Li Style Soft Body Xingyi Quan

What we call Li Style Soft Body Xingyi Quan is the particular method taught by Li Runxi of Shanxi Province, China. He is the son of renowned xingyi master Li Guichang of whom Vince Black was a disciple. Li Laoshi is a NATSTA senior advisor and he has himself taken a number of disciples from among Vince’s students.

Li Guichang was respected everywhere for the softness and power of his xingyi and taiji as well as for his high moral character. In typical fashion, he immediately recognized a fellow spirit in Vince Black and transmitted to him not only his xingyi, but also his perspective on the philosophy and moral thought that supported his practice. For Vince, witnessing the subtlety of Master Li’s power and the wisdom of his thought process was a life changing experience.

After Master Li’s passing and following his personal directives, Vince made special efforts to connect with Li Runxi and to send students from the Tang Shou Tao to train with him. Li Laoshi’s transmission is simple and direct, his expression of xingyi is the result of a lifetime of quiet and dedicated practice. His straight-forward honesty never fails to touch the people lucky enough to study with him.

Li Guichang

Li Guichang’s accomplishment in xingyi was by all accounts profound. He himself said that, Though the peony tree turns blood red with blossums Only a few fruit will fall from the tree. Even though the mountain is infinitely immense Only a handful of gold can be found there. Although there are thousands of xingyi practitioners There are only a few true teachers

Live well, eat well, train well

Li Runxi and his wife Hao live a rural lifestyle closely connected to nature, his house surrounded by cultivated fields and farm yards. When visiting him it is not uncommon to find his courtyard covered in the drying harvest or for him to offer you food grown in his families fields. This simplicity seems to connect him directly to the history of xingyi and the practitioners of the past. It seems to inform all of his practice. His motto, live well, eat well, train well is at the heart of his method and it is this as much as the forms or the drills that he teaches his American students.

Neigong

The forms of Li Laoshi’s xingyi are quite simple, the standard wu xing and twelve animals are parred down to their essence. Yet the exercices he uses to explain and inform the outward movements connect us directly the roots of the art. Through demonstration and example the student is led along the rigorous paths of internal skill.

Weapons

Surprisingly after the simplicity of the empty hand forms the weapons forms of Soft Body Xingyi Quan are intricately complex. The spear work is stressed and connects us again to the roots of xingyi practice, the sword is used to directly express the mechanics of the empty hand forms and the “comprehensive” whipstick is practically a system in itself.

The North American Tang Shou Tao Association is a 501c3 organization dedicated to the research and cultivation of internal Chinese martial arts and medicine.