How can we find stillness? Wang Xiangzhai (founder of Yiquan) himself said that we cannot be truly still, that we are always moving. True stillness can only be found in movement and true movement can only be born of true stillness. We move to find stillness so that true movement can be manifest.
Moving to find stillness is like making a rubbing of something carved into a rock or wood, you cover the paper with graphite from a pencil so that you can trace what is not there. You use a fullness to reveal an emptiness, and we do the same in Yiquan (or any other zhan zhuang practice…or meditation for that matter). All internal arts purport to do this, the difference is simply in refinement. Wang is commonly quoted saying that a small movement is better than a big one, and no movement is better than a small movement. This is maybe the only significant difference between Yiquan and other arts like Taijiquan and Baguazhang; that the former simply uses smaller more refined movements to discover a more reified kind of stillness than do the latter.
When we use grosser movements such as we do in Taijiquan, we are defining a grosser center. With these movements, our internal scene is much more complex and dynamic. This has its benefits, no-doubt, but it yields a grainier image of our true equilibrium and stillness than zhan zhuang does. When we use smaller movements to discern our still-center, we are using a higher resolution. The average person just walking around has some sense of equilibrium gained from everyday movements and activities. This is like using a rubbing as mentioned above. A trained martial artist has a more refined sense of equilibrium from his or her training. This is like using a microscope, it is more detailed because it is more precise. It is a smaller view. One who practices zhan zhuang has an even higher resolution sense of equilibrium gained from the tiny movements made during his or her ‘stillness’ training. This is like an electron microscope! It is a very precise and focused search for equilibrium. Equilibrium found during zhan zhuang is super-concentrated or truer than what we get from grosser movements. Don’t get me wrong, all styles have something to offer. But zhan zhuang is the mother-practice of them all, because it yields the most fundamental sort of power and equilibrium.
Even Yiquan, with its focus on zhan zhuang, moves around with grosser movements much like the other arts. The only difference, and it’s a big one, is that Yiquan is flowing freely from that true stillness found in zhan zhuang. All the jumping around and punching in all directions that you see Yiquan practitioners doing doesn’t look much different than other arts, but its root is absolutely different. The Yiquan doesn’t move because someone told him to, he moves because that is what has to happen right then in that moment, and for no other reason. Yiquan is an unbridled expression of what we are deep down. No one can really claim to have found the deepest part of who they are, because it just keeps going! The Yiquan practitioner simply listens as deeply as he or she can and acts with fidelity on what he or she finds there. This philosophy is, of course, rooted in Chan and Daoist traditions.
Zhan zhuang is a way of looking as deeply as you can into what you really are. We find not only stillness and peace, but incredible power. With that power, of course, comes incredible responsibility. It is not always easy to act with integrity on what we find in our depths, but we must. Otherwise, we are something unreal; an imagination, a forgery of who we really are.