What exactly is XinYiBa? The question perplexes even experienced practitioners. Ask around and you will hear two different answers. Some describe a specific set of movements: guarded, rarely taught, dangerous to learn wrongly. Others describe something no set of movements can contain: a meditative state at the far end of cultivation.
I am Ben Lucas. I have spent the past two years as a student of XinYiBa's foundation under Shifu Wu Nanfang, and longer researching the question. Shifu calls XinYiBa the supreme Chan skill. The name arrives wrapped in legend: the ultimate Shaolin skill, guarded for centuries.
The practitioner Xing Kong writes that a single XinYiBa technique is worth more than a thousand others and can crush any other method.
This article is an attempt to demystify XinYiBa: to put the legends beside what the masters actually say.
My own ideas are modest next to theirs, so the article leans heavily on the recorded words of the three teachers whose XinYiBa is most fully on the record: Shifu Wu Nanfang of the Wu family line, Hu Zhengsheng of the Yang Guiwu line, and the Sanhuangzhai line recorded around Master Shi Dejian.
XinYiBa (心意把) is the highest form of Shaolin Kung Fu — a single internal practice the Yonghua Hall tradition calls Wushang Chan Gong Xinyiba (无上禅功心意把), the Supreme Chan Skill, Heart-Mind-Hold.
The tradition was founded at Shaolin Temple in 1592 by Master Wuyan Zhengdao (1547–1623), 26th-generation Shaolin abbot, and is held today by Shifu Wu Nanfang, who teaches at the school on Songshan Mountain in Henan, China.
Shifu Wu Nanfang is the 5th-generation Wu family inheritor, the 19th-generation Yonghua Hall holder, and the 31st-generation transmitter from the original Shaolin line. The transmission left Shaolin Temple in 1869, when Shifu's great-great-grandfather Wu Gulun (1831–1914) became the last monk in the temple's recorded history to pass the Mountain Gate Test.
Three branches of the lineage document the same early history independently: the Wu family bloodline of Shifu Wu Nanfang, the line through Yang Guiwu (1931–2010) whose records are published by Hu Zhengsheng's Shaolin Xinyiba Research Society, and the monastic Sanhuangzhai line of Master Shi Dejian. As Shifu Wu Nanfang puts it:
"The core of our Gulun Kung Fu is Xinyi. This is the core of our kung fu." — Shifu Wu Nanfang
Key Facts
| Field | Detail |
|---|---|
| Chinese | 心意把 |
| Pinyin | xīn yì bǎ |
| Literal meaning | heart · mind · hold |
| Doctrinal name | Wushang Chan Gong Xinyiba (无上禅功心意把): Supreme Chan Skill, Heart-Mind-Hold |
| Tradition | Shaolin Yonghua Hall (永化堂), founded 1592 |
| Current holder | Shifu Wu Nanfang (吴南方), b. 24 December 1962 |
| Lineage position | 5th-generation Wu family · 19th-generation Yonghua Hall · 31st-generation Shaolin |
| Location | Gulun Kung Fu school, Songshan Mountain, Henan, China |
What does XinYiBa mean?
The name is three characters. Xin (心) is heart, the deepest origin of human expression, the source from which thought and feeling emerge. Yi (意) is mind, or intent: what the heart produces and what the body acts upon. Ba (把) is hold, or grasp: the disciplining of heart and mind through the body, the practical cultivation that turns Xin and Yi from inner movement into outer form.
The literal English is heart-mind-hold.
Shifu Wu Nanfang explains the name in one sentence:
"Why is it called XinYiBa? There is this reason. XinYiBa is to master yourself, and then to master the opponent." — Shifu Wu Nanfang
The doctrinal expansion in the Yonghua Hall lineage is Wushang Chan Gong Xinyiba (无上禅功心意把). Wushang (无上) derives from the Sanskrit anuttara, meaning the supreme, the unsurpassed. Chan Gong (禅功) names the link between physical cultivation and Zen meditation. The full expansion reads: the Supreme Chan Skill, Heart-Mind-Hold. As Shifu Wu Nanfang frames it:
"The standard of XinYiBa: one push of XinYiBa pushes heaven by a hair. One uses this kind of heart to strike. The heart is polished softer still, a compassionate heart." — Shifu Wu Nanfang
XinYiBa is not, in this reading, technique. It is the standard a practitioner is being polished toward, expressed through technique.
The other lines of the lineage read the same three characters in their own registers. Hu Zhengsheng (b. 1977), who holds the Yang Guiwu line's manuscripts, gives the name a mechanical reading first:
"Why is it called XinYiBa? Because the hand and the foot arrive at the same time, and hand and foot rise together. So it is called XinYiBa: hand arrives, body arrives, then heart arrives, intention arrives (手到身到，心到意到)." — Hu Zhengsheng, recorded teaching
The monastic branch's fullest recorded exposition runs the three characters into a complete doctrine. It is worth reading whole:
"For over a thousand years, Shaolin Wushu XinYiBa was honoured as one of the highest attainments in Wushu. XinYiBa means Wushang Chan (ultimate Chan) and is the highest level attainable in Wushu. The three characters — Xin, Yi, and Ba — all have meaning: Xin means the mind; Yi means the unity of the mind and Qi; Ba means control.
