Tongbeiquan
通背拳

Also known as	Spreading Power from the Back Boxing, Arm Boxing, White Ape[1]
Focus	Striking, weapons training,qigong
Country of origin	China
Creator	Lu Yunqing (originator) Lao Qi Pai style: Qi Xin Shao Qi Pai style: Qi Taichang Shi Baiyuan style: Shi Hongsheng
Famous practitioners	Xiu Jianchi (founder of Wuxing Tongbeiquan), DK Yoo
Parenthood	Wudang Kung Fu,Wuxingquan
Descendant arts	Bafaquan,Piguaquan,Northern Praying Mantis
Olympic sport	No

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Tongbeiquan (通背拳tōngbèiquán; literally "Spreading Power from the Back Boxing", astong means "through,"bei means "back" andquan means "fist/boxing") is a school ofmartial arts popular in northern China, known for engaging opponents from maximum distance.^[2]Tongbeiquan's basic precepts areTaoist in nature and many of the training methods intongbeiquan are similar to those of the internal styles. In traditionaltongbeiquan training, several parts are included: basic training (stance, arm techniques, leg techniques and conditioning), combinations, forms training, two-person free sparring, weapons training, andqigong training.

According to theBoxing Chronicles by Xu Jianchi (1931), Qi Xin of Zhejiang went to teach back-through boxing atGu'an County inHebei Province in the middle and latter half of theQing Dynasty. His style was then called Qi-style Boxing which was later named astongbei or "Back-through Boxing". Qi's son, Qi Taichang, improved and developed the boxing techniques. People then divided Qi-styletongbeiquan into an old style (represented by the father) and a new one (represented by the son). The old style emphasizes simplicity and power whereas the new style concentrates on exquisiteness and suppleness. Many masters emerged in this school later.Tongbeiquan now in practice is generally divided into two styles. One has been passed down from Qi Xin, the father, and the other from Qi Taichang, the son. Xiu Jianchi, a successor to the new style, combined the best elements of his predecessors and left his theoretical summaries on stances, methods and philosophy of boxing to create a new style,wuxing tongbeiquan. Xiu's writings are vital materials for the study and research oftongbeiquan.^[3] Another of Lu Yunqing's students was Shi Hongsheng, who also created his own Shi-style Tongbeiquan.^[4]

From 1910s, some Qi style masters started to teachtongbeiquan to the public. Subsequently, Qi style became much more popular than the Shi style. Today the vast majority oftongbeiquan practitioners are in Qi style or its branches. But even when they taught in public, the masters still withheld some skills. Most masters only taught high level skills to some disciples in their private classes. As Qi style became somewhat more popular, a few forms were created for teaching purposes. Compared to Qi style, the Shi style maintained more traditional forms. For this reason, the Shi style is also known asheiquan (Black Fist) and the style is sometimes consideredheterodox.

Due to its long history,tongbeiquan has various names and subsets in different places.Baiyuantongbeiquan has two subsets: Shi- and Qi-style. From Qi-style Baiyuantongbeiquan there are also a number of subsets such as,wuxing tongbeiquan andFive-Monkeytongbeiquan. While there are different names and styles of Baiyuantongbeiquan all of the fore-mentioned styles are based on the same boxing theory and have similar origins. There are alsoShaolintongbeiquan,Piguatongbeiquan, and others that differ from Baiyuantongbeiquan in methods and principles, but bear similar names.

There are other styles, with names that are also pronounced "tongbeiquan", but are written with different "bei" or "bi" characters (with meanings of "preparing", "arm", etc.). Many books about Chinese martial arts confuse those styles with each other. Also there is another style called "Hong Dong tongbeiquan," which is a local version oftai chi and is therefore a different style.

• Qi Xin'sLao Qi Pai basic training is based on 108 single methods, sometimes calledChai Quan ("Divided Fists").
• Qi Taichang'sShao Qi Pai variant is based on continuous using of the five kinds of palm strikes. Each kind of strike is correlated with one of thefive elements (earth, metal, water, wood and fire), henceShao Qi Pai is also calledwuxing tongbeiquan ("Five Elementstongbeiquan").

