Baguazhang legender

Yin Fu Baguazhang

Tung Hai Chuan and Yin Fu

by Frank Allen and Clarence Lu

Yin Fu was from a poor family in a poor village. That probably had something to do with his being so underweight that he was known as "Thin Yin" throughout his life. He was born in Zhang Hua village of Hebei Province in 1841. By his late teens, drought and flood drove him from his village to seek his fortune in the big city of Beijing.

Beijing was a different world from Zhang Hua village. It was fast, crowded and cutthroat. If you couldn't make the grade you would starve to death on the streets and the proof of this was all around you. Yin Fu was tenacious and industrious, so unlike many others, he survived. At first he was apprenticed to a knife and scissor sharpener. Yin Fu learned quickly and was doing well, but his boss went bankrupt. He then took his meager savings from the sharpening shop and invested in a business peddling hot cakes. Yin became the hardest working hot cake hawker in Beijing. He was always first at the bakery at the morning and he could often be found still selling cakes on the streets of the capital late in the evening.

Just as his finances were coming together, Yin was robbed one early morning on the misty streets of his new home. Needless to say, the young man was not happy about this. His concern led to a slight decrease of his work time so that he could resume the practice of "Snake Tongue Boxing", which he had practiced as a boy in Zhang Hua village. He knew that he needed more than this for his personal protection, but he wasn't sure just what he needed. Yin Fu was street wise enough, by this time to realize that Beijing was saturated with martial arts charlatans.

About this time Yin Fu began to hear stories of the amazing martial arts eunuch in the court of Prince Su Wang. No one was sure how the man did what he did, but they all said that Tung Hai Chuan, had almost unbelievable martial skills. Tung taught his students a solid, basic, Lohan Shaolin system, but this system didn't seem to explain the personal abilities of the Master. Yin Fu set his mind on discovering the secrets of Tung Hai Chuan. He moved his hot cake stand to a street near the palace, that he knew was frequented by Tung. Each time that the Master passed by, Yin offered him a free cake and tried to exchange pleasantries with him. Tung was standoffish at first, but as time passed and he saw how humble and hard working Yin Fu was, he became intrigued and eventually even friendly. Upon finally hearing Yin's story, Tung invited him to become his first student from outside the palace.

On his first day of class Yin found his suspicious nature rising to the surface. How was he sure that Tung wasn't another martial arts phony. He approached the master, who held a tobacco pouch in his left hand, that he was obviously about to open. Rudely giving Tung no time to finish what he was doing, Yin announced his doubts and asked for proof of Tung's abilities. Tung stretched out his right arm and said, "Attack me!" Yin punched like lighting, but the moment that his arm made contact with Tung's, his punch was deflected and Tung's right hand followed with a thrust to Yin's mouth which knocked out his front teeth. The tobacco pouch was still gently nestled in Tung's left hand where it had been at the onset of the action. Yin Fu dropped to the ground, kowtowing and begging to become Tung's disciple; but Tung refused. By chance Prince Su Wang had been watching the encounter and came forward at this time. The Prince said that this strange young man intrigued him and asked Tung to accept him as a personal favor to the Prince. Only due to this did Yin Fu become the number one student of Tung Hai Chuan. To the end of his life he commemorated that day by wearing a large droopy mustache which covered his upper lip and front tooth area.

Tung was teaching a class of guards, eunuchs and scholars each afternoon behind the palace walls. Yin joined the class and spent the next year proving himself to Tung. It was 1865 and he was twenty-four years old. Yin studied harder and longer than anyone. He got to class first and left last; he stood in deeper stances and did more repetitions of everything than anyone else. He finally convinced Tung when he sold his hot cake business so that he could study full time with the master.
In early 1866, Prince Su Wang ordered Tung to lead an expedition to the Prince's land holdings in Inner Mongolia. He was to stay a few years and collect all the back taxes owed to the Prince by the local residents. It was only logical for Tung to bring his top student to be his assistant. He needed a fighter to watch his back and a companion to keep him company. The locals would be a bit too rural for a man from the palace. There was also nothing to hold Yin in the capital, now that he had sold his business.

Evidently the Prince was owed a lot of back taxes, because a few years turned into nine. With only each other for company, Tung and Yin worked out incessantly. When they weren't working or sleeping they were working out. In the first couple of years, Yin Fu completed the Lohan Shaolin System. For lack of any thing else to amuse himself, Tung made Yin his first Baguazhang student. Yin attacked the study of baguazhang furiously; this was what he had been looking for all along. By the time they returned to Beijing, in 1875, Yin had mastered the entire Baguazhang System including the Chi Gung and Taoist Meditation aspects of the art. At the time Tung considered Yin to be his one and only Baguazhang student. Yin could carry on the art and Tung would go back to teaching Lohan Shaolin at the palace.