There are three concepts in Xin. The first is to develop the mind of a Pusa to accumulate virtuous thoughts, to take Buddhism as the foundation and Chan as the basis to neutralise the aggressiveness in Wushu. The second is to develop a righteous mind, to use the body and mind with nature, and discard all thoughts of the self, death, enemies, and fear. The third is to develop a mind void of longings and cravings, to follow the commandments strictly — for example, the Ten Commandments promoted by the renowned monk Jueyuan.
The unity of mind and Qi means to use the mind to develop, train, and circulate Qi, so that the Qi from the Dan Tian can be unified with nature and directed into the muscles and all parts of the body. This on one hand fills the body with internal energy to be able to manipulate the opponent with a simple movement, and on the other to preserve internal serenity to maintain bodily health. Where the mind goes, the Qi follows; where the Qi goes, the body follows. As a result, we cannot see the fists, but the fists are all over the body.
What is meant by control is to first understand oneself and control one's power, so that one can control the exact amount of force used and the exact body part the force is to be executed from. The second thing to do is to understand one's opponent. Before the opponent moves, one is already expecting that move; hence, at the moment when the opponent moves, one can move faster ahead of him. All movements of the body are in full control and can defeat the opponent in a split second. While defeating the opponent, one should not maim him too seriously and should avoid at all times to kill." — recorded in The Shaolin Chanwuyi (2010)
The same book compresses the three characters into a third reading: "Buddha (Xin), Chan (Yi), and Power (Ba)." Different registers, one destination: the mastery of one's own heart, which is where Shifu Wu Nanfang's teaching begins and ends.
Where does XinYiBa come from?
XinYiBa comes out of the Yonghua Hall (永化堂), the research house for Chan Buddhism, martial arts, and medicine founded at Shaolin Temple in 1592 by Master Wuyan Zhengdao. Beyond that point the record splits: the two documentary branches of the lineage give different accounts of where the practice itself began, and this article gives both as they stand.
Shifu Wu Nanfang's account is the Wu family's own, and it is emphatic. Asked directly, in a recorded teaching from June 2026, where XinYiBa comes from and whether it is connected to Xinyi Quan or is purely a Shaolin thing:
"This XinYiBa is Shaolin Temple's XinYiBa. It was passed down from Wuyan Zhengdao, transmitted as Dao practice. The specific history comes down from the Ming Wanli reign. About that history, at present, there is no way to verify further. One can only say it is what Wuyan Zhengdao passed down." — Shifu Wu Nanfang, recorded teaching, June 2026
On the relationship with the civilian Xinyi arts, in the same conversation:
"It may have a certain relationship with Xinyi Liuhe and Xinyi Quan. But how would you determine that relationship? It cannot be determined. ... Our line has not received any outside influence. Everything comes from Shaolin." — Shifu Wu Nanfang, recorded teaching, June 2026
He adds that Xinyi Liuhe Quan is a folk art, not a Shaolin one, and that its training method differs: larger movements, where the Shaolin practice keeps them small.
The institutional history behind his account is well documented. The Yonghua Hall was funded by the Zhou Princely House of Kaifeng, and Wuyan Zhengdao, the 26th-generation Shaolin abbot, served for thirty-one years. For fourteen generations after him the hall's transmission passed from master to disciple inside the temple walls.
The Yang Guiwu branch preserves a different account. Its manuscripts, published by the Shaolin Xinyiba Research Society as The Essentials of Shaolin Kung Fu, state it in one sentence:
"Shaolin Xinyiba, the Shaolin temple's branch of Xinyi boxing, can be traced back to Ji Long (姬龍, 1620–?) from Shanxi province, who turned the art of the spear into an art of the fist." — The Essentials of Shaolin Kung Fu
The chain the book records is named and dated. Ji Long, better known as Ji Longfeng, was active in the "destroy the Qing, restore the Ming" resistance and converted his spear art to the fist when commoners were forbidden weapons.
His disciple Zheng Wukui (郑武奎, b. 1660) came from Dengfeng, the town beside Shaolin Temple; the book judges him the most likely first point of contact between the temple and the practice. Zheng's disciple Wang Zhicheng (王志诚, b. 1680), of Xin'an county in Henan, wrote down what he had learned.
His manuscripts summarise the theory of Xinyiba and Liuhequan. Several of Wang Zhicheng's original writings survive in Hu Zhengsheng's keeping today. The two accounts do not agree, and neither branch pretends they do.
What the documentary record cannot fix is precisely when the name XinYiBa attached to the practice. The earliest reliable written occurrences of the term are late Qing. The practice itself is older. The Yonghua Hall tradition holds that XinYiBa emerged from generations of Shaolin monks at agricultural labour: hoeing earth, lifting water, swinging implements.
The form preserves the body mechanics of that work, refined into a meditation. An older name in the lineage for the same practice is the Hoeing Stance. The claim goes back to Wu Gulun himself, in words his son Wu Shanlin repeated to his own students:
"When your Grand-master Gulun was alive, he often said that 'XinYiBa' was realised by past Shaolin monks while working and digging in the fields." — Wu Shanlin, recorded in Chan-Wu-Yi (Sanhuangzhai)
The clearest physical record of the older practice is at Shaolin Temple itself. In the Thousand Buddha Hall (千佛殿), built in 1588, the brick floor is worn with forty-eight deep depressions in the arrangement of practitioners' feet.
