On XingYi Dragon (Lung Xing), Part 2

There's more to the Dragon Xing in XingYi than I posted in my previous article. That was about the physical aspect and how the Dragon helps to make up the fundamental San Ti Shi posture of XingYi. Dragon in XingYi does relate to the mind too - its has a kind of 'spiritual' quality that goes along with the phrase that has been passed down from XingYi teacher to student - "the human spirit wants to rise up" - that is, to seek our most noble nature, ascending beyond our animal nature. Finding out what it means to be a human being. Notice that a lot of the Dragon moves in XingYi have this kind of 'rising' quality to them, expressed in a physical way.

Image via Wikipedia

Uniquely amongst XingYi animals, the dragon is mythical. (Yes, I know many people translate Tai Xing as "Phoenix", which would be a mythical beast, but that's because Tai is a word that's fallen out of use in modern Chinese, or alternatively was a local Chinese colloquialism). It's actually a real bird native to China, not a mythical creature. Of course, if your teacher maintains it's a phoenix then either nod and say yes, or ignore me :)

General Yue Fei, the historical military general and founder of XingYi (according to oral tradition), was famed for being noble, patriotic and righteous. He had the Dragon as his family emblem. Perhaps this is its true meaning in XingYi? If so, then the use of the Dragon in XingYi would represent the embodiment of the same sort of spiritual and moral values - a lot of the same values we associate with "knights of old" in the West (think of the legend of Arthur and Camelot).

Image via Wikipedia

Either way, there has always been a strong connection between the Dragon and the imperial throne in China. From the article here:

"To the Chinese, the Imperial Dragon or Lung, is considered to be the primary of four benevolent spiritual animals, the other three being the phoenix, the unicorn and the tortoise. Having unrivaled wizdom and power the dragon symbolized the Emperors of China themselves, who were actually called dragons. Hsi, China's first emperor, was said to have a dragon's tail. Shen Nung, his successor was supposed to have been fathered by a dragon. The Chinese Emperor sat on a dragon throne, rode in a dragon boat and slept in a dragon bed. To distinguish the chinese imperial dragon from all other dragons, only the Imprial Dragon bore five claws."

This points to the idea of the Dragon representing the perfected man. The ultimate wise and powerful ruler. Man at his best.

In contrast, here's a man at his worst - me when I've just woken up doing my early morning XingYi wake up routine! There's a bit of Dragon in here.