On XingYi Dragon (Lung Xing)

Most people know XingYi Dragon (Long Xing) as the move where you rise up and drop down in a crossed legged low Pi Chuan posture. A lot of schools seem to use it as a warm up because it's incredibly cardiovascular if done repeatedly, although the jury is still out on whether this is any good for your knees - probably not!

Here's an example of a typical XingYi Dragon performance.

Alternatively, it's also done with a kick at the height of the jump:

They also talk about it as developing a kind of 'springy' power, but what does that mean? Here we're going to find out.

While the above method is the most common one, it's just one of the Dragon methods from XingYi, but there's a lot more to Long Xing than just this one move.

Image via Wikipedia

Luckily there are a few videos emerging on YouTube that show the wider-range of Dragon methods found in XingYi.

Have a look at the following video examples. I don't want to get into the detail of whether you like the way it's being done *, I just want to look at the breadth of practice methods here.

First of all we have this one:

Notice the high posture with the leg hooking action - standing on one leg, attacking with the arms/elbows while hooking the opponent's leg. What's that for? Well, XingYi applications videos tend to be as rare as hen's teeth, so we'll have to go outside the XingYi world to look for an explanation of that one.

While the following video isn't XingYi it provides some insights into how you would use that XingYi move in a grappling situation:

Of course, there are a few XingYi Dragon application videos around if you look hard enough - here's a video showing applications of a turn often found in Dragon links:

Here's a video of an application of the kick found in Dragon links:

There's also a lot of Dragon in the Kenny Gong clip that surfaced on YouTube recently.

So what's all this Dragon stuff for? Well, for a start Dragon is classed as one of the 6 fundamental animals of XingYi since it goes towards providing one of the six requirements that make up the San Ti Shi posture: Dragon Body (also translated as Dragon Back or Dragon Waist, depending on teacher).

Definitions of what Dragon Body is will vary between teacher (so check with your own if you want to know how it's applied in your lineage), but if you want to look at it as an 'across the board' concept then they all involve some sort of variation on the idea of twisting or coiling the spine.

Going back to an older branch of the XingYi family tree (Xin Yi Liu He), you can see the turning aspect of Dragon being emphasised in "Dragon hangs its arms"

Hopefully by now you won't be thinking of Dragon as a "posture" or a "move" anymore, and you'll be thinking about what that move is trying to point towards - the 'old finger pointing at the moon' trick.

If you look at traditional Chinese dragon paintings the dragons are quite different to the usual negative Western concept of fire-breathing dinosaurs (see Harry Potter, etc.), instead they are long, graceful, snake-like creatures embodying wisdom. Their spines coil around and around, and this is what is being sought in its use as imagery in XingYi. So, to go back to the idea of creating 'springy' energy I mentioned earlier, it's not springy energy in the legs you're looking for, but in the spine. In a sense the applications presented in XingYi for Dragon are secondary to developing this idea of this coiling power in the spine. If you can get that then you can generate 10,000 applications from it, which goes back to another XingYi maxim from the XingYi Classics: "1 root, 10,000 branches".

Image via Wikipedia

Now read Part 2.
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* The problem with videos is people often ignore the obvious and get bogged down in the detail - there's not enough dan tien rotation(tm) or spinal wave(tm) or their 3rd level heart chakra is closed, etc. Whatever. For the purposes of this discussion I'm not interested in that. I'm just looking at the variety of methods shown. Also, stylistic interpretations differ, and I've been over that before.