I first learned Xingyiquan in the mid-70's in a remote area of Taiwan. Small village, mountainous and jungle-y. We'd often walk up into surrounding hills and do the training in a clearing or broken down old temple yard, that kind of scene. It was a bit cooler at the higher elevations. He always carried a beatup traditional 大刀 just a habit from his nightmarish (to me) military past. Like an old machete basically. We did this for weeks til I'd learned some minimal basics, including what I always called 'Xingyi Quiet Standing'.
One day he chopped a couple of lengths of bamboo (tons of bamboo always around) and stripped all but one slanted branch from each. Then told me to hold the bamboo sticks such that the remaining single branches both jutted inward, from left and right. He pointed out that held in this way, the sticks made a kind of frame that allowed my hands to fit over them in almost exactly the shape as taught in the XYQ Quiet Standing pose, with index fingers extended, and he others folded around the main sticks (thumbs) and the jutting branches (fingers other than index fingers). It's actually not 100% the same because the thumb needs to curl just a little to hold the main sticks in place, and the wrists are not quite as flexed. But let's not quibble this awesome protocol.
It's too much trouble for most of us now to do the whole bamboo thing. But I later found that a clothes hanger, metal of plastic, does very well for this. I normally use platic as it has a 'feel' slightly closer to the bambo original, but either way. So then, you stand. But it's just very slightly more active than the 'exoteric' version of this practice. You try to very very slightly, 99% mentally, 'squeeze' the frame, the hanger in our case, with your hands. But NOT to achieve any dramatic physical effect. Please please do not overpower this drill, as I know all of us are tempted to do with everything. It's physically subtle but energetically awesome once you catch the drift.
The 'squeeze' (both long edge of the hanger and the forward slanting edges) with your hands feeling as though 'wanting to close' is merely a GESTURE to CUE THE ENERGY. The plastic hanger really gives the ideal feedback. You should feel the very slightest degree of soft 'give' in the frame, from your mostly mental but very very gently and partially physical 'closing'. But yes, you must feel just a touch of 'give' or compression in the physical frame of the hanger., feel that the frame is very softly pushing back.
If you have some basis in the foundational energy work (see book Advanced Xingyi Energetics) and the basic drills and techniques, you'll have some idea of how to 'use your mind to fill the gesture'. You'll feel the power surge up from the soles of your feet, through your legs (usual ARC thing, see book) and up into and infusing your torso, yes your head will very subtlely 'light up', that the yin branch just passing through, and then the big payoff - the re-unified yang and yin power streams will converage into your cestus (forearms, wrists, hands and fingers, conceived of as single power unit). Work with it. It's totally amazing while you are actually doing it, keep the current flowing as best you can for as long as you can. You'll lose the connection now and then, that's ok just reset it.
Then there's another layer of connection: at some point you'll hit escape velocity, which for this is a moment (and you'll feel this tangibly) when you suddenly realize there's something more than just the very very minor pushback pressure of the hanger frame - at a certain moment the energy itself will flow through the hanger, and your hands will be connected not only by the physical frame and very soft pushback pressure, but by the energy itself flowing through the hanger and joining itself and your two hands on each side into a single energetic flow (and thus you whole body sucked in to the single energy vortex). It's really interesting.
But the real payoff is when you then practice any techniques such as an XYQ Fist or Animal, or any kind of Tai Chi, Ba Gua or what have you. Then you'll understand why I've always harped so much on the idea of the cestus as a single distinguished power unit. People like to ask me "Since you say XYQ isn't really direct fighting, at least the way you teach it, then is there really any difference between your energy centric XYQ, supposedly rooted in martial arts tradition as you emphasize, compared to just regular Qi Gong standing, breathing and gentle arm waving, as taught all over the place?" If you work this way for a while you'll start to understand that there really is a difference. This kind of work powers the instant internal snap-surge that you deploy via the 5 Elements and 12 Animals, and when you really have those working you'll understand there's nothing in "regular qi gong" to remotely compare.