xing yi quan form of the month: chicken

xing yi quan form of the Month (2): chicken 鸡形

Why bother learning animal forms these days ?? They seem quaint and old-fashioned in the face of UFC, K-1, and other almost-full contact tournaments filled with brawlers and martial artists both (not many of whom I would like to face in the ring, mind you).

In xing yi quan (hsing I chuan) we have a set of 12 animal forms (10 in some systems). We are not meant to mimic the actual motions of animals, as in some other Chinese martial arts. Rather, we should find the essence of certain kinds of motions, and bring this essence into our fighting style.

Anyway, this month’s focus is the chicken in our class, so it will be so here in the blog as well.

Maybe the chicken not the first animal that comes to mind when thinking of awesome attacks and fierce fighting ability. But recent classes have helped me find many good principles in the motions of the chicken form. And hey, there is a tradition of having roosters fight each other, after all.

Movement names drawn from the chicken appear throughout the Chinese martial arts. Maybe the most common is Golden Cock Stands on One Leg, which seems to be obligatory in every tai ji quan form. Curiously, there are very few movements in which you stand one-legged in this xing yi quan form: a front heel kick, preceded by some rising knees (blocks?) as hands drive up the middle.

So what can we learn from the chicken? The upward wrist strikes in the opening sequence work nicely as blocks. What appears to be a punch under the left palm with the right fist is of course a block-counter combination. And the “chicken spreads its wings” move, about which I had doubts, works nicely as a strike to the opponent’s kua or inner hip/thigh/something joint, while blocking or grabbing and pulling across overhead. And so on. More than met my eye, anyhow.

Last month was the swallow (燕形), a bird even less known for its fighting abilities. Yet the form offered many insights into quick up/down changes and the like. This month the chicken. Next month? Who knows, there are several more birds in the xing yi quan flock.

xing yi quan's 12 animal forms (1) - the swallow

It started out as a very focused practice – just the 燕形, yan xing or swallow form, one of the 12 animal forms in xing yi quan. I got to feeling pretty good with the swallow, so I moved on to 鹞形, yao xing or sparrow hawk. That got me to thinking about 鸡形, the chicken, which had been my main theme for review a couple days back.

Then I realized how often birds figure in the 12 animal forms, so I moved on to the mysterious 骀形, or tai form. The form itself is simple. But the tai is one of the mythological creatures among the 12. After that, I moved into the eagle-bear combined form, 鹰熊合形.

Why the swallow? I have been focused on the 杂式捶 zashichui form for a couple days. I learned it on one rainy day just outside the tea house, under the overhanging roof, in tao ran ting park with Liu Jing Ru Laoshi. There was a sudden, massive rain storm as I rode across Beijing from my work at the Olympics to the park in the south of the city. By the time I arrived the rains had eased up but were still falling. It was the first and only time we took shelter under the roof during our lessons.

Zashichui incorporates motions from the swallow form – swooping low then rising high on one leg, soaring through the air and landing low again…running through those motions, I knew it was time to review the swallow form in its entirety.

My first practice of the new year, on the morning of January 1, focused on the nan quan form I will be demonstrating again in a week, and on the zashichui form. Tonight’s review session was the follow-up: the swallow, the sparrow hawk, and so on, through the five birds.

But why stop there? I had hot water in the thermos and a while before dinner. I worked on through all 12 animals, finishing with the monkey form (my namesake, having been born in the Year of the Monkey) just as dinner was served. The horse, snake, and the mythological tuo (鼍形)…and the tiger and dragon of course (the first ones we learned).

Tomorrow: more of the same but with more focus. But who knows – once you get started, it is hard to stop.

Photo: The bottle on the left is “Yanjing Pijiu” – Yanjing is an old / alternate name for Beijing and could be translated as swallow capital or swift capital. Beijing is (was) famous for the swallows / swifts which used to fly about everywhere before massive construction changed the landscape. The beer itself is a light lager and one of the best sellers in Asia.

Reading about the disappearing swifts (search for article at danwei.org) reminded me that Liu Laoshi told me a story about how he loved the swifts which used to be seen everywhere in Beijing. But their numbers have been so decimated that sightings of swifts sometimes make the news.

And another story. Two summers back, I met a friend for a long walk around the Forbidden City, there in the heart of Beijing. We admired a section of water (pond? moat?). She told me that when she was a young girl, people who lived in the neighborhood used to come ice skating when the water froze over. But, due to global warming, it has not frozen over for years. These stories got me thinking about why some martial arts traditions flourish and thrive, while others are lost. More on that at another time.