There are 6 basic sets ofshao qi pai tongbeiquan.

• Da Peng Zhang Yi ("Great bird spreads its wings")
• Qi Xing Hua Ji (Changing of forms and transformations of strikes)
• Yi Zi Lian Ji Pao ("Continuous cannon strikes of one word")
• Shi Er Lian Zhu Pao ("12 continuous cannon strikes"). This style does not use single strikes, all strikes are linked together in sequences.

There are more advanced forms inShao Qi Pai Tongbeiquan such as "3 Deadly Palms": "Palm of Entangling the Soul", "Palm of Hunting the Soul" and "Palm of Chopping the Soul."

Since the two Qi styles oftongbeiquan are so widespread and has many more forms, this version of Shi family is not as well-known, it is considered a heterodox style and sometimes is calledheiquan ("black fist"). The training syllabus of Shi-styletongbeiquan constitutes the following:

• Six Primary Skills
• Eight Older Fists (a short form)
• Twelve Linking Fists (the number of fists may vary depending on lineage)
• Twenty-Four Posture Form
• Thirty-Six Take-Apart Fist (also a form)
• 108 individual techniques

Baiyuantongbeiquan masters followed the orthodox Chinese martial art model of keeping their teachings very secretive. Even other traditional wushu stylists often criticize this group as too conservative. Traditionally,tongbeiquan instructors usually did not teach in public. Because of this conservatism, it was very difficult to join the group to study this skill.tongbeiquan teachers would teach only behind closed doors.^[5] The masters always felt that the high-level skills should only be passed to morally upstanding people who must have a good personality, be smart enough to grasp the principles, as well as be diligent in practice. So all this preventedtongbeiquan from having particularly large numbers of practitioners. The result of this lack of open teaching is seen in the rarity of the style. However, in recent years many teachers have become much more open and there are teachers teaching openly throughout China as well as in the West.

Wuxingtongbeiquan takes thefive elements as its core and back-through as its application. Back-through Boxing takes the five elements of traditional Chinese philosophy as its basic theory. This philosophy believes that heaven is an macrocosm while the human being is a microcosm but the principles of the systems remains constant regardless of the size. The five elements of the heaven aremetal,wood,water,fire andearth while those of the human being the heart, liver, spleen, lung and kidney. The five elements of boxing are wrestling, batting, piercing, axing and boring. The Chinese boxing philosophy believes that everything in the world finds its roots in the five elements while all Boxing schools are also based on its five elements. The following table demonstrates the interrelations among the five elements of the heaven and those of the human being and boxing:

Originally,tongbei may not have referred to a school ofboxing but to a way of exercise. When the exercises are done, power is generated from the back to pass through the shoulders and then reach the arms. In this way, heavy blows can be delivered at the arm's length to control the opponent.tongbeiquan emphasizes the combination of inner core and outward application.

Tongbeiquan is present in modern wushu as well and is practiced by the contemporarywushu athletes coming out of the Chinese sports universities (referred to in some wushu circles and the university factionXue Yuan Pai who study the routines in school and learn with performance being the key feature).

In the 1970s,tongbeiquan was added by the Chinese Wushu Association as an open routine for wushutaolu forms competition. In the 1980s it was formally classified as a Class II Other Open Hand event, which means it is in the Northern category of traditional empty hand forms along withfanziquan,piguaquan andchuojiao.

The modern wushu style oftongbeiquan, while having a non-martial emphasis, is still popular in the same regions of northern China such asShandong andLiaoning provinces.

Today, the traditional style is kept alive through the efforts of practitioners throughout northern China, particularly by small groups throughout Beijing, Shandong, and Liaoning. There are also both groups throughout North America and Europe. Its contemporary wushu variant can also be found throughout the caterpillar.

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