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Springing from Taoist and Buddhist techniques, Hsing-i is cooperative, not competitive; it emphasizes being and becoming rather than thinking and doing. But it requires discipline and much hard work. Because Hsing-i gets little media reinforcement, you must motivate and sustain yourself. Progress will be slower than in the external arts, but since the skill you achieve comes from your mind and your internal organs, it will be deeper and will last longer.

HISTORY AND MASTERS

Traditionally, it is taught that Hsing-i was created by a general of the Northern Sung dynasty (960-1 127) named Yueh Fei; and some even credit its genesis to Bodhidharma, the monk who brought Zen from India to China in the sixth century—neither of these claims can be substantiated. Both are the stuff of legend.

What is known with certainty is that a man named Chi Lung-feng is the earliest recorded father of the art, but we know very little about him save that he was from Shanghai, excelled in spear-play, and learned .Hsing-i in the Chung-nan mountains of Shansi province between 1637 and 1662 from a Taoist hermit. Chi's top two students, Ts'ao Chi-wu of Shansi and Ma Hsueh-li of Honan, spread the art to others through whom the teachings have come down to the present in two lines of unbroken succession. Honan, Hopei, and Shansi supplied most of the great teachers, among whom were: Li Neng-jan, Sung Shih-jung, Chang Chih-ch'eng, Ch'e I-chai, Kuo Yun-shen, Li Cheng, Li Ts'un-i, Shang Yun-hsiang, Wang Hsiang-chai, Sun Lu-t'ang, Ch'en P'an-ling, Chang Chun-feng, and Wang Shu-chin (Table 1). Ch'en P'an-ling studied the orthodox Hsing-i system taught in this book directly from the great Li Ts'un-i.