I like Sifu Rudy’s videos a lot. They all have a casual feel of just a few friends training in the park. In this one he demos beng quan.
The demo reminds me of wing chun’s chain punching. I’m not sure of the difference. I think it comes down to his comment where his knee drives where his elbow goes and the rotation of the waist. Slightly more turning where wing chun would be linear. I am guessing.
It’s very clear that Sifu Rudy’s six external harmonies are always there whereas the posture and connectedness of his student are not. The cameraman keeps saying “more santi” which seems right on. It’s very visible how that is the key, I think. The bit about the tiger’s mouth is interesting. He also shows a transition from crushing to drilling but I haven’t caught the how or why here yet.
July 28, 2008 at 8:38 am
I like Sifu Rudy’s approach to training in the park too. I think his presentation of Beng Chuan is very Wing Chun influenced though – he’s chaining them in a very circular action and quite percussively, just like Wing Chun does. There are other clips on the Internet where you see Beng done more like releasing an arrow with deeper penetration.
Not saying his way is wrong, but there are other variations you might like to view as well.
July 28, 2008 at 9:56 am
G, thanks. That is what I thought but wasn’t sure. As I understand it wing chun would not like the waist rotation or the elbow away from dead on center. I find a hybrid approach more interesting, though. Vertical + horizontal circles. I’ll keep looking at other clips of beng.
July 29, 2008 at 5:19 am
When looking at a martial art I always ask myself the question “What was this designed for?” In XingYi’s case it came from battlefield spear usage, so if you imagine that Beng was originally for thrusting with a very long and heavy spear that can give you hints as to how the move was originally designed and how it should be performed, even when done as a punch.
Of course, nobody has had to fight with heavy spears on battlefields for quite some time now, so things have evolved along many different lines into the myriad styles we have today.
July 29, 2008 at 8:55 am
Yes, that’s the only way I’ve been able to try to intuit what beng is about. I used a broom not a spear though, lol. I still find it confusing as an empty hand form. I think this theory of efficiency and overlapping skills from one simple movement breaks down a bit here vs. in, say, piquan. I suspect that’s one reason yiquan started incorporating boxing, which seems designed only for barehand efficiency. Different contexts. Just speculating.. Does it seem like this wing chun like approach seems to add a slight flavor of piquan? As I understand it, the rear hand comes slightly over the front one but not necessarily then downward.
July 30, 2008 at 10:12 am
Yes, I think the emphasis changed in Yi Quan – he threw out a lot of the redundant hangovers that were left from weapons training and changed the emphasis more towards barehand fighting. In a way that’s much more practical, but you risk losing that thing that made it what it was by taking the weapons considerations out of it.
Pi is rise and fall, but I don’t see any Pi flavour in Sifu Rudy’s Beng, like I said, it just looks Wing Chun-influenced. I’d be really surprised if Sifu Rudy has never trained any Wing Chin in the past.
In Beng the emphasis should be on expand and contract. When translating between weapons and barehand in XingYi both your hands represents the tip of the weapon, but you have to take into account that with a weapon like a spear there’s only one tip, and you have two hands, so the barehand version is done as if you have a spear in each hand, which would be physically impossible to do with the real thing, especially with a long and very heavy spear! Barehand you alternate the punches (thrusts) between the hands (the two weapon tips) – using a real spear you only thrust it with one hand, since you only have one tip. Same thing for sword, etc.. Unless of course you are doing double sword, or needles, where you have one in each hand, in which case its exactly like the barehand.
When holding a spear in left San Ti your right hand is on the very base of the spear, and your left on the haft grip (just like a normal San Ti position, but holding the spear between hands). When you thrust in beng (the expand part) you thrust your back right hand up to where your left hand is as you step forward (unlike barehand you don’t retract that left hand), so both hands are together, right on the base of the spear – you try and keep the whole spear parallel to the ground (very hard with a heavy spear, but it gives you maximum reach) then straight away retract it back to a San Ti position (the contract part) with accompanying step.
You’ll need to thrust that very heavy spear through armour the guy is wearing, so it needs power. A very long (12 foot or over) and heavy spear is recommended to get the right feeling, but very hard to come by, I just end up practicing with the heaviest thing I can find.
Hope that helps.
G
July 30, 2008 at 10:56 am
G, thanks. That helps a lot. The broom I tried the beng movement with was pretty light. I’ll try it out with something heavier later. Still, that gives me only a feeling for a spear-oriented beng. When I try an empty hand beng, I don’t have a good feel for it.. For the right hand, I think of it a little like taiji’s advance, parry, deflect, punch (the last bit) and that seems to help. When I try to add my left, I get confused. It’s hard not to think of it a little like wing chun as my hand wants to come slightly over the other one. Otherwise my right hand has to retract slightly to the right or just before the left comes out both of which create a slight gap instead of that redundant coverage of the centerline. It all also seems a little robotic. If I speed up, the timing doesn’t seem natural like with a jab-cross or the wing chun chaining. Well, I’m probably just not used to it. I’ll keep trying it.
July 30, 2008 at 4:36 pm
In barehand Beng the hands should cross over each other (on top or underneath depends on the style) in front of you on your centre line, with one advancing on the way to the punch and the other retreating to your hip. Hands very close together on the cross – they can even rub each other.
Other things that make it different to WC chain punching is that:
1) your retreating hand retreats all the way back to your hip, so its a longer movement than a chain punch.
2) you step forward on each punch – both feet must must move each time, on each punch. Time fist landing with your foot landing.
3) You rotate your waist left/right as you punch to generate power in the arms. No independent arm movements – it should all come from the body.
4) Fist movement is quite linear and flat. The fists go straight out, and straight back. WC Chain punching looks to me more like you make the pattern of a bicycle chain.