The Yonghua Hall lineage holds these to be the wear patterns of XinYiBa training during the Qing, when public martial practice was suppressed and the deepest forms moved to night-time training inside the hall. Shifu Wu Nanfang describes the impression:
"Especially when I went to the foot hollows behind Shaolin Temple's Thousand Buddha Hall, that shock to me was quite great. From those foot hollows you can see the ancients' practice was very serious, very diligent. The Thousand Buddha Hall was built in the Ming Dynasty; the kung fu spans from mid-Ming to mid-Qing, nearly two hundred years of history, using several generations of people. They truly brought this kung fu, the core of this kung fu being XinYiBa, brought XinYiBa practice to a peak." — Shifu Wu Nanfang
He names the three generations directly preceding the Wu family. Heifa (黑发). Haifa (海发). Zhanmo (湛谟). The fourth was his great-great-grandfather Wu Gulun.
Who has held the XinYiBa lineage?
The Yonghua Hall succession was recorded by the Compilation Committee of Local Chronicles of Dengfeng City (登封市地方史志编纂委员会), the municipal government body responsible for the local historical record. The chain runs from Wuyan Zhengdao to the present. The final three rows carry the teaching line that branches from Wu Shanlin at generation 16:
| Gen | Dharma name | Notes |
|---|---|---|
| 1 | Wuyan Zhengdao (无言正道) | 1547–1623, 26th-gen Shaolin abbot, founded Yonghua Hall 1592 |
| 2 | Yuanhui (圆会) | |
| 3 | Tongli (通理) | |
| 4 | Xinghai (行海) | |
| 5 | Caoran (超然) | |
| 6 | Tongxi (同禧) | |
| 7 | Xuangui (玄贵) | |
| 8 | Zushuang (祖双) | |
| 9 | Qingtai (清泰) | |
| 10 | Jingdian (净典) | |
| 11 | Zhenchuan (真传) | |
| 12 | Ruxiang (如祥) | Senior teacher of Shi Haifa, per the Research Society's account |
| 13 | Haifa (海发) | At Shi Gou Temple, late Qing. Also called Xiang Bo; nicknamed "Black Whirlwind" |
| 14 | Zhanmo (湛谟) | Twelve years on a Zen bench at Shi Gou Temple; physician by day, XinYiBa by night |
| 15 | Wu Gulun (吴古轮 / dharma name Jiqin 寂勤) | 1831–1914, last monk to pass the Mountain Gate Test, 1869 |
| 16 | Wu Shanlin (吴山林) | 1875–1970, returned to Shaolin 1931. Branch point of the living lines |
| 17 | Wu Tianyou (吴天有) / Wu Youde (吴有德) | 1898–1950 and 1908–1980 |
| 18 | Wu Mushen (吴木升) | 1930–2013 |
| 19 | Shifu Wu Nanfang (吴南方) | b. 24 December 1962, current holder |
| 17 (teaching line) | Shi Degen (释德根) | 1914–1970. Branch from Wu Shanlin; teacher of Yang Guiwu |
| 18 (teaching line) | Yang Guiwu (杨桂吾) | 1931–2010. Disciple of Shi Degen and student of Wu Shanlin; chief instructor to the Shaolin warrior monks |
| 19 (teaching line) | Hu Zhengsheng (胡正生) | b. 1977. Disciple of Yang Guiwu; founded the Shaolin Xinyiba Research Society, 2012 |
Shifu Wu Nanfang's own self-designation in his written hand reads simply: 少林永化堂心意把十九代传人, Shaolin Yonghua Hall XinYiBa 19th-Generation Inheritor.
The Research Society's book puts flesh on the late-Qing names. Shi Haifa (释海法, b. c. 1750), also called Xiang Bo and nicknamed "Black Whirlwind", took the temple's senior teacher Ru Xiang as his master: the same Ruxiang who stands at generation 12 of the Dengfeng chronicle's chain.
When the Qing prohibition of 1828 came down, Haifa and his most outstanding student Shi Zhanmo (释湛谟, b. c. 1780) hid at Shigou Temple below the mountain and continued in secret. Zhanmo slept on a bench for twelve years while he trained.
By day he practised medicine and saw the villagers' sick; by night he practised XinYiBa with his young disciple Jiqin, the boy who would become Wu Gulun. The book records that the older villagers of Shigou still tell stories of the pair.
The branch point of the living lines is Wu Shanlin, at generation 16. From him the transmission ran in at least three directions, and each runs the same three generations deep.
The family bloodline passed through his sons Wu Tianyou and Wu Youde (17) to Wu Mushen (18), and then to Shifu Wu Nanfang (19) at Yangshu Miao village. The monastic line returned to Shaolin through his student Zhang Qinghe (Master Xingxing, 1922–2004) and continues in Shi Dejian at Sanhuangzhai Monastery.
The teaching line ran through the temple after 1931: Shi Degen (17, 1914–1970), trained by Wu Shanlin, taught Yang Guiwu (18, 1931–2010) of Yanshi county. Yang Guiwu later served as chief instructor of traditional kung fu to the Shaolin warrior monks, and was filmed practising XinYiBa in the Thousand Buddha Hall.
He passed the early-Qing manuscripts inherited from Wu Shanlin's circle to his disciple Hu Zhengsheng (19, b. 1977), who founded the Shaolin Xinyiba Research Society in 2012 to preserve them.
The branches diverged; the documents agree. The Wu family's account of the early transmission and the account published by Hu Zhengsheng's line were recorded independently, and they attest the same chain: Haifa, Zhanmo, Shigou Temple, Wu Gulun, Wu Shanlin. Two branches, one root.
