The six characteristic terms of Yin Style Baguazhang

Yin Style Baguazhang is a formidable martial art. This is partly due to its deep theoretical underpinning and strict adherence to that in practical training. As is frequent with Chinese arts, there is a list of six terms that define how to practice Yin Style Baguazhang correctly. These, of course, are more broadly applicable to any martial art, if the practitioner wants to do it well. From my perspective, making these ideas explicit has been instrumental in taking my own training to new heights. These terms define how Yin Style Baguazhang should be practiced at all times.
The six terms are: stable, accurate, vicious, cold, crisp, and fast.

The six foundational terms are in the order they are in for a particular reason--something like an order of importance. I'll briefly highlight each here, mostly in a perspective of introducing them to people outside the art or people new to it. For more seasoned veterans, my personal experiences will get some time in the limelight too.

Stable
There can be no question about it. If you want to be good at martial anything, you have to be stable first. You have to be centered, rooted, balanced, and able to launch your attacks while using your defenses from a rock-solid and stable foundation. If you are not stable, your attacks will be overturned, and you will lose instead of your opponent.

In Yin Style we do a lot to cultivate stability. Standing strengthening helps build a connection to a stable stance while developing the ability to get into it effectively. Circle turning is the perfect expression of developing stability in movement. All of our striking drills, including changes, require strict attention to stability at all times to control our own root and to upset that of the opponent at will. Any time I feel like my training is not producing results in terms of applications or fighting use, I go back and review stability (in addition to harmony...) and usually find the deficiency there.

Accurate
The goal here is to develop accuracy in technique, footwork, intent, and use. This principle is listed second among the six for the obvious reason of its enormous importance. If you are not accurate, your techniques will not work. Your result will be bad, and you will have a hard time achieving victory over your opponent.

In Yin Style Bagua, we often say that we "train by the book." In fact, we also say that we "train, refine, and forge" our techniques, and a large part of this is accuracy. Every activity and every technique in Yin Style is multidimensional, giving it tremendous utility and depth, but that requires tremendous accuracy to achieve. You must be accurate in your use of all parts of your body; you must be accurate in your intent; and you must be accurate in the expression of the technique. Otherwise, your result will not be good.

As we say: "off by an inch is off by a mile." We demand that level of accuracy in all of hands, eyes, body, waist, and footwork--first time, every time.

Vicious
Yin Style is a martial art, not a sport. When we do our techniques, we "take them to completion," and our attitude with them is vicious. Many people when first starting out in Yin Style are almost a bit horrified by the utter destructiveness of many of the techniques, as most martial arts have been softened down to a family/kid-friendly reinvention of themselves or padded up for use in the cage.

Obviously, we don't train Yin Style to become monsters. Indeed, most people who train bagua are exactly the opposite. Still, when the fecal matter hits the rotating turbine, people like to say that the gloves come off. This is exactly what is meant by "vicious" in terms of training and using Yin Style Bagua. In training, we cultivate this by keeping a real fighting intent in all of our training--striking, standing, and turning.

Cold
The character here means "cold in manner, detached." That's how we Yin Style approaches the idea of fighting. We are more interested in a successful outcome with our fighting techniques than we are with the feelings of the person that we're doing them to. Again, this isn't to make us into monsters, it's to keep the matter in perspective. If you're a good, reasonable person, you're not fighting unless it is very serious. In that case, you keep it serious, and your manner is generally cold to your opponent.

This also carries with it the idea of being detached from the outcome in our training. The goal is to get better, not to get frustrated trying to get to a high level too quickly. We train as well as we can and don't get flustered about the difficulty of the art.

Crisp
Our techniques should be crisp. This ties tightly into the "stable and accurate" part at the beginning of this list, and it speaks highly to having a certain crispness and sharpness of movement. By making our techniques crisp, we achieve an element of surprise on our opponent even after we are engaged. When our techniques are crisp, it is clear by the reaction of our opponent, often watching them lose their root so quickly that it seems like they jumped to the ground or, more literally, were thrown there hard with maximum efficiency.

One of the main ways we train crispness is by studying coordination (often called "harmony") very explicitly. We cultivate this level of coordination more highly than in any art that I've witnessed or trained (including karate, taekwondo, and jiu-jitsu), and we make it very, very explicit. Indeed, after almost twelve years of studying karate, studying BJJ on and off throughout, and three years of studying Yin Style, a major critique I received a few years ago was "You're getting better, but you're not very coordinated." The proof, though, is in the pudding, and a crisp training methodology with good "harmony" results in devastating techniques.

Fast
Obviously, techniques are most effective if they are fast. This is a double-edged sword for most arts, though, because fast techniques often come at the sacrifice of power. Yin Style trains explicitly to develop true speed, however, instead of the false speed that most "fast" techniques find at the expense of power. Being last, this is put last in importance, something critical to remember while training. If your training is good, speed will come naturally and be real. If you rush your training and try to be fast before you have any developed skill, however, your speed will be empty, and power will suffer.

Yin Style Bagua is designed intentionally to develop true, proper speed instead of the false sort. This takes time, however. The entire progression in every aspect of training is built around the notion of knowing how to take one's time to be very fast when it counts.

In conclusion, if you want to become better able at any martial art, the lessons that Yin Style has to offer on being stable, accurate, vicious, cold, crisp, and fast are of tremendous value. That's why the mission statement of YSB International explicitly contains "helping motivated individuals to attain the 'cold, crisp, and fast' fighting methods of this art."