Five-Element Linking Fist (五行連環拳) — Xingyi

五行連環拳 (Wǔxíng Liánhuán Quán, "Five-Element Linking Fist" — also 進退連環拳, "Advance-and-Retreat Linking Fist") is the **foundational linked form of **Xingyiquan. After the five element fists (五行拳) and the twelve animals are first drilled as single repeating techniques, the Linking Fist is the first routine that threads them together — a short, dense, back-and-forth set that chains all five elements (劈 split · 崩 crush · 鑽 drill · 炮 pound · 橫 cross) into one continuous flow. It is the Xingyi student's first true "form," and the gateway to the longer combination sets (雜式捶, 安身炮).

What it trains

• Linking the five elements — every element fist appears: crushing (崩, 2/4/11), crossing (橫, 3), pounding (礮, 6), drilling (鑽, 7/9), and splitting (劈, 10) — so the one form rehearses the whole foundation

• Advance-and-retreat footwork — the 進步 / 退步 / 順步 / 拗步 stepping that gives the form its alternate name

• Turning (回身) — the set runs out, turns, and runs back, so it is practised in both directions

• The Xingyi engine — short, blunt, whole-body issuing on the step, "arriving" rather than reaching

The form — move-by-move (拳譜)

The posture list follows Li Cunyi (李存義)'s 連環拳譜 (Hebei line); the set proper is the ten postures between the shared opening (開勢, taken from the five element fists) and the turn. English are the wiki's own working glosses.

See also

Xingyi (形意拳) — the style, the five elements, the twelve animals

Five Elements & Twelve Animals (五行十二形) — the theory the form links

Li Cunyi (李存義) — whose 連環拳譜 this follows

Sun Lutang (孫祿堂) — whose 形意拳學 gives the pictorial version

Sources

[1] 李存義 (Li Cunyi, d. 1921), 五行連環拳譜 — the Hebei-line posture sequence reproduced here under fair-use citation, with the wiki's own glosses. Public domain by age.

[2] Paul Brennan (tr.), Teachings of Li Cunyi on Xingyi's Five Elements — open bilingual edition preserving Li's original Chinese: brennantranslation.wordpress.com. The variant lists are documented in Brennan's editions of 孫祿堂 (1915), 劉殿琛 (1920), and 李劍秋 (1919) — all public-domain-by-age, held in the codex's Sources/internal-arts-manuals/.

[3] Video: 邸國勇 Di Guoyong — Xingyi foundations and the Sun-style 五行連環拳 demonstrations linked from the Xingyi on Film index.