---
title: Twelve Animals (十二形) — Xingyi
---

**十二形 (Shí'èr Xíng, "Twelve Animals")** is the **"shape" half of **[**Xingyiquan**](https://wulin.openmindspace.org/xingyi) — the 形 ("form") in *form-intent boxing*. Where the [five element fists](https://wulin.openmindspace.org/five-elements-twelve-animals) (五行拳) are the elemental foundation, the twelve animals expand that vocabulary into **twelve short forms, each distilling one creature's fighting quality** — the dragon's rise-and-fall, the tiger's pounce, the eagle's seizing claw, the bear's uprooting shoulder. Each is drilled as a brief back-and-forth set; together they are the body of the Xingyi empty-hand curriculum that the [Five-Element Linking Fist](https://wulin.openmindspace.org/xingyi-linking-fist) and the longer combination sets then recombine.

## The twelve animals

The signature postures (拳譜) below follow a classic Hebei **古拳譜 (old hand-copied manual)**, reproduced under fair-use citation with the wiki's own glosses.

| # | 形 Animal | What it trains | Signature postures (拳譜) |
| --- | --- | --- | --- |
| 1 | 龍 Dragon | rising-and-falling power; the supple spine ("searching the bones," 搜骨) | 龍形飛升 (the dragon soars and rises) · 伏龍落地 (the crouching dragon drops to earth) |
| 2 | 虎 Tiger | the pounce (撲); ferocity driven from the rear leg | 虎抱頭 (the tiger embraces its head) · 猛虎撲食 (the fierce tiger pounces on its prey) |
| 3 | 猴 Monkey | agility and contraction; nimble snatching and dodging | 猴子挂印 (monkey hangs up the seal) · 猴子竊繩 (monkey steals the rope) · 猴子爬桿 (monkey climbs the pole) |
| 4 | 馬 Horse | charging forward drive; the trampling hooves | 勒韁 (reining in) · 搬 (heaving aside) · 頂 (butting through) |
| 5 | 鼉 Water-lizard | parting the water — the sideways twist and floating lightness | 左右翻江 (churning the river left and right) |
| 6 | 雞 Rooster | single-leg rooting (金雞獨立) and pecking; the fighting spirit | 三穿掌 (three threading palms) · 金雞舍米 (golden rooster gives up the rice) · 金雞抖鱗 (golden rooster shakes its plumage) · 金雞上架 (golden rooster mounts the perch) · 金雞報曉 (golden rooster heralds the dawn) |
| 7 | 鷂 Sparrowhawk | compacting and unfolding the body; darting through gaps | 鷂子束身 (sparrowhawk compacts its body) · 鷂子入林 (enters the forest) · 蓋捶 (covering punch) · 鷂子拈天 (picks at the sky) · 鷂子返身 (turns its body) |
| 8 | 燕 Swallow | lightness and low skimming; the quick dart | 燕子晗泥 (swallow carries mud) · 燕子抄水 (skims the water) · 燕子食米 (eats the grain) |
| 9 | 蛇 Snake | coiling and wrapping; the supple "parting-the-grass" body | 蛇形纏身 (the snake wraps the body) · 蛇形昂首 (raises its head) · 蛇形轉身 (turns its body) |
| 10 | 鮐 Tai-bird | the upright tail and lifted guard; directness | 鮐形俯身 (the tai-bird bends low) · 鮐形上架 (raises its guard) |
| 11 | 鷹 Eagle | the claw-seize (鷹捉); grasping and tearing down | 鷹抓 (the eagle seizes with its claw) |
| 12 | 熊 Bear | the heavy shoulder (熊膀) and upright neck; uprooting power | 熊頂 (the bear butts with its shoulder) |

<Callout type="info">
  **Eagle and bear, rising and falling.** The eagle (鷹) and bear (熊) are most often trained **together** as **鷹熊合演 / 鷹熊鬥智 ("eagle and bear match wits")** — the eagle's downward seize on the *rise* and the bear's shoulder on the *fall* (起鷹落熊), so the pair drills the up-and-down unity of the whole system. Lines differ slightly: some count **十大形 (ten animals)**, some swap the 鼉 / 鮐 / 駘 (alligator / tai-bird / ostrich) names, and the order of the middle animals varies by teacher.
</Callout>

## See also

<PageRef space="notes" slug="xingyi" text="Xingyi (形意拳) — the style, the five elements, the twelve animals" />

<PageRef space="notes" slug="five-elements-twelve-animals" text="Five Elements &amp; Twelve Animals (五行十二形) — the theory behind the forms" />

<PageRef space="notes" slug="xingyi-linking-fist" text="五行連環拳 Five-Element Linking Fist — the foundational linked form" />

<PageRef space="notes" slug="sun-lutang" text="Sun Lutang (孫祿堂) — whose 形意拳學 details each animal" />

## Sources

**[1]** *形意拳古拳譜* (old hand-copied Hebei manual, incl. 李存義拳譜) — the animal-posture roster reproduced here under fair-use citation, with the wiki's own glosses. Public domain by age; digitised at [ctext.org](https://ctext.org/wiki.pl?if=gb&chapter=195452).

**[2]** **孫祿堂 (Sun Lutang)**, *形意拳學* (1915), Part Two (each animal in full), and **劉殿琛 (Liu Dianchen)**, *形意拳術抉微* (1920), 第二節 十二形拳 — both public-domain-by-age, held in the codex's `Sources/internal-arts-manuals/`; open bilingual editions on [Brennan's site](https://brennantranslation.wordpress.com/2015/05/01/the-xingyi-manual-of-sun-lutang/).

**[3]** Video: per-animal demonstrations are indexed on [Xingyi on Film](https://wulin.openmindspace.org/xingyi-video).