Welcome to Xing Yi Academy!
My name is Paul Andrews and this website has been a long time coming. We’ve been working really hard to create something special and it will only get better as it grows and we learn more about the technology and have more resources. The main thing though is that we weren’t prepared to compromise on quality, so when we originally thought we might have something ready for New Year 2015 and we were slightly disappointed to find we didn’t have everything we wanted to go live, but we didn’t want to put something up which wasn’t ready so we delayed and worked on things. Now we’ve got around to creating something which we think is acceptable, still not perfect but something we can begin to build upon.
So what is Xing Yi Academy all about ? The ultimate vision is to have a global community of people who want to practice and find out more about Xing Yi Quan, the martial, spiritual and health aspects, who want to share and collaborate. We think we can provide some focus for that. Also the values we have, we want to spread those throughout the Xing Yi world, focus on quality (in training, in presenting the arts, in ourselves), value (give more than people might expect, go the extra mile), reality and honesty (say it like it is, no hiding behind vague concepts) and hard work.
All of the above will come together from this place on the internet and through our members. We will provide regular information, blogs, emails, graphics, videos, ebooks, publications, courses, seminars and opportunities to train in lots of different ways.
This isn’t just a site which provides martial arts courses or classes online, we’ll provide a whole package so that you’re part of the Academy, a member not just a customer.
Sign up to become a Member for free and we’ll keep you informed of much of what we do. Once we have the membership stuff sorted out you’ll be able to subscribe to become an Associate Member and you’ll be able to progress through the Xing Yi Academy training syllabus and have access to exclusive material and discounts on products and events.
The online training will be unlike anything you’ve seen before too, it will roll out in lessons on a regular basis so that you have a progression. But once you’ve done a lesson you can access it again and again and check back for new content and updates. We’ll give you high quality HD video, photographs, text, diagrams, animations, and whatever else we might be able to create to get the teaching across. Plus we’ll keep updating the material in each lesson as we get chance to add more to it and answer questions from members. Everything thing will simply continue to grow and subscribing members will be able to go back and access everything.
Plus we’re not scared to get real! Xing Yi Academy will be the home to “Real Xing Yi” where we will show you how the traditional methods can be used in application, in combinations, in free fighting and sportive contexts, and in self defence.
We want to raise the bar higher than anything anyone else is currently doing, both martially but also in terms of how the material is presented and shared. If we are putting it out there, then there are no excuses any more for mediocre Xing Yi, we’re going to set the standard and hope that people will rise to meet it.
Waiting to see what cones
Just a smiling voiitsr here to share the love (:, btw great design. Everything should be made as simple as possible, but not one bit simpler. by Albert Einstein.
Me too.
Hi Paul,
I wish you all the best in your endevours.
As you say, there is too much mediocre Xing Yi Quan out there, especially within thw UK, where it ia so often tagged on to taijiquan training by people who have visually learnt the steps of the 5 fists in a days workshop, or from dvd/youtube then proceed to “teach” XYQ.
But Xing Yi Quan is a high repetition art, where true understanding comes not from learning the basic movements, but from discovering the feeling of the techniques. This comes from repeating them hundreds if not thousands of times. Hence the three levels of understanding associated with XYQ training that are so often quoted on websites and within the mass of low quality books available that simply regurgitate the same content in a newer and more colourful book cover.
Unfortunately like so many systems, XYQ is going through a popularity phase, which to me means that the general public standards of teaching and practice will decline, until it falls out of fashion and has ben turned into another soft art for people who can’t be bothered to learn TJQ.
This being said, I searched many years for a skilled Xing Yi Quan teacher, and spoke to or trained with just about every XYQ “teacher” in the uk whether western or asian, and found that there were no western teachers who could rise above the bullshit and guide me correctly along the XYQ path. While I did find a couple of Chinese masters with high level skills, they were reluctant, if not unwilling to show their true XYQ as they had experienced the decline in tjq standards and knew that once out xy would only weaken and dilute until it went the same way as Yang tjq, then Southern Wu Tjq and currently chen style also is being rapidally erroded into an arm waving exercise.
So I wish you well in your persuit of real XYQ and hope that you can raise the bar in standards within the uk.
My own Shifu came here years ago to share his knowledge, but his traditional training methods are not suitable for the rounds of workshops and seminars where people expect to “learn” the art in a couple of days.
Parhaps with a more modern approach you can achieve something that we could not.
Good luck in all that you do.
Colin
Hi,
have you a email to contact with you? I am sorry by my bad english.
Thank you very much…
Regards
Thanks for the support so far.
Colin, thanks for the post. I think that there has been somewhat of a misunderstanding in the west especially of what “traditional” martial arts training is and people expect silk robes and bowing to the “master” and performing flowery routines with Chinese calligraphy hung on the wall to be “traditional”. I think that like you have experienced, my teacher taught what I might like to think of as really traditional, outside, in the rain and snow, in a park, in a car park, on a train station platform (really) in the woods. Hard hitting, long tedious sessions, lots of hard work.
You’re right that most people don’t want this or just can’t allocate the time and effort to do this kind of training. Hopefully what I’m trying to build will be a compromise, where the student will get the highest quality material but it will be their own responsibility to do as much or as little as they like.
If I am able to teach even a small number of people to a high level of understanding then I will be happy to have passed on something of value. I wish you well in your continued training and hope you keep in touch, it is good to meet fellow Xing Yi enthusiasts especially in the UK