An Alternative History of Baguazhang

I already know a lot of people, as soon as they read the title of this article, will immediately give a condescending laugh and say something like "Idiot".  Because who in their right mind would think that Bagua has other origins that what is commonly accepted?  That Dong Hai Chuan came out of nowhere and somehow took a circle walking meditative art and turned it a fearsome combat art, does that sound about right?  That is a great origins story, in line with a lot of the other great arts, a story that has lots of mystery, many people claiming exclusive rights to the truth and few verifiable facts.  Now before I go any further, I REALLY want to stress that I am not insulting anyone else's history.  I am also not going to state that anyone is totally wrong.  What I am going to suggest here is that maybe there is more to the story that we previously thought and that there are well respected names and locations that we can easily find that tend to point towards a different version of history.  So, again, I want to state that I will never take any credit away from Dong Hai Chuan or belittle his skills because even he said he didn't create the art.  We have just given him credit since he never identified who he learned it from.  

Ok!  Now that I have covered my bases and made sure no one gets their feelings hurt by the suggestion that there is more to the story, lets dive in to what we know about the origins of Baguazhang.

First off, lets tell people who are not practitioners of Baguazhang what we are talking about.  Baguazhang or Bagua for short is one of the 3 main Internal Martial Arts from China and arguably is the most complex and in depth of the three, which also includes Tai Chi and Xingyi.  Bagua is easily identified by the basic exercise of Circle Walking, where practitioners move around a circle, generally facing towards the center.  There are usually 8 or 9 different sets of movements to change direction, depending on the school you practice at and in-between changes the body is held in a static position.  This exercise is where students train power and tendon development with combat applications being done later.  For people who have never practiced Bagua before, the training I just described sounds silly, but when done correctly is physically exhausting in a short period of time since it is a practice that uses the whole body, leaving nothing un-trained.  That is where the similarities end though, with each school using different movements, postures and each having unique practice requirements to be correct.  

The founder of Bagua was named Dong Hai Chuan and sometime around 1864 he showed up in Beijing and got a job working at the Palace where he impressed a group of party guests with his skill at moving through the crowd and when they asked him to demonstrate his kung fu, he obliged and the rest is history.  When he was asked where he learned his art from, he said, "A Hermit".  We know that Dong Hai Chuan only taught 3 palms in the beginning and would create other palms to fit his students needs, since he was making each version unique to the student he was teaching.  But why would it be called Ba Gua Zhang or Eight Trigram Palm if he only had 3 original palm movements?  Just as an FYI, he originally only taught the Single Palm Change, the Double Palm Change and something called a Smooth Body Change.  So instead of just asking leading questions and feeding you the answers, lets examine what we do know about Dong Hai Chuan and ask ourselves if the suggestion I am giving here isn't remotely possible.  We know that Dong Hai Chuan traveled far and wide as a young man, but never really gave an account of his travels, but he was exposed to many martial arts teachers and styles.  He was also illiterate, which puts serious doubt towards him being able to create an art as deeply rooted in Taoist religious practices as Bagua is.  We also know that he only taught a few students who carried his art on, eight students who started their own lineages, and each was taught a vastly different art.  Each of these eight students passed on extremely different practice methods so we know that they weren't taught a standardized training program.  Also each of the eight lineages VERY quickly started expanding and adding different practices to train and focus on different areas.  To many people this suggests that Dong Hai Chuan didn't teach a complete martial system to his students, but only showed them how to improve the art they started with.  So each student would have to create and add exercises that fit their needs.  

