Martial Arts School, where he teaches Xingyi boxing. He discovered and protected the tombstone of the Xingyi master Guo Yunshen and the former residence of “Single-Sabre Li Cunyi,” and established the China Shenzhou Li Laoneng Xingyi Boxing website.
05 · Associated Representative Bearers
Representative bearers recorded under this item, organized by national nomination batch:
- Zhang Yulin 04-1736
- Song Guanghua 05-2548
- Gao Baodong
- Bubingquan
06 · Authoritative Sources & Bibliography
Sources
China Intangible Cultural Heritage Network (ihchina.cn)
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