Wang Xiangzhai (王薌齋, c. 1885–1963) — the man who threw out the forms

Wang Xiangzhai (王薌齋 / Wáng Xiāngzhāi, c. 1885–1963) was the radical reformer of the internal arts — founder of 意拳 (Yiquan, "intention boxing"), later renamed 大成拳 (Dachengquan) — who discarded fixed forms entirely and rebuilt boxing around standing-post, intention, and felt force. The most influential, and the most controversial, of the 20th-century internal-arts modernisers.

Life

Born in 深縣 (Shen County), Hebei — the same county as Li Cunyi. His birth year is genuinely unsettled (sources give 1885, 1886, or 1890); he died in Tianjin in 1963.

After years travelling China to cross hands with masters of every style, Wang formulated Yiquan in the 1920s, and around 1940 a student renamed it Dachengquan, "the boxing of great achievement."

The doctrine — no forms

Wang's break was total: he rejected the fixed routines (套路) that organise nearly every Chinese art, holding that they trained shape without substance. In their place he put principle and feeling, built in a strict order:

• 站樁 (zhan zhuang) — the standing post — as the foundation of everything;

• 試力 (shi li) — "testing strength," moving the standing-quality through slow motion;

• 推手 (push hands) and 發力 (fa li) — issuing.

It is the purest distillation of the internal-arts insight that how you train the body matters more than which movements you collect.

Students

The main living Yiquan descends through 姚宗勳 (Yao Zongxun, 1917–1985), Wang's principal inheritor, who fought challenge matches on his behalf and carried the art into the modern era. Others: the brothers 韓星橋 / 韓星垣 (Han Xingqiao / Han Xingyuan, who took it to Hong Kong**), 趙道新, 卜恩富,** and 王選傑 (Wang Xuanjie), who later popularised Dachengquan in print.

His writings — 《意拳正軌》 and 《拳道中樞》 (the Dachengquan Lun) — set out the method.

See also

Guo Yunshen (郭雲深) — his (traditionally claimed) teacher

Xingyi (形意拳) — the art Yiquan distilled and stripped down

Internal-Arts Lineage Map — where Yiquan branches off

A Short History of Chinese Martial Arts

Sources

[1] 王薌齋, Chinese Wikipedia (zh.wikipedia.org/wiki/王薌齋) — the disputed birth year, the disputed Guo Yunshen apprenticeship, the fabricated-duel note, the 新民會 controversy, the students.

[2] Wang Xiangzhai, English Wikipedia (en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wang_Xiangzhai) — the Yiquan→Dachengquan doctrine and the Yao Zongxun transmission.

[3] Wang Xiangzhai, 意拳正軌 and 拳道中樞 (大成拳論) — his own statements of the method.