Most people know that to create a martial art requires a person to fill three distinct and specialized roles in order to create a well rounded and martially sound fighting system.  They need to be a fighter, a technician and a teacher all in one.  The fighter role is obvious, someone needs to prove the art is effective to draw in students and to promote the art's standing within the martial arts community.  The technician role is required to fully understand the exercises, create new practices, learn every single detail and also connect these physical practices to esoteric ideas (Like the I Ching and Bagua).  Technicians also must know how each exercise fits into the whole art and also how to train correctly to avoid injury and gain steady progress.  The last role is the teacher, who is the one to pass the information on to many people and spread the art.  The teacher is the public face for information about the art and must be a skilled communicator or the art won't spread very far.  Each of these roles is a must in martial arts.  Many people can only perform one role, say for example there are many great fighters who can't teach to save their lives.  Or teachers who aren't the greatest fighters.  This is totally normal, each role requires vastly different mindsets to be successful.  Now I'm not saying that a person can't have some skill in each role, but its very difficult to be great at each, I am sure that is common knowledge.  You might be asking what this has to do with Dong Hai Chuan, so lets apply these roles to him and lets see what seems logical.  Dong Hai Chuan was a great fighter, that so commonly understood that I won't even address it here.  But was he the best technician or teacher?  Since we know he taught a bare bones art that his students had to add to immediately to suit their needs, we can safely assume that he might not have been the greatest technician, since that role would have left many exercises for each student.  So the students wouldn't have needed to add things so quickly.  Being illiterate he wouldn't have been able to connect the circle walking practice to deep, mystical ideas in Taoism either.  We can also assume he wasn't the best teacher, since he only had success with master level martial artists as students and never was able to teach a large public group and sustain it, even with his amazing reputation.  Again, this isn't being rude to Dong Hai Chuan, it is a logical look at what we know, ok?  

But here is where it gets interesting and where new information comes into the picture that suggests where Bagua came from and what the art may have been intended to resemble by its founders.  Again I am NOT claiming to have an exclusive on the truth and I'm not saying anyone else is wrong.  There is a lineage of Bagua called Gao Bagua after its first public proponent named Gao Yisheng.  Gao was originally a student of  Song Changrong and Cheng Tinghua, but broke with them for an unknown reason.  He then studied Xingyi with Li Cunyi and that influence is apparent in the martial art he left behind.  But the really interesting part is that he claimed to have met a hermit from Guanghua Moutain name Song Yiren who taught him a linear version of Bagua.  This type of claim isn't unusual since many Chinese martial artists claim to have learned from mythical or hidden characters to provide legitimacy to their art and in fact the name Song Yiren is the Chinese equivalent of saying "John Smith", it is a very vague and general name.  It sounds like a strange name, but it would have fit perfectly for a monk who had given up his original name to shed ties to secular life.  We see that there is perhaps some truth here because a different martial artist named Han Jinyong was studying Bagua with a different teacher under Dong Hai Chuan, but left to study with a monk from Guanghua Mt named Ying Xia.  When Han Jinyong finished his training, he was so impressed with his teacher and art that he changed his name to Han Muxia which means 'Admires Xia'.  This is no small compliment in Chinese culture, family names are very important and rarely are changed and would never be changed to support an imagined mythical source.  When Han Muxia started publicly teaching, he quickly became famous for beating a Russian strongman who had been beating the local Chinese challengers.  Han Muxia and Gao Yisheng never met each other, but each publicly taught very similar linear Bagua forms, and each learned from a different teacher.  The fact that the linear forms are slightly different implies that there were several teachers on Guanghua Mt that taught linear Bagua, as each teacher would practice and share their own version.  If Gao and Han had created the forms together, they would have been taught identically, right?  Guanghua Mt also had several Taoist groups that used circle walking meditations if I understand correctly and if the name Song Yiren was a pseudonym, then that might be what Dong Hai Chuan meant when said he learned from a hermit and didn't identify him.  Why would you tell people you learned martial arts from someone named 'Teacher John Smith"?  There is one more piece of evidence that hammers home this idea.  Both Gao Yisheng and Han Muxia were famous teachers and each had famous students.  But they shared several well known students, most notably being Wu Mengxia and Bi Motang, both being famous for martial arts but also for personal character.  Each of these students swore up and down that they believed their teachers had learned from separate teacher on Guanghua Mt and that there was no doubt in their mind of anything to the contrary.  This is very important evidence since the word of a martial arts teacher was considered to be very important and would not have been given lightly.

