Xin Yi Liu He Ba Fa San Pan Shi Er Shi also known as Mind Intention Six Harmonies Eight Methods Three Stances Twelve Postures

Authored by Sifu Mark Small

Xin Yi Liu He Ba Fa also known as Water Boxing or Water Tai Chi, is an important internal Chinese martial art. Nomura  Akihiko writes of Luihebafa as the fourth internal art with a “vast amount of material” behind it’s development.  People are racing to uncover writings about Luihebafa’s nei jia or internal energy practices.  It is such a personalized practice filtered through countless individuals now lost to antiquity with some notoriety around figures associated with Nanjin’s Central Martial Academy of the 1950’s, particularly figures like Wu Yi Hui of Liaoning Province north of Beijing who at the turn of the century studied a number of internal styles as well as the famous figure Wang Xiang Zhai the founder of Yi Chuan.  Today’s Liuhebafa practitioners characterize it’s extensive number of techniques as having the fluidity of Taiji Chuan, the power-issuing of Xingyi Chuan, and the varying footwork of Bagua Zhang.  It’s easy to presume upon the essences of what we know these other three internal forms to be and gloss over the twelve animal drills, the lengthy repeated refinements of foundations (Zhu Ji) and neglect the manifold combat practices and influences of Taoist, Buddhist, and Confucian more etherial aspects attributed to the legendary figure Chen Xi Yi.

Generally the name Liuhebafa evolved from the older name of Hua Yue Xi Yi Men (the not seen and not heard methods from the Hua Mountains) that colloquially became known as Water Boxing.  This allusion to water is fitting due to its alterable states:  solid as ice, liquid, and gaseous.  These qualities or essences where formalized over time into the Six Harmonies and Eight Methods as set out below.  The blue print allusions to the “states” of water boxing are my student’s personal descriptions of the spirit of Liuhebafa that emerged in the sensibilities practicing over a period of years.  The solid, fluid, and gaseous states of Liuhebafa were nurtured more extensively through loosening ligament/bone connectivity during their lengthy and slow practices (song) and correct postures.  

Slowly nei jia or internal energy that uses something other than muscle manifest sensitivities embodying such classical principles as “opening and closing”, “rising and falling”, “stillness and active waiting”.  This last quality of nei jia is echoed in my student’s blue print description of how his mind combines with his intent —Awakening potential for the mind to explain what it doesn’t know.  Become the instrument of form anticipating flow.  Rising and falling is described in another student’s description of how Peng Jin (expanding) keeps (her) light on (her) toes.  Opening and closing is described by yet another student as,Your upper and lower dan tian facilitate spiraling through your shoulders and hips (root), elbows and forearms (branches), wrists and hands (leaves).  

Liuhebafa is a very personalized internal training regime based upon classical principles that remain its foundation while transcended in practice but yet always come back to affirm classical principles.  Slow and steady wins the race of time accomplishment in this style of kung fu.  

Mind Intention–focus your intention to lead your movements.  At the connecting points of different postures, although physical strength appears to be momentarily disconnected, one’s intention connects the postures.   Keep your movements circular and flowing and fast changing in response to circumstances.  Lift the crown of your head and drop your sacrum.  Transition smoothly, connecting varying low and high directions.  Use Silk Reeling (Chansigong) to alternately open and close, rise and sink, and spiral forward and backward, like water of a river flowing forward without stopping.  

When one part of your body is still, your whole body is still and conversely when anything moves, everything moves.  (I dung quan dung)  Maintain the “Six Harmonies” listed below expressing hard, soft, spinning, rotating, whipping, pinning, hooking, sinking and, shaking energies (jin).  Both block and attack by opening and/or closing your upper, lower, and middle energy centers (dan tian) to store and discharge, slow down and speed up, and empty out and fill in circles (Huan) that both extend out and withdraw.  Alternate relaxed and tight movements in shaping the correct external postures. Then slowly learn the internal energy movement so that you gradually master the Six Harmonies and Eight Methods.  

