The Five Internal Styles We Teach

Simple, economical footwork that keeps you light on your feet, and able to move in and out of combat range with control, rather than getting caught flat-footed.

Partner-based feeling drills that teach you to sense and redirect incoming force with minimal effort, the core internal skill that makes everything else in the system work.

Straightforward, efficient techniques, direct punches, our signature elbow strikes, and low kicks. No flashy or jumping techniques, nothing decorative. Mian Quan is built to close distance quickly, redirect an attack, and move immediately onto the offensive, ending a confrontation as fast as possible.

Once the fundamentals are trained into the body, students move into free movement training, conditioning the nervous system to respond and strike automatically, in an unlimited number of combinations, rather than relying on memorized sequences.

For students who progress further, Wu Xing Dao offers Steel Hand and Steel Body training, our specialty internal conditioning methods. Steel Hand develops a strike powerful enough to break concrete. Steel Body develops the ability to withstand strikes, kicks, and blunt weapon impacts. These are advanced, gated programs, taught once a student has built the foundation to train them safely.

Lower, more rooted stances that build the stability needed to resist being off-balanced, taken down, or overpowered at close range.

Every student learns the traditional Tai Chi Chuan form, a guided sequence of movements that develops structure, balance, and internal coordination, and is genuinely valuable for anyone primarily interested in the health and wellness side of Tai Chi. But unlike most schools, we don't teach the form as choreography alone. Every single movement in the form has a real martial application, and we teach students what that application actually is, not just the shape of the movement.

Taijiquan's signature training method, Push Hands, teaches students to sense and redirect incoming force with minimal effort, developing the sensitivity and structure needed to prepare for takedowns and control an opponent at close range.

A strong emphasis on Shuai Jiao, traditional Chinese wrestling, giving students genuine takedown, throw, and clinch-range skills alongside striking.

Students train Tai Chi Jian, the straight sword, starting with fundamental sword movements and striking mechanics, and progressing into the traditional Tai Chi sword form. The Jian extends the same internal principles, structure, sensitivity, and redirection, into blade work.

Tai Chi Ball training develops the body's physical centre, strengthening core control and stability in a way that makes students significantly more effective at wrestling and takedowns. It also helps develop energy movement throughout the body, making it a genuinely valuable practice for those approaching Taijiquan primarily as a health and wellness pursuit.

The foundation of Baguazhang is learning to move in and out of range, and to circle around an opponent at angles that take you off the line of attack. Rather than meeting force directly, you learn to simply not be where the strike lands.

Similar in concept to the Tai Chi Chuan form, the Baguazhang form teaches structure and application through guided movement, but with a key difference. Baguazhang is primarily tendon-based training, more physically demanding and structurally challenging than Tai Chi. It's introduced only once a student already has a foundation in Tai Chi, allowing the body to be properly conditioned before taking on Baguazhang's more intense structural demands.

Unlike Mian Quan, Baguazhang doesn't use closed-fist punches. Instead, it relies on open-hand palm strikes as its primary striking weapon, generated through the same circular, evasive body mechanics the style is built around, supported by elbows, knees, and kicks as the rest of the striking arsenal.

Once footwork, form, and palm striking are established, students move into Baguazhang's full range of applications, including dynamic throws distinct from those found in Taijiquan. Where Tai Chi's throws are rooted in stability and close-range control, Baguazhang's throws come out of circular movement and angle, using an opponent's own momentum against them.

The signature weapon of Baguazhang, the Deer Horn Knives are dual-handed, hook-shaped blades perfectly matched to Baguazhang's evasive, circular style. The hooked design allows a practitioner to trap and control an opponent's weapon, avoid longer-range attacks, disarm an opponent, and cut in multiple directions, making the Deer Horn Knives fast, unpredictable, and genuinely dangerous in trained hands.

A stepping method using eight poles arranged in a circle, with a ninth at the centre, the 9 Pillars teach students to fight multiple opponents at once. By stepping rapidly between the poles while practicing strikes and continuous motion, students develop body positioning, spatial awareness, peripheral vision, and a practical sense of striking range, preparing them for the reality of facing more than one attacker.

