The boxing of heart and mind

In the universe of Chinese martial arts there are hundreds of different styles, but only three have
always been considered as internal: Taiji Quan, Bagua Zhang and Xing Yi Quan. Among these, the
most refined and practised thanks to its effectiveness in fighting is Xing Yi Quan. It’s not a case
that in ancient times, caravans guides were mostly masters of this martial art. Among these three
arts the most instinctive and direct is Xing Yi. Its primary aim is efficacy and efficiency in fighting,
but like Taiji and Bagua, it also has considerable effects on the psychophysical wellbeing. This is
why efficacy is the result, a spontaneous fruit, of a strong body in goods health.
Fruit which is not grown through the conscious and controlled imitation of animal nature. It is not a
matter of imitating the movements in a stereotyped way, but to develop through a process of
identification with their nature, the offensive power they are able to generate while they are
fighting.
The structure of the human body, despite of appearances, does not greatly differ from the animal
one, it is only differently located in the space. This different distribution brings about some
differences, but basically it does not modify the way to generate force and energy.
Like in animals, the propelling force of human being develops mainly from the hips-pelvis-column
system. It is the use of this integrated system and the proper trainings created during centuries to
develop its enormous potentialities, that make of Xing Yi one of the most powerful and efficacious
fighting systems ever known and this all without having to sacrifice your body to an ephemeral and
transitory efficacy, without wearing out your joints or burn your muscles with exhausting trainings,
but by imitating the supple movements of the snake to develop flexibility and elasticity, the eagle
flight to move light and quick, the bear walk to strike heavily or the monkey walk to strike with
deftness and agility.
Each animal shape, through a mental process of identification not only enables to grasp the animal
spirit we are imitating, but, and this is fundamental, to develop the natural and spontaneous
movement of the body in the space. In this way we can quickly change position like a sparrow in
the sky, to hedgehop like a swallow skimming the water or pounce heavy like a tiger on the dear.

This style of Xing Yi Quan, more precisely called - Xin (heart) Yi (mind) Liu (six) He (harmonies)
Quan (boxing) – The Boxing of heart and mind, of the six harmonies and of ten animals – differs
from other styles of Xing Yi thanks to one fundamental feature, called “the body of the dragon”,
that develops the torsion power of the body and the spiral force to the maximum extent. Unlike
commonly believed, that Xing Yi mainly acts on a right line, this style includes circular and evasive
movements similar, to be clear, to Bagua.
The dragon walk is like the walk in circle, but it develops along a winding track rather than circular.
On the whole there are thirteen different kinds of walks and many ways to change direction, giving
a big ability to change and adaptation, so to always be able to face the changing situations, full of
chaos of real fighting, where the unexpected is the rule and uncertainty rules. Another feature of this
style is its technical-stylistic essentiality.
Complex techniques are banned and the most devastating come from just a few, essential
movements of the body. Here lays the secret to become powerful. Not the study of countless
techniques, but the search and the development of fundamental features making the body powerful,
supple and agile like the one of a wild animal, mind lucid and calm like a tiger hunting, who knows
to patiently wait for the proper moment to attack and the spirit calm like an eagle flying, able to
grasp the smallest changes, the slight differences of the situation by a glimpse, so as to get the result
by the smallest effort and the maximum efficacy.

Another aspect making it interesting for practitioners is that, unlike Taiji and Bagua, it does not
require long times to be practically applicable. The secrets of this immediacy are: 1° you do not
spend a lot of time studying forms, but you concentrate on the work to increase the power and
attack the enemy in the most wild and instinctive possible way, 2° the powerful and clever work in

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pair that not only develops abilities such as agility, deftness and coordination, but also strengthens
the body parts getting in contact. Conditioning training involves not only the so called seven fists
(hand, elbow, shoulder, hip, knee, foot, head) but also other parts of the body thanks to specific Nei
Gong techniques both static and dynamic.
The whole body transforms into a deadly and flexible weapon hitting you while making you a
leverage, throwing you while hitting you, following you also in the ground wrestling and so on in
an operative adaptability out of fixed schemes. It is in this wild instinctivity and in the search for a
spontaneous and natural deftness similar to that of an animal, where the main differences of Xin Yi
Quan compared to Taiji and Bagua are to be found.
This implies a different use of Yi (intent or will of the mind) that here is mainly used to develop the
identifying ability with the spirit and the spontaneous being of the animal, rather than to act directly
on the movement of the internal energy (Qi).
This does not mean that this kind of work does not exist, it only remains in the backstage and is
obtained as indirect result of particular Qi Gong works, specific of this art.
The Xin Ji practitioner does not care for his Qi more than does a wild animal living in his natural
surroundings, his thought is focused on the awakening and handling of all those wild qualities that
we share with animals, such as for example the natural feline agility, which is something different
from the tame agility that you get by practising artistic gymnastics or modern Wu Shu. Between the
vaulting of an athlete in the rings and the lazy swinging of a monkey hanging from a branch there is
a big difference, like between a hurdler and a tiger pouncing on the prey. All martial arts, it is
obvious, develop agility, coordination, deftness, but just a few can equal Xin Yi in the natural and
spontaneous development of the body abilities.

