perspectives, described in similarly broad terminology. The discourse of
qiweighs heavily on these styles, providing both a connection to Chinese
philosophy and medicine and a layer of vague spirituality. External or hard
form styles usually shun amorphous discussions ofqiin favor of clear
demonstrations of combat effectiveness.^16
Xingyi style, which is widely known in China, claims descent from a late
Ming–early Qing martial artist named Ji Longfeng. Li’s art grew out of, or
was originally called, Six Harmonies Boxing (liuhequan). He was famous
for his spearfighting techniques, and by one account he transformed these
techniques into a boxing style. Li justified this on the notion that spear
fighting was appropriate for times of turmoil like those he experienced
during the Qing conquest, but boxing was more appropriate for defense
during peacetime.^17 His students and their students spread Li’s art as
Xingyi (some say in early incarnations it may have been Xinyi) into
Shanxi, Henan, and Hebei provinces. Considerable variation developed
among the different branches.
Bagua style, which is also well known in China, isfirst mentioned in 1774
by a Qing government official who noted that it was practiced by the common
people, but its origins are otherwise obscure. Similarly, Plum Blossom Boxing
梅花拳isfirst mentioned in a government document in 1813 , though it lists a
lineage of teachers of the art going back to the Kangxi emperor’sreign.^18 Also
like Bagua and Xingyi, Plum Blossom Boxing is currently practiced in China
in many provinces with a great number of variations. Indeed, the enormous
variation within Plum Blossom Boxing along with its lack of even a vaguely
historical founder argues that its nametraveled further than any particular
practice. This is to say that many local styles subsumed themselves under the
rubric of Plum Blossom Boxing when it became famous at the beginning of
the twentieth century. Plum Blossom Boxing is perhaps most significant for its
association with the Boxer Rebellion.
Rebellions
One of the peculiar aspects of rebellions or uprisings during the Qing
Dynasty was their frequent association with religion or other spiritual
beliefs. Why this was so has never been fully explained, but it has engen-
dered a strong association in the communist government of China between
religion and rebellion. And since one of thefirst acts of any group planning
to resist government authority is to train in the martial arts, the Qing
government (and the communist government) was extremely sensitive to
the mixing of religion and martial arts. Rebellion, religiously motivated or
208 The Qing Dynasty