So with all these facts put together, we can start to see that there is more to the creation story and history of Baguazhang than is commonly known.  I truly hope I haven't offended anyone by this, but I felt it was a very important article to write since any good information about our common art of Bagua should be shared with everyone who is interested.  

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Our Basic Bagua Circle Walking Posture and Stepping

Yang Laoshi talking about how to find correct posture in our Standing Postures

Yang Laoshi taking about the correct structure in Gao Bagua and how we use kicks to advance.

Evolution is Traditional

Ok, I already know that the title of this article has some of you crying and curling up in the corner in horror, and that's ok.  But for the rest of you that get all the way through this because you have solid critical thinking skills, I think I can make a solid point for this idea.  But I do what to make a disclaimer that I am NOT in any way insulting the traditional arts, just pointing out how things were always done, until recently that is.  So put on your big boy thinking caps and lets dive into this!

The title of the article sums it up.  Evolution and adaptation in the Chinese martial arts was the norm until this past century.  Then a combination of factors conspired to freeze the Chinese martial arts in place, but as many of you who are familiar with Taoist thought would know, change is the way of nature.  Standing still and never growing or changing is against the Tao.  There are many great examples of this idea, but for a solid starting point lets ask............Why are there so many styles of the same martial art?  Look at my art of Xingyi.  The historically verified founder is Ji Ji Ke, right?  So originally we had one unique style of martial arts that began in the 17th century.  But today, how many different branches and styles of Xingyi are there?  Off the top of my head there are- Sun, Hebei, Henan, Shanxi, Dai, Wudang............need I go on?  All of these branches sprang up within 300 years or so, pretty clearly showing that evolving arts were normal and accepted in old China, so why not now?

Another amazing example is Bagua.  Dong Hai Chuan created his art according to popular legend from a wide variety of arts that he knew before mixed with Taoist walking techniques.  Is that not evolution, or changing from one thing to something else?  To complicate matters more, he taught his art eight different ways to eight different disciples.  He wasn't a master of Shuai Chiao, but he changed Cheng Tinghua's original style and mixed it with the Bagua he was teaching at the time, and look how well that turned out!  By today's standards, if you aren't personally a master of a style, many traditional teachers would be horrified and personally insulted if you offered ideas for shaping that art, even if they were ideas that came from a style you had mastered.  See what I mean?  How was it ok in Old China to do this, but not now?  Even more change came when when Gao style bagua was created by Gao Yi Sheng and he added the 64 linear palms to Bagua.  I haven't ever heard that his teacher Cheng Ting Hua was upset because of that.  That probably comes back to the issue of "If you know and understand an art, you have the right to change it"  Don't get me wrong though, I am not saying the traditional arts need to be radically changed, but I will explain that later.  (Didn't want to give anyone a heart attack)  How many different styles of Bagua are there today?  Look at how much the original art has changed and been added to in 150 years!  How can anyone say that change wasn't natural for the Chinese masters?  Sun Lu Tang had no issues at all taking what he knew and creating his own Tai Chi style based off of his Bagua and Xingyi, and even those two original arts that come down from Sun are unique and different than many other branches.  So it can be said he created one art and altered two others.  Here is one last example in Praying Mantis.  According to the limited lore surrounding Praying Mantis that I know, it was derived from 18 different martial arts by a man named Wang Lang.  One of the popular myths is that his art came from his meeting with 17 other masters when they were invited to Shaolin to IMPROVE THE SHAOLIN ARTS!  If you don't believe me, check Wikipedia.  It is an accepted myth that Shaolin needed help improving their arts then, but why not now?  It seems very strange to me when I listen to people getting offended by thoughts of change and then hearing them proudly talk about the origins of their art which prove that other arts were changed in the creation process.  In any case, there is no way that Wang Lang was old enough to have mastered 18 different martial arts by the time he created Praying Mantis.  If we go with the common understanding that it takes 5 years to learn all of the physical material in a style (not master it) and multiply that by 18, Wang Lang would have finished learning all the arts when he was 90 if he started the day he was born.  I just thought that was a funny idea when I realized it.

