Toward professional Yiquan tournaments

For almost 100 years yiquan have been developing the training methods. Wang Xiangzhai said: „You should know, that studying science is not about following the rules written down, and you should avoid stictking to protecting some shortcomings and continuing wrong ways, but the stress should be put on experience and creativity”. So when he encountered western boxing, he noticed its practical and scientific aspects and bravely adopted part of it into yiquan.


Then Yao Zongxun was brave, creatively researching and developing yiquan training methods. He stressed that while learning yiquan, you should have contact with other martial arts, absorbing and using their valuable parts. You should not „look at the sky from a well” or „invent a car sitting in your house”. So Yao made a real connection between specific power and technical training of yiquan with training methods of modern sports. Training physical attributes and training methods of modern sports were included into yiquan training system. In 1980s a lot of experience was gathered during intensive training of the group of best practitioners. Apart of zhan zhuang and shi li type of training, also running, rope skipping, boxing bag and pads traning and fighting combinations training were necessary part of everyday practice.

From practical experience we already know that Yao's method was right. Training physical attributes increases stamina, giving basis for using a technique in repeated way. Pads and bag training helps to improve the right hitting technique. Using gloves and protectors makes possible hard hitting without causing injuries, this way enabling testing the actual fighting skill. All of this enriched yiquan training system and enhanced results of training. In the history of Chinese martial arts it was another revolutionary change. At that time Yao Zongxun's idea was to prove yiquan's power in free fighting tournaments.

Today, apart from cultivating health and achieving satisfaction from learning and understanding, it is important to cause yiquan move into the scene of fighting tournaments. Although Beijing Yiquan Study Association has made some steps and already organized some trials, so far proper competition and appriopriate system of training was not created. Actual development is depending on making right steps in right time. So now, in the time of market economy, the right way is professionalization of yiquan, and what is important is actual proving power in competing. We should not be afraid of being defeated. When you are defeated, you should get conclusions, learn and make next try, only this way you can become an seasoned professionallist. If you only exchange experience in small group ot people who also practice yiquan, and you are satisfied with such - not really confrontational meetings, this will be only kind of self deceiving. This way yiquan will change into a tiger in the zoo, and in fact it will be only a grandson of the real tiger.

This is true, that presently yiquan is in a very critical situation. We need to develop and we need to take into account many real problems. The Japanese already included zhan zhuang into kyokushin karate training. Muslim Salikhov from Russian defeated the best of Chinese sanda fighters. We cannot deny those facts. We need to know that others also make progress! And progress doesn't mean that you only move forward, but that you are absorbing what is useful - „the sea is great because it absorbs water of hundreds of rivers”.

As for establishing yiquan training system, creating proper competition system, so yiquan can still be yiquan, but all the time developing and becoming richer, following the development of the scene of combative sports, I think than all yiquan exponents need to think about it. Think about it and express your opinion. Maybe your „finger pointing to the Moon” will help us to see the actual „glow of the Moon”.

Author: Xie Yongguang (master Yao Chengguang's disciple)
Translation from Chinese: Andrzej Kalisz (master Yao Chengguang's disciple)