Upon their return to the capital, Tung helped Yin Fu to establish his own martial arts school. Tung returned to his duties at the palace of Prince Su Wang. Soon thereafter, he met a brash young coal merchant named Ma Wei Chi. Tung took a strong liking to the young man and made him his second Baguazhang student.

In his school, Yin Fu was developing the reputation of the thin, stern, new teacher with the calm and deliberate attitude. This reputation brought martial arts master Yang Chun Feng to Yin Fu's door. Yang's reputation was fading and he hoped to enhance it at the expense of Yin. Yin confused Yang by politely inviting him in for tea and highly praising Yang's martial reputation. Yang decided that this man was decidedly too calm to actually fight with, so he proposed a martial contest instead. In this contest, Yin would demonstrate his famous defensive footwork, by letting Yang attack him while Yin's hands were tied behind his back. Yin agreed! Yang Chun Feng began with controlled attacks, but as it became apparent that he couldn't get near Yin, his frustration grew. Soon, Yang was attacking full blast and yet he still couldn't lay a hand on Yin Fu. Yang tried his best technique, The Poison Hand, but still to no effect. Eventually Yang collapsed on the ground from sheer exhaustion. When he could speak again, Yang begged to become Yin's student and Yin agreed.

Yang Chun Feng learned Baguazhang quickly, unfortunately, manners and attitude don't always develop at the same rate of speed. As Yang's skills developed, Yin's cousin, Shih Chi Tung came to visit. He told Yin of his fight with Yin's student Yang, in which Shih had been badly beaten. He wanted to know what Yin could do about this. This put Yin in a quandary; Shih was his cousin, but Yang was his disciple and had upheld the honor of Yin's style. Yin found the answer by asking Tung Hai Chuan to accept Shih as his disciple. Tung accepted, giving Yin's cousin a superior lineage to Yang and assuring Shih of a quality of training with which he could defend himself from almost anyone. In this manner, Shih Chi Tung became Tung Hai Chuan's third Baguazhang Student.

While managing his school, Yin Fu started a protection and bodyguard agency. His students worked for him, guarding the homes and bodies of the well-to-do and the elite of Beijing. The success of the agency was due to the fact that each and every guard was backed by the reputation of Yin Fu. Each of these guard/students learned Lohan Shaolin, Pao Chui and Kung Li before learning Baguazhang, making each of them effective fighters in their own right. As he became wealthy from his two businesses, Yin Fu began to send food and clothing back to his home village every month.

Yin Fu's reputation grew to such a height that when a local wrestler, named Hei Hu, became such a bully as to be recognized as a neighborhood nuisance, Yin Fu was called upon to discipline the young man. When they met, Hu was dismayed to find his opponent to be such a thin man. Hu entered quickly and grabbed Yin's arm, anticipating an easy throw. Yin countered by seizing Hu's wrist between his thumb and index finger and using his internal strength in the Iron Bracelet. Hei Hu fell screaming to his knees and begged to become Yin Fu's student. As a gentleman, Yin Fu accepted him.

Not long after, a contingent of Yin's students came to him to complain about the behavior of Hei Hu. It seemed that Hei was still acting like a bully, just not to Yin Fu. In the next class, Yin Fu called on Hei Hu to assist him in a demonstration of technique. Hei attacked with lighting speed. Yin, Baguazhang side-stepped and applied force in the direction that Hei was already headed; sending Hei, in a shower of splinters, through a window with closed shutters. Hei picked himself up off the ground and climbed back in the window, stating, "The skill of my teacher is very difficult to anticipate!" From that point, Hei Hu became one of Yin's most modest students.

While he was away in Mongolia, Yin Fu's first wife had passed away. Confucian etiquette demanded that a widower should not remarry, although he could spend time with all the concubines and courtesans that he desired. Yin Fu committed the mortal sin of falling in love with one of his female companions and marrying her. As a eunuch, Tung Hai Chuan had little sympathy for true love and was appalled at Yin Fu's actions. Tung disowned Yin and quit speaking to him. Yin's personal reputation was strong enough that this did not effect his businesses and he continued to quietly teach and run his guard business.