I’ve just been looking at youtube, and I can’t really find any clip that really gets it right (for me, that is, YMMV). This clip of Lou is good because he does it slow so you can see what he’s doing. He’s doing a beng, then a half-step beng, combination.
http://uk.youtube.com/watch?v=Ld3ek8i9pT4&feature=related
G
July 30, 2008 at 7:30 pm
Thanks a lot again, G. I watched his video and combined with your explanation it is becoming clearer for me. It still feels better with a long object but I suppose I can try to get used to it. I’m going to experiment going from long to shorter and shorter to empty hand and see how that feels.
Another one of my favorite teachers with lots of clips on youtube is whatisyournameya – in the first 2 minutes of this one, he talks about and demos why he thinks xingyi, bagua and taiji all have distinctive barehand moves due to different weapon origins:
http://uk.youtube.com/watch?v=LB4SSIZ5Rnc
Hmm. If I could access good weapons instruction from the big 3 ima I think I’d want to start with weapons and forget about barehand. I think having tried to learn in the reverse is more confusing. D’oh. Wish I had known that. Oh well. Thanks again. I’m off to experiment.
July 31, 2008 at 5:02 am
When it comes to XY I think, yes, absolutely it makes a lot more sense if you start with weapons. Sadly, weapon usage in Chinese Martial Arts has declined to the point where they’re just performance forms, rather than functional usage. Seem that the Filipeno arts and some Japanese arts did a lot better at keeping their weapons arts functional. You’ll be lucky to find anybody who can teach functional Chinese weapons, not just a bunch of athletic forms.
Whenever I see “XingYi sword” or “XingYi spear” forms, they just look like Wu Shu – i.e. very flowery, lots of jumping and spinning around, etc.. In fact, 5 Elements spear should be done in the same way as 5 Elements barehand – you don’t see people doing fancy spins and jumps in barehand XingYi, so why do they feel the need to do it when they have a weapon? Performance for show, it has to be.
In this day and age there’s no real reason to learn to fight with a spear or a sword, so I guess that accounts for a lot of the reason for their decline. XingYi is fundamentally a weapons art at heart though, so I think you need to investigate its weapons origins to really get a handle on it. Just my personal opinion of course 🙂
Re: Tai Chi. Seems to me that Tai Chi can be learned quite convincingly without weapons on the other hand – especially the Yang Lu Chan influenced lines, which have all undergone many changes, all making it more useful done barehand (kind of like what Yi Quan did with XingYi) – maybe the older Chen style could benefit more from the student also doing weapons, since some of the moves seem more weapons orientated?
Whatisyourname’s videos are quite good for what they are. I personally don’t like his views on martial arts though. Very close-minded. That really comes through in his interview – he’s almost angry and shouting out his opinions all the time as if they are the final word on the matter. He can be very rude to anyone who doesn’t hold his views on discussion boards too. His XingYi looks ok though, but it’s not the only way to do it, but sadly he thinks it is.
July 31, 2008 at 8:37 am
I don’t like the flowery either. I am attracted to xingyi because it seems the exact opposite. No nonsense simplicity and efficiency. One reason I’m more interested in weapons lately is improvised weapons seems better for self-defense. The other is the unexpected training crossover for empty hand and just the fascination of learning some body mechanics. I suppose even the flowery must give a cool benefit there.
I can’t readily find xingyi instruction but between XY and FMA, I tend to gravitate to XY. It seems easy to understand, superficially, and I assume it has better overlap with the other internal arts I’m interested in, though I really don’t know. I keep finding there are a lot of overlapping lessons in totally unexpected areas so that could be wrong. These days it’s easier to be 1 mile wide and 1 inch deep which has some pros in addition to the cons, so these connections are easier to see, now, I think.
July 31, 2008 at 10:19 am
Probably the best XingYi spear clip to be found is this one:
http://uk.youtube.com/watch?v=bzVyRzpe_dA
Video labels it as both “bagua spear” in the clip and “xingyi spear” in the description.
From SanTi he starts with the half-step beng with spear – holding it right out with both hands on the base of the haft, like I described. Does that twice, then does the low XingYi Dragon posture with the spear very nicely – you can see how that’s used for deflecting the opponent’s weapon to the side.
Unfortunately, he then starts going all over the place (maybe that’s the Bagua influence?), but overall not too bad. His footwork is good – he keeps moving with correct stepping, and he keeps the spear moving too. You can see how the barehand and the spear versions are the same.
I applaud your interest in XY weapons – there’s very few people interested in it anymore, so the more the merrier!
Sadly most XY spear ends up being something like this:
http://uk.youtube.com/watch?v=rx3PGIOLJ_A&feature=related
Notice that he completely stops doing XY footwork once he has the spear – just stands still and thrusts, then he starts twirling the thing like a baton! Oye Vey! Just promise me one thing – never do it like this? Thanks!
July 31, 2008 at 11:28 am
I’d just like to add that when I said the first guy’s footwork was “good”, he does have a bad habit of lifting the foot high and stamping for the sake of it. That should be avoided, but at least he is moving his feet, which is more than can be said for some.
July 31, 2008 at 8:29 pm
Haha I see what you mean. If I want to start twirling a spear I want to do that like Ray Park, the guy who plays Darth Maul, and try to start doing aerial tricks as well. Ha, if I could do that, I would. But maybe not in the middle of showing a xingyi set.
August 2, 2008 at 4:16 am
For twirly spear type stuff I’d recommend watching the Chinese gentleman in the second half of this clip:
He’s very, very good. Northern Shaolin I believe, and also the exact opposite of what XingYi spear should be like 🙂