Gymnastics 149
centuries), some quan styles incorporated aspects of daoyin. The integration
was accelerated with the appearance of Shaolin Quan and Taiji Quan in the
last decades of the Ming and the early Qing (the seventeenth century), and it
reached maturity in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries, by which time
most bare-handed styles were colored by therapeutic and religious hues. One
indication is the prevalence in Qing literature of the term “internal strength”
(neili), which was sought by the “internal techniques” (neigong) of breathing,
meditation, and energy circulation. Wang Zuyuan’s handbook, for example, is
titled Illustrated Exposition of Internal Techniques, and in his preface to the Shao-
lin manual Hand Combat Classic (1784), Cao Huandou explains that “the sub-
tlety of the method’s application depends entirely on internal strength.”^31
A triple synthesis of religion, healing, and fighting is first attested in late
Ming sources. The earliest extant handbook that integrates daoyin and quan is
the Sinews Transformation Classic (Yijin jing), which as we will see below likely
dates from 1624. The manual advocates the dual goal of martial excellence
and religious transcendence, which it articulates mostly in terms of Daoist im-
mortality. The treatises that followed it were not necessarily as explicit in their
Daoist orientation. Nevertheless, most did incorporate at least some aspects of
daoyin. We may mention Huang Baijia’s Internal School Fist Method (1676); the
two Qing manuals of the Shaolin style Hand Combat Classic and Xuanji’s Acu-
puncture Points (which probably derive from a common seventeenth-century
source); Chang Naizhou’s (fl. 1740) military writings; the eighteenth-century
Xingyi Quan handbook Mind-and-Intent Six-Harmonies Fist; and the various
Qing classics of Taiji Quan.
Breathing and qi-circulation techniques figure in most manuals. This as-
pect of the daoyin tradition was probably integrated with some bare-handed
fighting styles as early as the Ming. A hint is provided by Tang Shunzhi’s
(1507–1560) “Song of the Emei Monk’s Fist.” “His breathing imperceptible,
guarding his primordial qi” (bixi wusheng shenqi shou).^32 In the ensuing mar-
tial literature of the Qing period “qi cultivation” (lianqi) became a key term.
The eighteenth-century Cao Huandou claimed to have mastered it following
a dream revelation: “I pondered it strenuously, until suddenly I dreamt that
two old men explained it to me.... My body grew suppler and my hands be-
came livelier. My mind grasped the subtlety of ‘qi cultivation’”^33 Chang Nai-
zhou (fl. 1740) described the sensation of the flowing qi as an epiphany: “It is
like being startled in a dream, suddenly realizing the Dao, experiencing an
unexpected burning sensation on the skin, cold creeping up and causing a
shiver, or suddenly thinking of a certain scene. The true qi, so turbulent and
dense, is like thunder and lightning suddenly striking or smoke and flames
from a fire.... The qi issues like the discharge of a cannon or a bolt from a
crossbow, striking with a sudden impact.”^34
Qing manuals of fighting were steeped in the vocabulary of qi circula-
tion. Successful masters were those who mustered their internal energy and
channeled it to the proper action. “Making strong contact and being a fierce