Full account of the lineage is in The Lineage.
How did XinYiBa leave Shaolin Temple?
The transmission left Shaolin Temple in 1869, in the eighth year of the Qing Tongzhi reign. The events that led to that point are preserved in the lineage's own historical record.
In 1828 the Manchu official Linqing (romanised Li Qing in the Research Society's book) visited Shaolin and asked to see the temple's martial practice. The Qing court had banned civilian martial arts; an official inspection placed the monks at risk.
After the demonstration, the abbot dispersed the senior practitioners to the temple's subsidiary houses in the surrounding mountains to continue practising in secret. Master Haifa, the 13th-generation Yonghua Hall holder, and his disciple Zhanmo, the 14th generation, settled at Shi Gou Temple (石沟寺), a remote sub-temple at the foot of the mountain.
In 1836 a five-year-old boy from a poor family at Yangshi village was sent there to become a monk under Zhanmo. He took the dharma name Jiqin (寂勤). His secular name was Wu Gulun. He trained under Zhanmo at Shi Gou Temple for the next thirty-three years.
The lineage preserves the story that Zhanmo would not teach XinYiBa directly. He had practised the form himself for twelve years, sleeping on a single Zen bench. When Wu Gulun first asked to learn, Zhanmo refused.
The boy then spent three years secretly watching his master practise through the window of the White Robe Hall, wetting the paper with his saliva to see clearly. When he was eventually discovered, Zhanmo asked him to demonstrate what he had taken.
His power surpassed that of senior disciples who had been formally taught for ten years. The next six years were direct instruction. Eighteen more years at the main Shaolin Temple followed, sparring with the temple monks.
In 1869, with the Qing court tightening its watch and Wu Gulun's joint practice with his uncle Zhanju attracting attention, Zhanmo decided the transmission had to leave the temple. According to Shaolin rule, an inheritor of the direct XinYiBa line could not return to lay life without fighting his way out of the mountain gate.
Wu Gulun began at the front of the Thousand Buddha Hall, defeated the monks guarding each pass, and at the gate vaulted over the assembled monks using their heads as footing. He was the last monk in Shaolin Temple's recorded history to fight his way out.
The Yang Guiwu line's book preserves the same rule under its own term: a departing monk had to defeat the "eighteen guardians" of the temple, and Wu Gulun, it records, was the last monk ever to do it.
He settled first at Tangzhuang in Dengfeng, then at Yangshu Miao village in the Baiyu valley, behind Bodhidharma's Cave. The lineage continued in the family from there. He raised two sons, Wu Shuanglin and Wu Shanlin. The younger, Wu Shanlin, inherited the system in full, together with the old manuscripts the temple's masters had entrusted to his father decades earlier.
In 1928 the warlord Shi Yousan burned the Shaolin Temple, destroying the Sutra Depository and the temple's accumulated martial arts manuals. Wu Shanlin was invited back by the surviving abbots Zheng Xu and Zeng Jun to retrain the surviving monks; Shi Yongxin records the invitation in his own published history Shaolin Wushu.
On what happened next, the three branches interlock. The Wu family account holds that he taught over forty practitioners at the temple, including the masters Shi Dechan and Shi Degen.
The Dejian branch's record agrees on the forty, and adds the limit: unable to find a suitable candidate, Wu Shanlin left after three years without teaching XinYiBa itself.
The Yang Guiwu line's book is blunter still: he judged the monks of poor character, taught only basic movements, and gave the complete transmission, XinYiBa included, to a handful of chosen disciples outside the walls, among them Shi Degen and Yang Guiwu. The supreme form never returned to the monastic institution.
It stayed with the successors Wu Shanlin chose himself.
What does XinYiBa actually involve?
XinYiBa is described in the lineage as one form that contains many. The Wu family historical text preserves the structural claim that the system is twelve sequences that condense to one: the mother grasp (mu ba, 母把), a single foundational stance with infinite variation. Shifu Wu Nanfang places it precisely:
"Gulun XinYiBa is established on the foundation of Gulun Kung Fu as a superior kung fu. Gulun Kung Fu is the foundation of Gulun XinYiBa. Gulun XinYiBa is the core of Gulun Kung Fu, its essence. So if you want to learn Gulun XinYiBa, you need to learn Gulun Kung Fu well. Only when Gulun Kung Fu has been learned well can you truly study and cultivate Gulun XinYiBa." — Shifu Wu Nanfang, recorded teaching, May 2025
The foundation and the goal, in one breath. Gulun Kung Fu is what a practitioner learns; XinYiBa is what the learning is for.
The shape of the mother grasp is the hoeing movement from which the lineage took its older name: rise, draw breath, drop weight, fall like splitting a brick, root through the legs, release force from the centre.
As the Wu family practice rhyme preserved by Wu Shanlin puts it: XinYiBa has simple stances; it is a Shaolin internal kung fu. Wu Shanlin taught the same structure to Zhang Qinghe in the words the Dejian branch still keeps:
"'XinYiBa' only has one major mother grasp, but its variations are infinite; it is called a supreme Zen kung fu. ... What you practise are the fixed stances of 'XinYiBa'; what I practise are the live stances." — Wu Shanlin, recorded in Chan-Wu-Yi (Sanhuangzhai)
Shifu Wu Nanfang describes the live end of that scale in nine characters:
"No fixed techniques. Following the heart, wherever it wishes. Issued from the heart." — Shifu Wu Nanfang, recorded teaching, May 2025
Power in XinYiBa comes from rotation, alignment, and unified breath, not from muscular contraction. A turn of the hip transmits through the spine, through the shoulder, through the hand. The whole body participates in any single action.
