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.

za shi chui

ZA SHI CHUI 杂式捶
August 14-15, 2008

Seventh practice with Liu Laoshi today. And I got damn lucky with the weather and the work schedule. It was a long day, pushing 15 hours with transportation time included. But in the middle of it I had a five-hour break. Liu Laoshi is waiting for a call from me each day regarding my availability for night practice. I am extremely grateful for his flexibility in working with my schedule. Especially on days like today, when I call him in the late morning and ask whether he is available for afternoon practice. He is. I am out the door.

And into the rain. Just a few drips when I walk out, but there are great rolls of nasty-looking grey clouds not far away. People are running about and backup generators are being fired up on orders from above, meaning things could be bad.

By now everyone is familiar with Beijing’s efforts at weather manipulation, firing rockets into the sky at all hours. The main goal was to prevent rain during the opening ceremony, and that was accomplished. But the thing is, that rain has to come down sometime.

And down it came, at least waiting until after I had gotten on a bus. Beijing is a massive, sprawling city and it is famous for having heavy rain in one area and rainless skies in another (it is not a city famous for clear skies, ever). Pushing meteorology to the limit, Beijing has been issuing separate weather reports for Olympic venues in different areas within the city. But this was not necessary as I moved south across the city – there was heavy rain everywhere.

One bus- subway- taxi commute later, I arrived at Tao Ran Ting park. The rain was still falling, but not quite so heavily. I had been going on sheer faith, hoping that Liu Laoshi had in fact ventured out into the rain. In our morning phone call, we had not discsussed the possibility of rain. Nor had I thought until then about whether he would be willing to teach in the rain.

No problem, no problem, as I often hear over here. I found him sipping tea under the roof of his usual teahouse. After the usual chatting and sipping, we got started right there, among the twenty-some people who were still seeking shelter from the rain. Space was cleared for us and off we went.

Fortunately, xing yi quan 形意拳 is characterized by forward movements along a mostly straight line, unlike some of the more flamboyant forms (long fist 长拳 comes to mind) which feature running and jumping all about.

We started with review – up and down the floor with the five basic fists. I could not get the piquan 劈拳 strike right (a recurring phenomenon these days), though I got his nod pretty quickly on the other four basic strikes. Several of those standing about were idly mimicking the motions and commenting on the foreigner in their midst.

After a while we sat down for another sip of tea but before it was sipped, he said “za shi chui” and we got right back up and into it. Enough of the review – on to the new. Za Shi Chui is a neat, compact form, easy to learn because it uses many familiar motions from other xing yi routines (yet without crossover problems). The new motions are straightforward and flow well.

So, for all my weather-related worries, it turned out to be an extremely productive afternoon. It was still raining as I walked out of the park toward the bus stop, but the rain felt good, and the break from days of heat and humidity added to my comfort. True, I was going back to work, but that was a long bus ride away, and my mind was filled with the excitement of plunging into a new form, one more piece of the puzzle which forms this particular martial art.