Six Harmonies – the body and heart/mind, heart/mind and intent, intent and QI/energy, qi/energy and spirit, spirit and movement, and movement and emptiness.  Emptiness (wuji) is, a void state —a quiet motionless state achieved when one’s movement follows your body’s automatic reaction to a specific circumstance. Awakening potential for the mind to explain what it doesn’t know.  Position you body mass avoiding double weighting in your legs with the feeling of emptying and filling a glass of water.  

Your body combines with your mind.  The first level is kinetic awareness, learning to move your body through space with precision and control.  Know the choreography well anticipating changes in balance and directionality.

Your mind combines with your intent.  Here the form becomes an exercise of intent and will. Every movement has purpose and focus that stimulates your mental and physical inner strength. Become the instrument of form anticipating flow.

Your intent combines with your qi, At this level your qi amplifies, enhancing internal forces  (jin) inside your movements and throughout your body including your internal organs and skin.  Validate the existence of various jin energies and then leave them behind.  Feel a vascular flush.  Don’t focus solely upon your qi circulation.

Your qi combines with your spirit (Shen).  In Daoist belief, your spirit is the intermediary between your soul and the Dao. As your life force of qi is united with your spirit, a palpable feeling tone manifests lending you clarity and focus. Merging your internal energies comes from linking various energy centers.

Your spirit combines with your movements.  Here your spirit begins to be truly expressed through your physical movements.  Unique expressions of your true self imbue each Water Boxing movement –something beyond merely mastering the postures. Your “spiraling curriculum” —spirited expressions of intangibles.

Your movements combine with emptiness – When your movements combine with emptiness (wuji), there is no separation of you and the present moment – dualities of stimulus-response do not exist.  Breath permeates your body in effortless merging of unfiltered energy strands —currents of water intermingling like strands in a river delta.

Eight Methods – eight internal and eight external that are not sequential and are used constantly throughout your practice.

Externally:

1) Rising and falling  Peng jin (expanding) keeps you light on your feet.

2) Moving and stillness  Incrementally vary your pacing at different rates in different areas of your body.

3) Advancing and retreating  Retrograde initiatives are not arbitrary —anticipate (intention) before initiating reaction to imagined or real force vectors.

4) Opening and closing Your upper and lower dantian facilitate spiraling through your shoulders and hips (root), elbows and forearms (branches), wrists and hands (leaves). 

5) Yin and yang You are urged to expansively feel for harmonizing yin and yang beyond a mere 50/50 balancing within and between a myriad of points inside your body in smaller and smaller increments, at deeper and deeper levels.

6) Empty and full Practice “falling into void” with either a heavy or light feeling tone associated with your varied pacing, as in #2 above.

7) Jumping and bridging  Closing the gap between you and your opponent from core to distal and/or distal to core energy flow when connecting with an imagined or real opponent, as in #4 above.

8) Combining the six harmonies  Balancing body/mind/spirit begins with your body sensing space, then with time link your breathe to that space in order then to realize your mind intention for amplifying your qi prompting, then, various spirited jing energies manifesting a unified field of energetics.

Internally:

1.  Chi/Qi – Your mind leads your qi energy.  Your open focus/expansive mind allows qi to be cultivated and amplified deep into your bones —can’t force it.

2.  Bone/Gu – Collect energy in your bones to harden and condition them, stimulating white blood cell production in the bone marrow. Strive to feel how dense (heavy) is your relaxed body when loosening your muscles (Song).

3.  Shape/Xing — Form practice along with some animal forms impacts how qi flows. Imitate/impersonate animal-like attentiveness, if only for an instance in your forms practices and notice the feeling tone for both qi and jing.

4.  Follow/Sui — On one hand follow your opponents’ movements and on the other hand, learn to follow your flow of energy. Connect to your opponent (imagined or otherwise) “investing in loss” —yielding to discern their coming and going as distinctly different than  your own coming and going.

