XingYiQuan's 3 Levels of Practice

My friend over at The Dao of Strategy brought this excellent article by CS Tang to my attention. Below is an excerpt. The original may be read here.

The terms of Xingyi Quan’s three levels of practice—Ming Jin (明勁), An Jin (喑勁), Hua Jin (化勁)—came from Guo Yun Shen and were systematized by Sun Lu Tang, who proposed three levels of practice:

1. training the Jing to transform into Qi
2. training the Qi to transform into Shen
3. training the Shen to return to emptiness.

Initially this theory was a concept without clear differentiation. In Dai family Xingyi Quan, each time one began to train a fist one had to practice it several times with a soft Jin at first and then a few times with a hard Jin before closing the movement. The intention was to practice slowly to begin with, ensuring that the movements were accurate, and to use the Yin energy completely, co-ordinating the movements between hands and feet. Through repeated practice one would collect the Jin in the body, accumulate a ball of Qi and release it with power and sound, with an integrated and explosive force in a single movement. Hebei Xingyi Quan inherited the above method but took a more direct approach, whereby one had to learn the hard Jin at first so that one would achieve power and could apply it quickly. Once one had mastered the fierce and hard way of practice, they would then begin to train the An Jin and Hua Jin.

The practice method of the three Jin is mainly used in the Five Elements Fists. Each fist is practiced in three ways. First, master the hard movement so that you can face the enemy; then begin to practice sets of the form; finally, go back to the beginning to train An Jin. When you are proficient you can train the Twelve Animal forms, before finally training the Five Elements Hua Jin.