Hsing I 10 Animals

[fiercest tiger]

Hi,

Can you tell me what the 10 animals do for the system? WHY are they there are they more important then 5 elements etc?

FT

[xingyiman]

The animal forms train the Intention(mindset) of the practitioner. Some styles of Hsing-I contain 12 animal forms which are variations of one or more of the five element fists. They are just different ways of applying the five element techniques and/or are just extra miscellaneous techniques that stand on their own. If your talking about the Shanxi or Hebei branches of Hsing-I then the Five Element fists are the foundational techniques of the style, with the animal forms building off of them. In the Henan (which only has ten animal forms) the animal forms take more prominence and the five elements (I think) are only trained in spirit/intention. I hope this information is correct. Anyone can correct me if i'm wrong.

[Ian G.R.]

Henan (xinyi Liuhe Quan) has only ten animals and no elemental fist forms. the elementsl are expressed through the animals alone, some forms emphasize some elements more than others, e.g. tiger has a lot of forward chopping (metal), dragon has alot of rising and falling (metal and water).

[blooming lotus]

Originally posted by fiercest tiger
Hi,

Can you tell me what the 10 animals do for the system? WHY are they there are they more important then 5 elements etc?

FT

I have some information in my apartment that might be useful....I'll check it out andgrab it next time I come to the office...I might even have a link

[xingyiman]

Don't know if you've already done this but take a look at the information on this site and on the Xingyi sites it links to:


http://www.emptyflower.com/xingyiquan/index.html

[blooming lotus]

don't have the link...besides that would not conform to BL tradition....asked some folks locally though, and they say the elements are ways to execute from the animal positions and forms