5.  Lift/Ti — Raise your head to lengthen your neck and spine to have a floating feeling and improve your posture and balance. Manifestexpansive energy (peng jin) as a first step in your practice and sustain it as a measure of enhancing your skeletal integrity.

6.  Return/Huan — The literal translation of this instruction is: “to go and come, to reverse and to alternate.”  It has many meanings: to return the qi to the dan tian, to deflect and return a partner’s energy, continuous changing movement and repeated practice of the form. Alternate from predisposed leading to responsive following in attempts to repeatedly realize anew all conceivable dualisms.

7.  Restrain/Le — “Suspend, cease, or maintain stasis.”  It means to preserve your strength and to avoid conflict.  Remain calm and focused.

Find yourself manifesting a continuous state of harmonious non-action (Wuwei/Wuji).

8.  Conceal/Fu — Conceal yourself hiding your intention while looking for an opening when you need it.

   Become as a photon impacted as a stream of energy as well as a burst of energy that disappear reappear before your opponent. 

Three Stances – in high stances you walk fast as if you were chasing the wind; in middle stances you move like a swimming dragon; and in your low stance, you are very strong and expressing internal strength.

Twelve Affiliated Animal Postures 1. Dragon, 2. Phoenix, 3. Tiger, 4.Crane, 5. Leopard, 6. Ape, 7. Bear, 8. Goose, 9. Snake, 10. Hawk, 11. Roc, 12. Qilin.  The energy movement of Liu He Ba Fa is very complex.  The important aspect of Liu He Ba Fa is to focus on intention rather than on physical strength or your preference for one posture over another.  One’s mind, intention, spirit and qi should coordinate with your spirited bodily movements.  When one part of your body moves, your whole body is set into smaller and small “spheres” of discriminating motion.  

About the Author:

Mark Small is a 5th generation Yang Family Shifu out of the Choy Kam-man Academy, San Francisco, a 1st generation Chung level Ling Yun Pai disciple of Grandmaster Chen Yun-Ching of the Chen Pan-ling International Martial Arts Association (ROC), and a 4th degree Black Sash master in the tradition of Grandmaster Liang Shou-yu’s Wuji Xiaoyao Pai through the International Wushu San Shou Dao Association of Vancouver, Canada. He is a member of the U. S. Kuoshu Federation (USKSF) and a board member of the Carolina Association of Chinese Martial Artists (CACMA). Along with his students, he is a past gold medalists in internal and external forms and push hands competition.  

Mark discovered taijiquan in 1958 as a child actor but began serious practice as a teenager, always preferring Neijia, internal practices over hard styles of gong fu.  For over 45 years he sought out teachers and diversified his Chinese martial arts with these prominently masters:   Colonel Y.W. Chang – Chen Pan Ling Taiji, Grandmasters’ Chang Tung-Sheng – Shaijiao, Dr. Yang Jwing-Ming and Huang Chien-Liang – Qin Na, Henry Look – Yi Quan, Chan Pui – Wah Lum Gong Fu, Masters’ Jou Tsung-Hwa – Chen Taiji, Madam Wang Ju-Rong and Master Nick Gracenin- swords, Masters’ Ben Lo, Abraham Lu, William C. C. Chen, Peter Ralston, Sam Masich, George Xu, and Alan Ludmer – Tui Shou, Yang Yang – Chansigong, Daniel Weng & John Wang- Shuaijiao, Wu Wen-Ching and Wei-Lun Huang – Yang Taiji, Adam Hsu and Grace Wu – Bajiquan, and Thomas Lussier – Liuhebafa.

Mark backed his way into Xingyi and Bagua by practicing Chen Pan Ling’s 99 posture Taijiquan —the signature style of his Long Shan Gong Fu School based in Asheville, North Carolina.  His book: Taiji, Xingyi, Baguaquan Throwing By Way of Our Modern Masters was published in 2011.  Prior to that he published articles on Qigong/Neigong in T’ai Chi and Qi Magazines.