Yiquan: Chinese art for health and internal strength

Yiquan is an internal Chinese art for healing and strengthening the body-mind. Even though the style was born as a martial art, its founder Wang Xiangzhai placed a special emphasis on health aspects from the beginning and later in life concentrated mainly on developing the art as a health-enhancing exercise.

In Yiquan, body and mind are seen as constituting a whole where these two aspects – substantial and insubstantial – are in a state of constant interaction and interdependence. The state of the mind affects the state of the body and vice versa.

The core exercise of the art is standing meditation. While the body is in a state of relaxation, the mind uses mental imagery to fill this external stillness with internal micro-movement. In this state, a healing and strengthening process takes place in the body. The conscious mind creates the conditions for this process with relaxation and concentration but does not direct or control the process. Instead, Yiquan trusts the innate wisdom of the body to direct the internal process optimally.

Master Zhang Changwang has practiced Chinese martial arts since he was 9 years old. In this book, he introduces the health side of Yiquan in detail and also discusses the art and the way it approaches training the entirety of the human being from a philosophical viewpoint.

This English edition of Master Zhang Changwang’s first book was published in 2011.