Zhang Junfeng's Xingyiquan

[neijia_boxer]

Chicken/rooster, Tai bird, monkey and horse seem to be the xingyi shapes that are the heart of Zhang Junfeng xingyiquan. is that true?

[neijia_boxer]

sorry admin- i thought i posted this in main forum.

The reason why i ask is there is alot of video on youtube on this branch and later generations using what looks like, tai bird, horse, monkey and rooster.

some xingyi people have strengths in a particular animal that suits them. one of my teachers really only liked bear-eagle and beng the most.

[kenneth fish]

No.

The five elements are at the root of our xingyi.

I would not say that any one of the animals predominate. Each student may have their preferences - but master Zhang seemed to use all equally comfortably. I would say I saw five elements, alligator, tiger, and chicken used by him more frequently, but that is not an expression of emphasis in the system.

[XiaoXiong]

I think that this is certainly true of Luo Laoshrs disciples. Don't know so much about other groups descending from ZZF. Aarvo Tucker told my teacher that he all he (Aarvo) needed to fight was tai xing. Makes sense that Zhang would have used tuo and tiger a lot for fighting given his size and power, and chicken given his smoothness and range of motion.

One thing to consider is the striking similarities that occur between Gao Shi houtian bagua and zingyiquan animal training. Line 4 has a lot in common with monkey, line 7 has a form much like tai bird, line 3 has some horse-like things, line 2 can be like chicken and also has a version of tiger etc... So sometimes it's hard to pin down just what art or form best represents and application of a certain technique. It all starts to look/feel very much the same after a while.
J