Meihuaquan begins with five static postures, each corresponding to one of the five internal organs and the five elements they represent. The postures look deceptively simple. Held correctly, they are extremely demanding, which is why Meihuaquan is introduced later in the curriculum, once a student has already built the physical foundation to train them properly. A student must learn to hold these demanding postures while breathing naturally, since most students instinctively hold their breath under the physical strain, while maintaining the precise structural alignment needed for the postures to have their intended effect on the body's internal systems.

Once a student has developed the five postures, Meihuaquan moves into its forms, beginning with two that are foundational to the entire style. The Generating Form follows the Five Elements' creative cycle, Wood generates Fire, Fire generates Earth, Earth generates Metal, Metal generates Water, and Water generates Wood, with each of the form's five movements building the body's coordination and internal systems in that same sequence. The Conquering Form follows the reverse, the controlling cycle, Wood conquers Earth, Earth conquers Water, Water conquers Fire, Fire conquers Metal, and Metal conquers Wood, training the body to regulate and control internal force in balance with the generative cycle. More advanced forms follow later in training, but these two are foundational to everything that comes after.

Once a student has sufficiently developed Meihuaquan's stances and forms, they progress into basic pole and staff techniques, and eventually the pole form itself. This training builds directly on the strong grounding principles developed through Meihuaquan's static stance work, extending that same rooted structure into a weapon.

Pile Standing takes Meihuaquan's emphasis on grounding to its most demanding level, training a practitioner to stay balanced and move effectively while standing on wooden stakes set into the ground. The small footholds force complete focus on staying grounded through stance and technique, strengthening every other aspect of the art. Students first learn static standing postures on the stakes, then progress to moving between them, and finally to practicing full forms while standing on the piles.

Before learning to strike, a Xing Yi Quan student learns to stand. San Ti Shi, the Three Body Posture, is a standing stance practice that develops the internal power Xing Yi Quan is famous for, training structure, alignment, and rooted stability that every strike in the style is later built on. It's deceptively simple to look at, and demanding to hold correctly, much like Meihuaquan's static postures, but developing an entirely different quality of power, explosive rather than grounded stillness.

The way you move in Xing Yi Quan is a discipline in itself. Stepping is primarily linear, but distinctly its own, the rear leg following the lead as you advance, often maintaining contact with the ground so the foot drags with each step. Some steps travel in straight lines, others carve a crescent shape. Some are fast and light, closing distance in an instant, others are long and deep, driving the whole body forward with weight and intent. Mastering Xing Yi's stepping is what allows the Five Fists to land with their full, explosive power.

Once a student has developed San Ti Shi, they move into the Five Fists, five striking movements, each tied to one of the Five Elements, that make up the core striking vocabulary of the style.

• Pi Quan, the Splitting Fist, tied to Metal, chops downward with the force of an axe splitting wood.
• Zuan Quan, the Drilling Fist, tied to Water, thrusts forward and upward at an angle, like a wave breaking against rock.
• Beng Quan, the Crushing Fist, tied to Wood, drives straight forward like a loosed arrow.
• Pao Quan, the Cannon Fist, tied to Fire, explodes outward, striking and defending in the same motion.
• Heng Quan, the Crossing Fist, tied to Earth, cuts diagonally across an opponent's line of attack.

Together, the Five Fists teach a student to generate explosive, coordinated power through the whole body, and to strike and defend as a single, unified action, the same principle that defines Xing Yi Quan as a whole.

Once a student has developed San Ti Shi, stepping, and the Five Fists, training moves into Xing Yi Quan's twelve animal forms. Each form refines how the Five Fists are applied, sharpening technique within the same aggressive, forward-driving, linear character that defines the style throughout.

The spear is Xing Yi Quan's signature weapon, and by far its most significant, so much so that the spear's influence is considered central to how the art itself was originally developed. Training with the spear extends Xing Yi's linear, explosive power into weapon range, the same directness, the same forward-driving intent, now projected through the length of the weapon.