Intelligence and instinct

These abilities are not absolutely to be regarded as simple evocative metaphors with no or little
connection to reality, but as true and real abilities developing with practise. They do not belong to
the realm of theories you always hear to talk about, but which nobody ever achieves, but to the real
and concrete realm of the to do, and as such everybody can achieve them. Everybody in this context
does not mean all, but that everybody is potentially predisposed to…. Like everybody, for example,
is predisposed to learn how to walk and if they want they can learn it so well as to do it in
tranquillity also on a cable suspended in the void, in the same way with the proper trainings we can
learn the spontaneous and instinctive attitude of animals. It is not a matter of creating in ourselves
something which does not exist, but to activate potentialities for which we are already predisposed,
and lying within us buried under debris of various kinds (fears, anxieties, moralism, excesses of
rationality, a.s.o.)
This predisposition to…., this potentiality is inborn in our nervous system, but our conscious will,
our way of reasoning, the vision we build about things, our pre-judices, in a few words, our mind
often distort, alter, stifle its correct operating but, for our luck, mother nature limits the interference
of the mind, and so these abilities can operate independently from our will. Not only we learn
without willing to do that, but also we do not know to know and the demonstration of this are all
those exceptional situations of danger which compel us to bring them out, in which we act without
thinking, without being aware of what we do.
Our mind with its presumption to know interposes between us and the natural body intelligence,
between us and our internal operative system, thus creating division and contrapositions that block
the spontaneous action or Wu Wei but, through an active and attentive practise we can take
conscience of it so as to activate its enormous potentialities, bypassing the contraposition between
mind and instinct, between heart and brain, among emotions and rationality, between the
intellectual and abstract to know of the mind and the direct and immediate to know of the body. Just
a few are aware of the specific differences of learning, this is why often, despite of the efforts made,
the spontaneity of action, the natural movements remain chimaeras, difficult to be reached. Just a
few know how and where to intervene.

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They think that the mental level is the only one, they ignore that there is an even deeper level on
which to act, our nervous system. On this level you act directly on the intelligence of the body,
exploiting a unique feature of the human nervous system, which is to be in an undifferentiated
potential state like the keyboard of a piano, predisposed for any kind of music you want to play:
jazz, classic or pop. It does not make differences between ability and ability, it does not work
finalized to develop this or that capability, but it is continuously predisposed to….

It works on what we can call fundamental or deep level. It does not care for the kind of music you
want to play, it is not interested if the gesture you are making is a karate or a kung fu technique, if
you are chopping wood by an axe or if you are striking a downward blow by a katana, if you are
walking on the border of a pavement or on the edge of a ravine, it cares about doing it in the most
proper way according to the received spurs. It does not worry in advance, but it takes care of the
state and of the equilibrium of your body, independently from what your eyes see and from what
your mind is thinking that you are doing. These are processes already of surface level, they are
considerations of the kind: ”I am walking on the edge of an armless pavement, there is no danger. I
am on the edge of a ravine, danger”. On the contrary our nervous system does not make projects,
does not plan, does not make representations of what could happen but, like the piano keyboard, it
continuously adapts its structure to the situation to ensure you survival, to give you the right rhythm
in action.
This distinction between situations of deep level (nervous system) and of surface level (mental
processes) is fundamental to be able to make the right thing, in the right way and in the right
moment. If you confuse the mental processes (emotions, thoughts, a.s.o.) with the operating of the
nervous system, you will never understand how to handle an emotion, how to avoid that a mental
prejudice blocks your potentialities, you will never understand where exactly to intervene and you
will never be able to create the harmony between the conscious will of the mind and the
spontaneous action of the spirit.
The limit is very often set by a distorted and/or reductive vision of things. It is in a few words in the
operating software (mental processes), it is in the not alignment, not in the capabilities of the
operating system (the nervous system).
This is what had been experimentally understood by the masters of the past, who elaborated and
created the ancient training methods to bypass the possible interference of the mind and align it to
the spontaneous action of the spirit. All martial arts in the past included these methods, but while
external arts in their search to competitive spirit almost fully lost them, internal arts thanks to their
inner nature, surely not thanks to the will of certain practitioners, kept them and in particular as far
as the practical and immediate efficacy in fighting is concerned, the internal art of Xin Yi Quan is
that, which most of all preserved them.

Flavio Daniele lives in Bologna (Italy) where he teaches Chinese martial arts (Chen and Yang style
Taiji Quan, Ten Animals Six Harmonies Xin Yi Quan, Lan Shou Quan) and mental and energetic
development disciplines (Qi Gong and Nei Gong).
M° Flavio Daniele has founded Nei Dan school with the main aim to develop, re-value and spread a
practise of internal martial arts, meant not only as simple practise of psycho-physical rebalance, but
also as real and true path of spiritual growth.
The school works under the guide and teaching of some of China’s biggest masters:
first of all M° Guo Ming (George) Xu for Taiji Chen Style and Xing-Yi, who is the school’s present
guide.
Flavio Daniele is the author of the books “The Three Ways of Tao”, “The Three Secret Powers of
Taiji Quan”, “The Ancient Form of Chen Style Taiji Quan”, “The Secret Power of the Body in
Martial Arts” and “Science, Tao and the Art of Fighting”. He is also author of a didactic video on
Taiji Yang style and videos on Nei Gong, the ancient exercises for the strengthening of the body-
mind system.