Tai Chi and Hsing-I Forms

I have heard of many Xingyi forms being compared to Tai Chi forms. For instance, I've heard Pi Chuan (Metal form) compared An (Push Downward) and Tsuan Chuan (Water form) compared to Tai Chi's Ward Off. I've heard Xingyi's Water Lizard (Tow Xing) form compared to Waving Hands like Clouds in Tai Chi, as well as Xingyi's Tiger Form (Hu Xing) being seen as similar to Tai Chi's Step Foward and Push. It also seems to me that Tai Chi Snake creeps down is very similar to Xingyi Swallow Form (Yan Xing). What do you guys think of these comparisons? What other comparisons would you make between specific Tai Chi and Xingyi forms?

I agree with many of the comparisons. Also, the Tai Chi movement called "Wind Through the Ears" (I don't know if that's the english name for it) is the same movement as the first step in the Tiger form of my style of Xing Yi (see the Tiger form walkthrough on EmptyFlower); the only difference is that the Tai Chi movement is a forward movement, while the Xingyi movement is a step back.

The jings between the different branches of Taijiquan and that of Xingyi could not be any more different.

The moves look slightly similar in static postures, but the way one utilizes the moves in combat is totally different.

Also, PiChuan (Splitting) is similar in principal to ikkyo udo, a primary technique involved in aikido. The principal of cutting like and axe (or sword).

The application of the Wuxing/Five phases to various aspects of the martial arts is sometimes useful and sometimes mearly arbitrary. Folk modelling of the Wuxing has led to some obscurity as well.

We will often see something like "metal is splitting because it is like an axe." This anology is so crude so as to lose the actual implication of metal in the Wuxing. So I guess we ned to look at what we are talking about.

Rather than the crude anaologies often used to point at the Wuxing lets try a more energetic model. Lets begin with Earth, which is the beginning and end of the cycle. Imagine a space full of matter, where the matter is so evenly distributed that there is equal density throughout. There is no differentiation between any one place from another. This is the still place. It is the result of all other transformations. Like the result of composting, where various kinds of matter all end up as soil.

If there is any change within this space of equal density throughout there will be some kind of compression. Some place where the density increases. Even if a space of low density is made, it happens because somewhere else matter has been pushed together and so density increases. This formation of density is the energy of coalescence or forming-into. A dense shape is formed and begins to sink. The energy of metal is the energy of becoming a shape, and that shape settling in by the force of gravity.

Should we follow this dense shape as it sinks through our hypothetical space there will come a point where the energy of sinking is greater than the energy coalescence. This is the point where we begin to look at the falling energy of water. Water descends, flowing around any obstacles, yet it never stops until it is at the bottom. (This is in line with the second law of thermodynamics, energy runs down) Once we are at the bottom we are essentially stuck.

So water energy has taken us down to the base level of our space. What else can happen? It is only the force of life that takes us to a new stage. Life exists in "negentropy" a state where we prevent entropy by means of taking in energy from external sources through food, breath and other forms of absorption. Life strives to go from the base level towards the light, or towards the food. Life sinks a root to push off of and thrusts the photoreceptive end towards the sun. Wood is this directed thrust, from a root to a target.

Imagine the energy of wood within our space, its root on the base level and its crown reaching to the top level. At the point that wood has striven to its natural extent it releases in the centre, where it is the weakest, and begins to expand in all directions. The opening and expanding energy is the energy if fire. Fire expands until it reaches the furthest extent of the space and so leaves the space full of equal density behind it. This is earth, where we began.

This is a model of the Sheng, or generative, cycle of the Wuxing. If we consider the Ke, or controlling, cycle of the Wuxing we can see that, for example, metal controls wood. Not because axes chop down trees, rather because sinking density along an axis of intent breaks the connection between the root and the target and so disables the completion of the energy. So Bengquan is a powerful and strongly intentional driving hit, out of the root towards the target. Piquan is a tearing split that attacks the line of Bengquan, breaking open its force.

I would say that Five Phase Xingyiquan is the style that most exemplifies these principles within individual drills. I feel that the application of Wuxing theory to Taijiquan is later and has less articulate results. Although the Wubu, or Five Steps, does make sense in terms of the Wuxing, but that is a very big topic.

Being an experienced practitioner of Yang and Chen styles of Taijiquan, as well as Hebei Xingyiquan and Xinyi Liuhequan, it is my feeling that while there are places where energies or applications cross paths between Taiji and Xingyi, overall the actual energetics play out differently on the interior.