The lineage's names for the two governing principles are plain: softness taken to its extreme gives birth to hardness, and Hunyuan Yiqi (混元一气), the unified primordial qi of a body working as one piece.
XinYiBa cannot be approached without the foundation. Gulun Kung Fu begins every practitioner with standing meditation (Zhan Zhuang), dantian breathing, and the foundational stances. Years of that work precede the XinYiBa form itself. What the twelve sequences then do, over years more, is subtract. The practitioner Xing Kong, writing on the ten characteristics of Shaolin Gong Fu, describes the arc:
"At first, one wants to practise everything, learn everything, feeling that the martial arts are vast, profound, and extensive. Gradually, one practises less and less, specialises more and more, and finally practises only one form. The supreme skill of XinYiBa is that single form. All the routine movements return to that one form." — Xing Kong, "Ten Characteristics of Shaolin Gong Fu"
Hu Zhengsheng, teaching the form on camera, compresses the same point twice over:
"XinYiBa in motion: respond to ten thousand changes with the unchanging. ... It is not me practising the fist; my body has become the fist." — Hu Zhengsheng, recorded teaching
Full account of the practice mechanics, the foundational stances, and the path to XinYiBa is in The Practice.
What does Shifu Wu Nanfang say XinYiBa is for?
The central definitional passage Shifu gives reduces the practice to two characters: wuxin (悟心), realising the heart.
"At kung fu's end, cultivating to the end, belongs to Supreme Chan Practice XinYiBa, meaning realising the heart. You don't need to realise anything else, just these two characters: realise the heart. How to realise one's own heart, how to grasp one's own heart, how to control it: this is the core of practising Chan-practice XinYiBa. This 'realising heart as intention' is the same as Buddhist Chan's true nature: illuminating the heart, seeing one's nature, all is emptiness." — Shifu Wu Nanfang
In this reading XinYiBa is not separable from Chan. The form is the method by which Chan is realised through the body rather than through seated meditation alone. The destination is the classical Chan goal: ming xin jian xing (明心见性), illuminate the mind, see your original nature. Shifu compresses it to six words:
"It is not boxing. It is Buddha-dharma." — Shifu Wu Nanfang, on XinYiBa
Beyond the technical mechanics, Shifu returns again and again to what the practice does to the practitioner:
"XinYiBa: this kung fu is, the more you practise, the kinder the heart. Practising a kind heart, a Chan heart. So when you practise to a certain point, you have no heart to force or harm anyone." — Shifu Wu Nanfang
The lineage holds that XinYiBa is taught only when skill and that heart have been developed together.
Is XinYiBa a set of movements or a level of attainment?
Both positions circulate among practitioners, and the dispute is real. One school of thought holds that XinYiBa is a level: the highest stage of kung fu, reachable in principle through any art practised deeply enough.
The other holds that it is a specific body of movements, taught late and to few, with a reputation for being dangerous to learn wrongly. The lineage's own sources hold both, and they fit together without strain.
Shifu Wu Nanfang teaches the first reading, and he has been asked the question head-on. Everyone everywhere claims their kung fu is the best, a student challenged him in a recorded teaching; who says XinYiBa is the highest?
"No matter which Chinese kung fu, whether Shaolin kung fu, Xingyi, Bagua or Tai Chi: the highest state of the kung fu, the highest state of its cultivation, is in fact XinYiBa." — Shifu Wu Nanfang, recorded teaching, May 2025
Later in the same conversation he gives the dispute its answer in a single word. XinYiBa is a tongcheng (通称), a general name:
"Tai Chi practised to a certain state is XinYiBa. Xinyi Quan practised well is also called XinYiBa. Bagua, Baji, practised to full ripeness, meeting an opponent and taking them down with ease: that too is XinYiBa. ... XinYiBa is the general name for the highest state in kung fu. What is the highest state of Gulun Kung Fu? Gulun XinYiBa. What is the highest state of Shaolin Kung Fu? Shaolin Temple's XinYiBa." — Shifu Wu Nanfang, recorded teaching, May 2025
The monastic branch holds the same position. Master Shi Dejian, 18th-generation holder of the Sanhuangzhai line, defines it as a summit:
"XinYiBa means Wushang Chan (ultimate Chan) and is the highest level attainable in Wushu." — Master Shi Dejian, recorded in The Shaolin Chanwuyi (2010)
The same record states the cross-school reach outright:
"Take the Shaolin XinYiBa as an example; this is not limited to Shaolin, but is also applicable to other schools of Wu as it is about the control of the heart and the mind." — recorded in The Shaolin Chanwuyi (2010)
The movements are equally real, and other schools within the tradition lead with them. The form exists: twelve sequences condensing to the mother grasp, with body mechanics descended from spear work and farm labour. The Research Society's book counts them bluntly:
"Shaolin's Xinyiba still contains merely a handful of movements, which all still resemble the original spear techniques, and apart from that, the style is characterised by strict adherence to the old martial arts principles, as well as its violence and fierceness in battle." — The Essentials of Shaolin Kung Fu
An old saying inside the temple, preserved in the Sanhuangzhai record, marks the difference:
"There is a saying that practising Quan without Ba is like untrained fighting. There is an old Chinese saying in the Shaolin Temple: 'Can teach you ten Quan styles, but not teach you one Ba.'" — recorded in The Shaolin Chanwuyi (2010)
The same record preserves the entry conditions Zhanmo set at Shigou Temple:
"One must undergo a long period of testing by the master, have a solid foundation of more than ten years, and must remain a vegetarian and celibate for life." — recorded in Chan-Wu-Yi (Sanhuangzhai)
