Out now — everywhere
The Five Element Fists of Xingyiquan
An Engineer’s Guide to Pi, Zuan, Beng, Pao, and Heng
Fifteen years of Yizong Xingyiquan under Master Luo Dexiu, written by an engineer for readers who want to know what the classical language actually means in force, structure, timing, and angle.
On Apple Books, Kobo, Barnes & Noble & more · Paperback coming soon
Book Two is out too — The Linked Fists of Xingyiquan
New · Book Two
The Linked Fists of Xingyiquan
Generation, Restraint, and the Advancing–Retreating Chain
Book One took the five fists one at a time. This one is about what happens between them — the part that actually decides a fight. Generation as smooth linking, restraint as counter-geometry, the advancing-and-retreating linked sets, timing, and striking, kicking, throwing, and seizing as one net. No five-element numerology — force, distance, and structure.
On Apple Books, Kobo, Barnes & Noble & more · one link finds your store
What the book argues
Somewhere in the middle of this book you will meet the following claim: your deadlift strength is, in principle, the ceiling of your vertical Zuan Quan.
Not a poetic correspondence. The same hip hinge, the same extensor chain, the same force production — which means the barbell in your gym is a legitimate way to train and to measure a punch described in nineteenth-century Chinese manuals.
The book is organised around one idea: the five fists are not five techniques. They are one force-production engine with five delivery geometries — one power drill with five different bits. That is why the system could historically be brought to functional level in months rather than decades, and it is why learning it as five separate techniques makes it harder than it needs to be.
Inside
- One engine, five bits. Every fist explained as the same force production pointed in a different direction.
- Testable readouts. The deadlift ceiling of Zuan. The audible sound of a correct half-step. Effort-to-effect ratio as a live structural readout you can run on yourself today.
- Forty-nine figures from real classes. Frames cut from a decade of unedited class recordings, 2013–2023 — real corrections, real students, each cited by source video and timecode.
- Twelve sidebars translating combat psychology into negotiation, management, and strategy: the transverse position, the half-beat, the parry that includes the riposte.
- No five-element numerology. Force, structure, timing, angle. Nothing in the book asks you to believe a cosmology first.
Who it is for
The lifter, the coder, the product manager, the fighter from another art — anyone whose first instinct on being told the force is already wrapped as it begins is to ask what that means in Newtons.
What is here, and what it costs
The book points you to this page. Here is the honest layout, so nobody arrives expecting something that is not here.
Free — this page, and the mailing list.
One-time purchase — the Complete Video Companion: every clip behind the book, available immediately, yours permanently.
Membership — the wider class archive as it is released, plus the online course. The Companion is included free at Practitioner and above.
In person — classes and seminars at Biyankan in Hsinchu, Taiwan.
New
The Complete Video Companion
98 clips. 4.5 hours. Every chapter of the book, in motion.
Where the book gives you a figure, this gives you the movement it was frozen from — the correction as it happened, the sound of a half-step, the moment a structure held or folded under load. Santi and all five fists, cut from a decade of unedited class recordings between 2013 and 2023, subtitled in English throughout.
Figures cited in the book are marked, so you can finish a chapter and go straight to the clip it came from. No waiting, no schedule — the whole set opens at once and stays yours.
Not included: the advanced application material — hand-jamming, overcoming cycles, power release. That stays with the membership.
$69 through August, $89 after · Free for members at Practitioner and above
The Wider Archive
Beyond the book’s scope there are roughly 160 more class recordings — advanced applications, hand-jamming, the overcoming cycles, weapons. Those are released as weekly drops in the Archive Vault on Patreon, and they keep coming.
So: the Companion is the book, complete and immediate. The membership is everything else, arriving over time.
New · Baguazhang
The 2014 Bagua Seminar
108 clips. 10.5 hours. Two days, filmed end to end.
A seminar is taught differently from a weekly class. In class the teacher knows he will see you again next week, so he can drill one correction and leave the rest for later. At a seminar he has two days to hand a whole system to people who travelled to be there. The material runs dense and in order, start to finish — and a good deal of it he only ever said once.
Structure and power mechanics. Single Change Palm from breakdown to application. Pao Hui and the Den Die series. Snake Form and its throws. The Post-Heaven palms, probing and lifting, with applications. Cutting the line, stealing position, leg-hooking methods. English subtitles throughout.
Watch three hours of it free first — the professionally filmed feature cut, all four parts: Part 1 · Part 2 · Part 3 · Part 4
Listed at $249 · Or take one module: Foundations & Power Structure $89 · Single Change Palm, Pao Hui & Den Die $99 · Snake Form, Post-Heaven Palms & Throws $99 — see all
One-time purchase, yours to keep. Not part of the membership.
Online Course
Structured, on-camera instruction of the five fists, taught in sequence. Also part of the Patreon membership.
Live Classes and Seminars in Taiwan
Weekly classes and seminars at Biyankan (碧巖館), Hsinchu. The external-load test from Chapter 2 is administered here the old-fashioned way. English, 中文, and 日本語 all welcome.
Contact: areios.chang@gmail.com
Mailing List and Volume II
This one is free. Volume II — Generating, Overcoming, and the Advancing-Retreating Chain will be announced by email first. Write to areios.chang@gmail.com with the subject Book list to join.
— Wenteng Chang （張東逸）, Biyankan