Interview by Rose Oliver, Photos by Mr. Wang Ming Bo & Rose Oliver
Published in Tai Chi Magazine 2005
Mian Quan, or loosely translated as, “soft or unbroken boxing style, and known to some as “cotton fist”; is a fighting system that is now less commonly practiced than before, and is certainly less well-known than some of its more famous contemporary systems. It is definitely not practiced with the correct intention and understanding by many of its practitioners.
Master Yang Tian Gui, who lives in Shanghai, is China’s Representative of the Yang Family Mian Quan System.
Master Yang is a well-known and highly respected fighter and proponent of this intriguing art.
Master Yang related the story of the founding, or perhaps its better to say, discovery of this art, dating back to the beginning of the 20th century, in Hu Nan Province.
The actual origins of this art are still shrouded in mystery, but the story of how it came to be popularized tells of a famous bodyguard in Cheng Zhou City.
Meng Guan Yu was a practitioner of Shaolin Gongfu, and such was his fame and skill, that any of the consignments that he was assigned to protect, were never subjected to robbery or attack.
Meng Guan Yu, who was originally from Shandong Province, also believed himself to be pretty well invincible, and was ready to take up challenges where offered.
One day, whilst eating with some of his men at a restaurant, they encountered an old man, with whom a disagreement arose. The old man was one of the wood-sellers, whose job it was to cut down the very large trees, transport them to the rivers, tie them up together and then whilst living “on board” float them down river to sell to the wood tradesman or factories.
Meng Guan Yu, confident of victory, challenged the old man to fight with him. To everyone’s surprise, including Meng’s, the old man easily defeated him. After this, Meng realized that his skill was not the utmost, and asked the old man to teach him.
The old man, whose name has never been known, agreed on one condition that is that Meng renounce his work as a bodyguard, and come to live with the old teacher and work as wood-seller with him. Thus Meng began his studies in Mian Quan.
It should be pointed out that the work done by the wood-sellers in those days, and in fact any craft work at that time, was all manual work, with no modern machinery to ease the burdens or inconveniences, and so workers in these fields were not only skilled in their professions, but were naturally strong, with reflexes and sinews honed through repetitive use.
Meng continued his life working as a carpenter in Hu Nan, until the death of his teacher brought him to Shanghai, in around 1920 or so.
Here, Meng began his career as a teacher of Mian Quan himself.
In Shanghai, at that time was a very wealthy and famous man named Li Rui Jiu, who was the grandson of Li Hong Zhuang, the Prime Minister of China.
Li Rui Jiu had eight martial arts teachers, living and teaching at his home, and one day Meng was introduced to Li as a great fighter and teacher.
Li was not convinced and stated that if Meng could defeat his teacher’s best students, that he would study with him. Meng was surrounded by the men, and told them to attack him with knives, cudgels etc. Li was afraid of having trouble with the authorities if Meng was killed, but Meng insisted that he would be answerable for any outcome, and if he died it would not be Li’s responsibility.
Of course he defeated all the men easily, and from then on Li dismissed his other teachers and just studied with Meng.
However, after about three years, Li felt that he had learnt all he could from Meng, and decided that his old teacher had no more to give him, and ceased to treat him with the respect that he had once shown.
Later, Li, feeling himself now to be of a very high level, advertised in the newspapers for anyone to come and challenge him, and test his prowess. If anyone could beat him, Li would pay all their expenses, plus give them a cash prize.
Meng, who now was living in relative poverty, even though he remained living in Li’s compound, saw this and feeling angry about Li’s treatment of him, set about finding a suitable student to take on Li.
One day, Meng stopped a young man, whom Meng noticed frequently carrying a large sack containing all kinds of weapons for martial arts practice, and asked him what style he studied. The man, Sun Fu Hai, was a practitioner of Shaolin Gongfu. Meng told him that in six months he could teach him enough Mian Quan, so that he could defeat Li Rui Jin.
hus Sun began to study seriously and diligently, and in about six months did in fact challenge and defeat Li.
Li, during the contest, felt that the challenger not only had tremendous skill, but many of his movements were similar to Li’s own, and in fact Sun seemed to know what Li would do next, and could easily counter him. Thus he asked Sun who taught him, and Li discovered it was in fact his old teacher Meng.