Yang Guiwu's teaching, printed in the Research Society's book, is the plainest statement of the guarded-movements view on record:
"Shaolin XinYiBa is, most importantly, practising Neigong (internal skill). It is a fighting skill that isn't to be taught [to the unworthy]. There are only a few movements, but they require immense skill. They are simple, yet strenuous to practise. Every move is followed by sounds as loud and powerful as thunder; one must shout whether the hands rise or fall. ... Even three years of arduous practice are not sufficient for one to be allowed [to train] in the Bai Yi Dian. ... If not learned well, practising XinYiBa might harm the body. It is better not to practise it at all than to practise wrong; one would damage internal organs, bones, and joints." — Yang Guiwu, The Essentials of Shaolin Kung Fu
Shifu confirms the fierce reputation from his own side. Asked why practitioners call XinYiBa the most ruthless of Shaolin's arts:
"Because when this kung fu is practised to a certain degree, the strength is limitless. And its movements are fast: hard to defend against. It strikes the body's vital points." — Shifu Wu Nanfang, recorded teaching, June 2026
And in the same breath he denies that the movements alone are the thing:
"If I teach you the movements and you learn them, but you have not truly trained them to a state of full ripeness, that still cannot become XinYiBa." — Shifu Wu Nanfang, recorded teaching, May 2025
Wu Shanlin's summary, kept in the sister line's record, cuts between the two readings:
"'XinYiBa' is absolutely not just a simple variation of a few stances; it is a high-level combination of health preservation and Qi-practising methods. ... If one practises this kung fu without high cultivation and rushes for success, they will mutilate themselves and die." — Wu Shanlin, recorded in Chan-Wu-Yi (Sanhuangzhai)
The question also arrives at the school in person. New students at Gulun Kung Fu ask when XinYiBa will be taught, as if one set of movements were XinYiBa and the rest merely foundation. A student put exactly that to Shifu: are some movements Gulun Kung Fu, and other movements XinYiBa?
"These all belong to Gulun Kung Fu. ... Gulun Kung Fu is the foundation of XinYiBa. Gulun XinYiBa is the upper layer of Gulun Kung Fu, its core, its essence. Gulun Kung Fu, arrived at that state, is Gulun XinYiBa." — Shifu Wu Nanfang, recorded teaching, May 2025
When the same when-do-we-start question reached him again in July 2026, he answered with an aphorism in the lineage's old vocabulary, where the chui (锤), the hammer, is the fist work and the ba (把) is XinYiBa:
"Practising Gulun Kung Fu is itself the foundation of XinYiBa. XinYiBa is the upper layer of Gulun Kung Fu: the core of Gulun Kung Fu, the essence of Gulun Kung Fu. But if you have not mastered Gulun Kung Fu well, you do not possess the conditions to practise XinYiBa. It is one whole. The chui is the foundation of the ba; the ba is the essence of the chui (锤是把的基础，把是锤的精华)." — Shifu Wu Nanfang, recorded teaching, July 2026
A beginner pressed the same point from the other end: do brand-new students practise XinYiBa at all?
"What you are practising now is also XinYiBa. But between you and that state there is still a long distance. ... It is all the foundation of XinYiBa. The road is still very long." — Shifu Wu Nanfang, recorded teaching, May 2025
The question was put to Shifu one final time in July 2026, days before this article was published: some say XinYiBa is a state, the highest reach of Bagua and Tai Chi alike; others say it is a set of special movements. Which is it? His answer holds both without strain:
"You can understand XinYiBa this way. It is called Xin Yi. Xin Yi is the activity of the inner heart, the heart's thought-activity: a kind of inner thought-consciousness. And what is inside that consciousness? If it is the XinYiBa of kung fu, Shaolin XinYiBa, then this Xin Yi contains many methods and techniques. Through the working of Xin Yi you adjust every joint of the whole body, every part, inside and outside, until you reach the state of the whole body as one family, inside and outside united as one (周身一家，内外合一). In that state, through a long period of repeated practice, you arrive at great ripeness: practised to the extreme, used without mind. In that state, that is what we call XinYiBa. It has many factors. It is not one single aspect. When you practise, you feel it yourself." — Shifu Wu Nanfang, recorded teaching, July 2026
Asked about the single movement most often demonstrated as XinYiBa today, he places it without demoting it:
"That movement belongs to XinYiBa: it is one movement of XinYiBa, an illustration of XinYiBa. The things held within it, the consciousness, are all contained inside it." — Shifu Wu Nanfang, recorded teaching, July 2026
The two readings meet where Shifu says they do. The movements are the method; the state is what the method produces; at the end the two are indistinguishable:
"At the final stage of kung fu, practised to the end, belonging to our Chan kung fu's XinYiBa: this is martial and meditation as one. And this 'martial and meditation as one' combines with the Buddhist Chan thought: illuminate the mind and see your original nature." — Shifu Wu Nanfang
His last word on it dissolves the question of whose XinYiBa is the real one:
"My XinYiBa, my master's XinYiBa, and in the end your XinYiBa are basically the same, yet each is different. It is gained through one's own cultivation. It is a long road." — Shifu Wu Nanfang, recorded teaching, May 2025
The monastic line keeps a sentence that explains why no two look alike:
"The way does not have a form, and its form depends on the person who teaches it." — Master Shi Dejian, recorded in The Shaolin Chanwuyi (2010)
Within Gulun Kung Fu the movements remain the vehicle, guarded as the lineage has always guarded them. The form is the door. XinYiBa, finally, is the name of what is on the other side, whichever door an artist walks through.
