Here is a good vid clip showing Yiquan sparring:
Blue Guy is Yiquan, he faces down/knocks out 3 different Red (San shou) Guys. This clip is accurate. That Blue Guy is very much representative of what I saw/felt at Master Yao's studio in Beijing. Mr. Blue may or may not actually be a student of one of the Yao Brothers or maybe of Master Cui (I don't recognize Blue Guy but that doesn't mean anything). But if he isn't their student, he might as well be - he's a clone.
They have lots of this type of competent, work-a-day, no-nonsense fighter type among what I called the "Day Guys" (full time whole-day professional YQ live-in students at Master Yao's Beijing studio). Notice how Blue Guy doesn't waste much motion, nothing fancy. He waits for his chance to close. When he closes he either takes Red down quickly with a trip or push, or just punches him out, immediately.
YQ guys hit hard, fast, and accurate. That is the cool thing about Yiquan. This Blue Guy is not any kind of exceptional master, just a typical skilled Yiquan player. This is the kind of thing that Yiquan excels at, in my experience. Some of you people may fault Blue Guy for being crude or whatever. But he can hit. He's good.
I don't mind this kind of play at all. I'm fine with training in this mode, when the chance arises. But still it isn't my main interest. My baseline training criteria, strictly personal now, no reflection or criticism on any art out there, are as follows (from now-extinct Tabby Cat Yiquan blog entry)
- non-sportive frame
- multiple attackers
- larger than myself
- armed with edged weapons (at a minimum)
- bad: surface/proximate obstacles/visibility
- no "face off"
- surprise instantaneous attack with lethal intent
Let's face it, most "martial arts" or hand to hand combat systems are just honing the inherent edge that a large, able-bodied, young/middle-aged agressive male has over any other human demographic. While it's true that some training can help anybody ("Gift of Fear" - Gavin De Becker - type of stuff more so than any physical work actually), but to me, only a program that could take a somewhat healthy 70-years little old lady and in a few years of concentrated training have her able to easily slam down a charging 275-lb NLF pro linebacker (who had not undergone this particular training) - now THAT would be a martial art worthy of the name! No such training method presently exists, to my knowledge.
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I notice that the "qi" controversy rages on. Actually, The Power Formerly Known As Qi is totally real. It is a latent current of quasi-physical energy in the body. You can feel that easily.That's beyond controversy. Reality isn't the issue here. Even within Yiquan, some teachers affirm TPFKAQ, while others do not. For example, Wang Yong Xiang, student of Yao Zong Xun, talks about qi all over his book. But he makes the crucial point that qi is only one single ingredient, among many, constituting a larger scope of power. Something I really had not understood before.
So, qi - just like poltergeists or space aliens or auras - all that stuff is real enough. But - Does it matter? The interesting controversy comes in as to whether qi is actually useful for anything. Now that is a horse of another color. In the case of poltergeists, space aliens, and auras, far as I can tell they exist, they are real, but frankly who cares, they just don't matter very much.
So then, what about qi? What I'm finding from my (long & hard! ... *sweat*) Yiquan work so far is that the YQ training takes TPFKAQ to another level. This other level is called, by the YQ masters: "hunyuanli", holistic or omni-dimensional power. That has a totally different feel! Amazing.
After all these training decades I thought I'd felt all the weirdo energetic stuff that's out there (in here I really should say) to feel. But no, this hunyuanli stuff really is a distinct state, just as WYX says, it subsumes qi, mind, and body into something else. It's as though there's a strong metal spring joining every pair of 2 cells in your body. Really extremely interesting.
Then once you get that "static" state of hunyuanli activated, the next thing I find can be done is to directionalize the energy, using all the opposite-force and oppositional resistance work in the YQ mojin and shili sets.
And if you do that long enough, at some point each of your cells ends up moving in all directions, at instantaneous speed, simultaneously. And then of course, there is no motion at all, and total silence ensues. Which feels radically amazing.
The difference between qi flow and hunyuanli state is like the difference between a spoonful of yeast and the baked loaf of bread made from it.
But no matter what, the Prime Directive remains: Be Useful for Something! A difference which makes no difference is no difference!
And as to whether this hunyuanli is actually useful for anything - I'll have to update more on that later this month. I'll participate in a pushhands session with a lot of good and advanced people in attendance. Usually I'm good at PH. But I want to take this YQ/HYL stuff out for a road test, see if it makes any tangible difference or small improvement (hey I've only been YQ'ing for 6 very intensive weeks now!) where the rubber meets the pavement. I'll report back more on that.