Li again retained Meng as his teacher, but their relationship was never as close or trusting as before, and Meng was much more careful in his dealings with Li. So, in fact Li never reached the highest levels as some of Meng’s other students.
Sun Fu Hai, who also worked as a security guard, guarding travellers and their consignments, later taught Mian Quan himself.
Master Yang’s grandfather, Yang Lian Quan, at that time was studying Shaolin Gongfu.
Now at age 17, he felt that after five years of study, he was not making great progress, and was introduced to Teacher Sun, and so began his study of Mian Quan.
Over the next 23 years, Master Yang’s grandfather would take on all challenges aimed at his teacher or shixiong/di, (gongfu brothers), and thus came to have a very high reputation as a great fighter. At one time he took on a very famous and fierce Xing-Yi teacher, who had brought six people to challenge them.
Yang Lian Quan defeated the Xin-Yi master. But unfortunately the Xin-Yi master was a policeman, and affiliated to several political parties. At this time in China, before the Cultural Revolution, everything was very chaotic, and many people were very corrupt. So, angered by defeat, he sought revenge by having Yang arrested.
Yang was sentenced to 6 years doing hard labour, breaking rocks, in Gangsu Province.
He escaped at one point, after a rock fell and killed another prisoner, but was recaptured and given an extra year’s sentence.
After his release he came back to Shanghai, when Master Yang was about 6 years old, and because he was accused of being against the Cultural Revolution, was given work as a street cleaner. He later developed stomach cancer, from which he died at age 60, when Master Yang was about 14.
Master Yang’s father, Yang Jin Dian, a university graduate, studied from Yang Ling Quan, and it was he who revised and reformed the Yang family Mian Quan system into what it is today.
Master Yang himself did not want to practice Mian Quan, because he felt that the movements were ugly. He studied Shaolin Gongfu, and his father’s students would regularly come to the house to train and spar with him. At that time a lot of the training had to be done in secret, within the house, because of the Cultural Revolution and general feelings of suspicion aimed at martial artists or practitioners at that time.
Master Yang began studying Mian Quan after being defeated by two men with knives who had attacked him.
His father told him that if he practiced Mian Quan for between 3-6 months, he could then go out and try and track down the two men, and see how he fared a second time.
This Master Yang did, and successfully defeated them. After this he felt that although Mian Quan in itself did not look very attractive to an onlooker, it could solve problems and deal with the violence of the time!
He has now been practicing for over 30 years.
During the Cultural Revolution, he was sent to Jiangxi Province, along with many other young people of about 18 years old, for re-education. Whilst there, he met many other martial art practitioners and he found that he was able to overcome them, thus gaining a reputation as a fierce and powerful fighter.
On his return to Shanghai he worked in a factory, until he was introduced to someone at the TV Station in Shanghai in the early 80’s, where he has worked in television and films ever since.
Master Yang has also opened and run restaurants, been a writer, owned his own companies, and lived a very adventurous and colourful life.
The Mian Quan system, he says does not have a “Form” per se, but is rather a series of basic movements and applications which are practiced together in sequences.
Originally there were about 86 movements in the old style of Mian Quan, but his father revised it to 42 movements for single person training, and about 30 dual person training movements.
His father’s idea was to take just the best and most effective applicatory movements, and dispense with the less useful ones, whilst still keeping the original flavour of the system; thus it became known as Yang Family Mian Quan.
All the movements have a link between them that will continue the attack on the opponent, so that their force is completely overwhelmed, and the Mian Quan fighter’s power is never broken.
Mian Quan’s speciality is that it “tricks” the opponent into believing that you are really weak and soft (mian) and not powerful, whereas in fact the practitioner is very highly skilled with a natural and refined power that is both explosive and clinging, wrapping the opponent up so that they feel there is nowhere to escape to and don’t know where the next strike is coming from.
The style combines the concept of Yin-Yang Xiang Ji, that is yin and yang working in harmony; suddenly fast/suddenly slow and gang-rou, hard and soft.
The body should be soft and relaxed Master Yang says. Muscle tension only slows down the body’s reactions and reflexes, and will diminish a fighter’s power.
It also includes the concept of continuous movement, following and sticking to the opponent, one strike giving rise to the next and the next etc. There should be no pause between strikes, or a drawing back “one – two” kind of striking, which Master Yang says is predominant in many of today’s boxing/fighting styles.