How is XinYiBa different from Xingyi Quan and Wudang internal arts?
XinYiBa and the civilian internal arts share family resemblance. Whole-body rotation, force rising from the dantian, breath unified with form, power released from the centre: the underlying mechanics overlap with Xinyi Liuhe Quan (the Henan tradition associated with Ji Longfeng) and with the older internal Shaolin material from which Wudang and Tai Chi later drew.
The Research Society's book describes the kinship from its own side. Shaolin's XinYiBa, it observes, kept a handful of movements close to the late-Ming spear methods, while sister lines from the same source developed further: the Luoyang branch of Ma Xueli (1714–1790) and the Dai family line from which Xingyi Quan later grew.
On the internal-external labels themselves, Master Xingxing (Zhang Qinghe), who carried the monastic line, kept a blunt correction:
"People call Shaolin an 'external' martial art and Wudang an 'internal' one. This is a layman's misconception perpetuated by novelists. XinYiBa's manual begins: 'XinYiBa has simple stances; it is a Shaolin internal kung fu.'" — Master Xingxing, recorded in Chan-Wu-Yi (Sanhuangzhai)
The manual line he cites is the same sentence Wu Shanlin's practice rhyme preserves in the Wu family. Two branches, one sentence.
The historical relationships are contested.
The Yonghua Hall lineage preserves transmission stories linking XinYiBa to several of these later traditions; the rigorous historiography of Tang Hao (1930), Xu Zhen (1930), Stanley Henning, and Peter Lorge reads the relationships as convergent rather than ancestor-descendant, a late-Qing cross-pollination between Shaolin practice and the civilian internal arts of Henan and Shanxi.
The Bodhidharma and Yue Fei origin claims that circulate widely in popular sources are decisively rejected by serious scholarship.
Shifu Wu Nanfang draws the distinction at the level of method:
"Shaolin XinYiBa is completely different from other kung fu. It awakens from the angle of Chan mind." — Shifu Wu Nanfang
Asked to rank the traditions against each other, he declines the game entirely:
"We cannot judge. I have never spoken of others as bad. Good or not: let each person understand for himself, let him experience for himself. Like eating food. ... We have said before, all kung fu under heaven is the same. The training methods of all kung fu are the same." — Shifu Wu Nanfang, recorded teaching, May 2025
The honest position is that XinYiBa is a sister tradition to several civilian internal arts, distinct from each, and the strongest claim that can be made is the one the lineage's own teaching makes: Shaolin itself is Chan kung fu.
How can XinYiBa be learned today?
Foundation first. Gulun Kung Fu does not teach XinYiBa to beginners. Practitioners spend their first two years on standing meditation, dantian breathing, the eight foundational exercises, and the basic stances. The form itself is opened only when the body has been brought to the state where it can hold what XinYiBa carries.
There is no moment when the teaching switches from ordinary movements to XinYiBa movements. The foundation ripens into the form. Shifu Wu Nanfang set the benchmark for one of his own students in exactly those terms:
"Two years' work and the whole is good. That is enough. Next spring you can begin to learn XinYiBa. Is it difficult? Only, the body must arrive. The whole-body power must come out together. Not much more than that: it is a matter of coordination. The mastery of song-jing (loose-quiet) coordination." — Shifu Wu Nanfang, to a student
The sister line kept the same rule generations earlier. Wu Youde, Wu Shanlin's son, put it in one sentence:
"Only when the basic skills are mastered can one truly learn the supreme Shaolin kung fu." — Wu Youde, recorded in Chan-Wu-Yi (Sanhuangzhai)
Shifu is unsentimental about how rare the full transmission has become:
"All kung fu under heaven comes from Shaolin; all kung fu under heaven is one family. But those who train according to our method are now very few: almost none. Nobody trains this way. Why does nobody train this way? Because no one transmits it to them; there is no master to transmit it to them. And a master transmitting this kung fu must himself possess it. If you do not have it, you cannot transmit it. And if I study with a master but do not grasp this thing myself, I cannot transmit it either. I would transmit only external things." — Shifu Wu Nanfang, recorded teaching, July 2026
Three pathways are open. The first is the free online community at skool.com/gulunkungfu, which gives the eight foundational exercises with structured progression and weekly live classes across European and American time zones. Anyone can begin here.
The second is the full online programme, with the complete foundational syllabus, ongoing modules as the curriculum unfolds, video feedback on submitted practice, and direct access to Shifu's recorded teachings; details at Online Training.
The third is the school on Songshan Mountain itself, fifteen minutes from Shaolin Temple, which accepts students year-round and runs daily practice morning and afternoon under Shifu's direct teaching; details at Train in China.
