Sifu learned from many great teachers, among them was grandmaster Han Xingyuan, one of the two “Han brothers” who learned from Yiquan Founder Wang Xiangzhai. The primary training method of Yiquan is Standing Meditation. Seemingly paradoxically, Standing can train strength without the traditional external methods such as lifting weights or punching bags.
There were times when I asked Sifu, “when someone does this, I don’t know what to do”, and he would say “you need to do more standing”. There is a saying, “Without Standing, there is no understanding”. The benefits of Standing is immense indeed.
There is a story of Ben Lo, who learned from Cheng Manching, stayed in the hospital bed for months and could only move one arm. So he continued his training by doing “Standing Meditation” (not a contradiction if you know the true meaning of Standing) with just one raised arm. He credited his power came from this period of training.
To me, this is the Yang side (as in Yin Yang, not Yang style per se) of the internal martial arts.
A natural question is, can people only practice Tai Chi without Standing practice develop these power, and… I do not know. All I know is that this system works for me. As Sifu said, “everyone needs to find their own happy medium” and I have found mine.
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