The body should remain soft and pliable and flexible, able to change and turn according to what the adversary does, whilst the elbow, forearm and hand are the points of contact with the opponent.
They may feel like they are hard, but it is not a tense rigidity, rather the elbow and wrist are the transmitters of the bodies power, and the elbow is more like a spring, holding the strength but able to both dissipate the enemy’s force and issue your own body’s power.
The body has to be integrated into one unit, so that whenever the fighter strikes, and with whatever part of the body, be it elbows, kicks, punches etc, the force of the whole body, and the intention, vigour and spirit is delivered to the opponent. Again the stress is on the body remaining relaxed, and not using muscular tension to join the body together. If the body is still loose and relaxed, “song”, then in whatever direction or even posture the practitioner is in, he will always be able to swivel, turn or adjust his posture to strike.
One must never let the opponent know where your jing or power is, or from where you’re going to strike next. This has the effect of confusing and unsettling the enemy, so they just don’t know how to deal with your force.
Another important element is the spirit and ferocity of the Mian Quan practitioner.
Master Yang says that in life, one must be of the highest integrity and moral character, and clearly follow a path of right and honourable behaviour. But in terms of fighting and defending oneself, one must have the idea that one is the worst possible thug and the nastiest person imaginable.
He says in defending oneself from attack, you cannot hold back, or be “nice” otherwise you will not be able to overcome an attacker. You have to frighten the enemy with your wild and ferocious spirit, so that you unbalance his control and centre, and make him diminish his own power.
A high level practitioner feels that his own arms and hands are like daggers or cudgels, so an opponent will feel overwhelmed by his force. This way it doesn’t matter where he hits the enemy, he doesn’t rely on pressure points etc; anywhere he strikes will cause injury and great pain. Sparring with Master Yang, one can definitely feel the potential of pain that could be inflicted, but his control is also excellent, so whilst a student can taste the flavour, he will not be hurt.
He will use three principles to attack you: – DENG, DAI, HOU.
Deng: Watch the opponent and look for his failings. If he doesn’t move then you strike.
Dai: Destroy the opponent’s calm and structure, take advantage of his weak points.
Hou: Finish him; make sure the opponent is really unable to continue his assault.
Master Yang says that it’s important that today’s practitioners of any style, should learn the real art, and look for teachers that can pass on authentic and correct information.
As with anything else in life, one must learn to differentiate between real and false. Although many martial artists nowadays have never seen the old masters of the past, and in fact no one knows exactly how good some of these old experts were, Master Yang says we can guarantee that they were of a very high level, and their teachings still live on in their students and their students’ students.
Mian Quan has four training methods, namely:
Cong Zhuang: First strike the opponent, if your first punch or strike is not good or is redirected, immediately follow it with a body strike, in order to wind and incapacitate the opponent, rather like driving a car into somebody.
Feng Shuo: The Mian Quan fighter will smother the opponent or “lock” him up, so that he feels that he cannot move. These include joint locking techniques, as well as using internal and external power to “cover” the opponent.
Jiao Fa: These are leg strikes that combine kicks, and knee strikes, and also include the fighter’s footwork. Without good footwork and foot positioning no strike will be effective.
Zhong He Fa: This is the combination of the fighter’s internal and external power, together with his hand and foot strikes; usually practiced by putting together three – four movements which will integrate all these elements.
Master Yang says he particularly enjoys teaching somebody who has fought and been defeated in competitions, and feels that with this kind of student one can really see the benefit of Mian Quan. He can teach them how to utilize their adversary’s mistakes against them, as well dispelling their own errors. Usually he says there is one main big fault in their practice which results in their defeat. Remove this main problem, and smaller related problems will be solved too.
Finally I asked Master Yang, as the representative and bearer of Yang Family Mian Quan, what he hoped for the future.
He replied that as yet he doesn’t know what the future holds, but he would like to see people learn and practice “real” martial arts, no matter which style it is. Nowadays, he says there are some teachers, who are interested in purely making money, whether they are qualified to teach their art or not; and worse still there are those who deliberately mislead students, whilst happily taking large sums of money from them.
In terms of handing down his own style to the next representative, he is still waiting for that extra-special student to come along. He says “It’s the same as if I want to sell the most fantastic sword, but cannot find a buyer, but out there is someone who is looking to buy an excellent sword, but as yet has not come across one”.
That special student is out there he believes, and he is waiting for fate to bring them together.