Shifu is plain about who the form itself is for:
"XinYiBa is supreme Chan skill. Gulun Kung Fu can be popularised, but core XinYiBa depends on destiny. Without affinity it cannot be learned." — Shifu Wu Nanfang
Frequently asked questions
Is XinYiBa related to Xinyi Liuhe Quan and Ji Longfeng? Shifu Wu Nanfang holds that XinYiBa is Shaolin Temple's own: passed down from Wuyan Zhengdao in the Ming Wanli reign, with no outside influence on the Wu line. A relationship with the civilian Xinyi arts "may exist", he says, but "cannot be determined". The document published by the Shaolin Xinyiba Research Society records a different account, tracing a chain from the spear master Ji Longfeng (b. 1620) through his Dengfeng disciple Zheng Wukui (b. 1660) into the Shaolin district, with Xinyi Liuhe Quan descending from the same source through the Luoyang line of Ma Xueli (1714–1790). Historians read the family of Xinyi arts as convergent cross-pollination. All three positions are on the record; no single chain is proven.
Who was Wang Zhicheng? Wang Zhicheng (王志诚, b. 1680) was a martial artist from Xin'an county, Henan, active during the Qianlong reign, and a disciple of Zheng Wukui. He wrote down the theory of Xinyiba and Liuhequan he had received; his early-Qing manuscripts, including the Ten Methods of boxing, passed through Wu Shanlin's circle to Yang Guiwu and then to Hu Zhengsheng. The Shaolin Xinyiba Research Society's book The Essentials of Shaolin Kung Fu is built on his writings.
What is the difference between the Wu family line and Hu Zhengsheng's line? Both descend from Wu Shanlin (1875–1970). The Wu family bloodline passed within the family at Yangshu Miao village to Shifu Wu Nanfang, the 5th-generation inheritor and 19th-generation Yonghua Hall holder. Hu Zhengsheng's line runs through Wu Shanlin's disciples Shi Degen (1914–1970) and Yang Guiwu (1931–2010), and holds the early-Qing manuscripts of Wang Zhicheng, published through the Shaolin Xinyiba Research Society. Two branches, one root: each documents the same early history independently.
What is the Shaolin Xinyiba Research Society? The Shaolin Xinyiba Research Society (少林心意把研究会) was founded in 2012 by Hu Zhengsheng to fulfil the last wish of his master Yang Guiwu. Its work is the research, preservation, and sharing of traditional Shaolin and Xinyi boxing. It published The Essentials of Shaolin Kung Fu, the translation of the Wang Zhicheng manuscripts and Yang Guiwu's writings prepared by Hu Zhengsheng and Joël Achermann.
Is XinYiBa a form or a level of kung fu? Both, and Shifu Wu Nanfang has answered the question directly: XinYiBa is a tongcheng (通称), the general name for the highest state in any kung fu, whether Shaolin, Xingyi, Bagua or Tai Chi. Within Gulun Kung Fu it is also a specific guarded practice: twelve sequences condensing to a single mother grasp, taught late and only to selected disciples. Gulun Kung Fu is the foundation; XinYiBa is the state it arrives at. In Shifu's words: "Gulun Kung Fu, arrived at that state, is Gulun XinYiBa." And in his last recorded answer on the question, from July 2026: "It has many factors. It is not one single aspect."
Who teaches XinYiBa today? The Gulun branch of XinYiBa is taught by Shifu Wu Nanfang, 5th-generation Wu family inheritor and 19th-generation Yonghua Hall holder, at the school on Songshan Mountain in Henan, China. The parallel monastic branch is taught by Shi Dejian at Sanhuangzhai Monastery. Both lines trace to Wu Shanlin (1875–1970) and share the same Yonghua Hall foundation from 1592.
What is the Shaolin Mountain Gate Test? A historical Shaolin rule: an inheritor of the direct XinYiBa transmission could not return to lay life without fighting his way out of the temple's main gate, defeating the monks guarding each pass along the route. The Research Society's book calls the examiners the "eighteen guardians" of the temple. The last person on record to pass the test was Wu Gulun in 1869. His departure took the orthodox XinYiBa transmission into the Wu family bloodline at Yangshu Miao village, where it has remained for five generations.
Sources
This article rests on lineage documents recorded independently by three branches of the same transmission. The first is the Wu family's own record: Shifu Wu Nanfang's recorded interviews and teachings, and the family historical texts held at Yangshu Miao.
The second is The Essentials of Shaolin Kung Fu (Shaolin Xinyiba Research Society, 1st edition): original documents by Wang Zhicheng and Yang Guiwu, translated and interpreted by Hu Zhengsheng and Joël Achermann. The third is the Dejian branch's record: Chan-Wu-Yi: The Way of Sanhuangzhai (Master Shi Dejian) and Agnes S.
Chan, The Shaolin Chanwuyi (Chanwuyi Foundation, 2010). Where the branches differ, the article says so. External references: the Shaolin Temple official site (shaolin.org.cn) and Meir Shahar, The Shaolin Monastery (University of Hawai'i Press, 2008).
For readers who want the branches first-hand: Hu Zhengsheng teaches in Dengfeng and Shi Dejian's line is at Sanhuangzhai Monastery; their schools maintain their own sites. Training with Shifu Wu Nanfang, in person on Songshan Mountain, is at Train in China.
Train with us
Free training is available at the online community. The full programme, with weekly live classes from Shifu Wu Nanfang and Ben Lucas, is at Online Training. For those drawn to study in person, the school on Songshan Mountain accepts students year-round; details at Train in China. Further questions are answered on the FAQ.