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"Let your Dantien be linked with your arms and legs. Let your chi and strength be linked with your intent. Let time, space, gravity and the center be utilized in a meaningful and appropriate way. Then you will achieve the Oneness that we are all searching for." - Master Cheuk Fung
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 Master and Mrs. Cheuk Fung paying respect to Yi Chuan Grandmaster Han Sing Chiao and his wife in Chung Shan, China. (November, 1995) |
The
founder of Yi Chuan, Grandmaster Wang Sheng Chai sought to remove some of the restraints
of the traditional martial arts in order to more quickly develop the strength and the
health of the practitioner. He accomplished this by extracting the essential fighting and
health aspects from the traditional arts and forming a more complete martial art system.
Yi Chuan is complete in the sense that it enhances the development of every aspect of the
full human potential, while conforming to natural human growth. Yi Chuan is a chi kung, a
martial art, a philosophy, and a system of health maintenance. 
Countless
people have been helped by Yi Chuan, making it famous as both a fighting and a healing
art. As a fighting art, the characteristics of Yi Chuan are quite unique. Traditionally,
in most martial arts styles, the practitioner will first learn some fixed forms, then
applications of the forms follow. However, it usually takes a long time to develop true
fighting ability with this traditional approach. A practitioner may do a form which looks
good, but still have little, if any, true fighting ability. Yi Chuan is a much more direct
method and gets to the heart of fighting ability by stressing the appropriate utilization
of space and gravity through a balanced body structure. The attention is not on movements
or techniques, which are of secondary importance, but rather, on their essence in terms of
rooting, internal energy ("chi")
development, centering,
balancing, and expressing explosive power. Yi Chuan goes directly to the central elements;
to the development of energy and structural construction; and to the formation of a good
relationship between the "earth" (gravity), the "sky" (space), and the
"human" (our balanced structure). Combining and balancing the three elements of
"sky," "earth," and "human" will result in a good martial
art, good health, good balance, and good mental attitude.