In my limited understanding, the halt of progress that we see in CMA started mostly when the arts came to America.  I'm not sure why that is, but for some reason the teachers refuse to accept the idea that arts must grow and change over time.  We see in old China that the masters didn't believe that there was an ultimate art, since they would take what they knew and change it.  And two generations later, someone would add to it or change it again.  This has been the standard practice in CMA since it first began.  Again I would like to say that I am not in any way insulting traditional arts, but the stubborn refusal or modern teachers to change anything, including their way of thinking about the world, simply means that their arts will be gone within a generation or two.  One argument against this article would be that those men who created the original arts were genius.  I can easily accept that, but people didn't stop being smart 50 years ago!  There are many brilliant minds that practice martial arts today.  I personally have two doctors, a pharmacist, a toxicologist and several police officers in my student group.  They are very smart and driven people and their clear understanding of how the body works (The doctors, not the police) have really helped me understand WHY our practices work, looking at it from a western understanding.  This is getting to the point I am trying to make.

 The Chinese masters had a FUNCTIONAL understanding of their arts, and a very good understanding at that.  But they couldn't explain the exact processes involved or just what happened in the body when these practices were used.  That is not an insult in any way, I'm just saying that no one view of things is ever totally accurate.  Here is a great example.  Many of us practice Iron Palm and the other practices for various body parts to harden the bones.  The Chinese masters knew this worked and laid out training programs to achieve it.  But what they didn't know is that the process of hardening happened in a specific way.  When we start to create low amounts of stress on a body part through continued impact, the body cells called osteoblasts are released.  They create a type of collagen in the stressed area and then turn that collagen into bone.  There is another type of cell called osteoclasts that are responsible for removing dead bone cells.  The mechanism of bone hardening comes when more osteoblasts are released than osteoclasts, see?  The bones will constantly be growing.  This offers a different view of traditional Iron Palm in that the stimulation of osteoblasts requires a low grade of stress up front, striking the bag harder in the beginning doesn't cause more osteoblasts, it would increase the removal of dead bone since harder strikes in the beginning do more damage to bone then anything.  I hope I haven't lost anyone.  But to get the bones hardening, use lighter strikes for the first few months THEN start hitting a bit harder.  This is an example of what I hope to accomplish here.  To show that the old masters were in fact correct, but also to use modern understanding to refine and fully understand what we do.  See?  That wasn't such a horrible point, was it?  Reconciling Eastern functional knowledge with Western understanding would be a great way that our arts can change, since we saw in my example that a better understanding will change details of how we practice.

Over time this full understanding of how the body works and grows will naturally lead to our arts evolving and growing, but that is a wonderful thing.  Many teachers now incorporate Yoga into their training programs since it helps the body move better.  That is an evolution in and of itself, and I think a good one at that.  I am not attacking anyone's view of martial arts here, just illustrating history and pointing out that if we want to call ourselves traditional martial artists, we should take a look back in time and see that our martial ancestors had no problem with change and growth.  As those changes lasted a few generations, they became what we call traditional.  Remember, at one time, all our arts were considered mixed martial arts by the people witnessing their growth!

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Americans are so lazy

"The reason Kung Fu isn't growing in the US anymore is because Americans are lazy".  This is the mantra of most Traditional CMA teachers whose schools aren't growing.  Its the easiest way to explain the stagnation of CMA, right?  Nope, its not.  Lets go over some facts and look at why these schools aren't growing at the rate they should be.

First (and most importantly), Americans aren't lazy at all.  In fact many studies have shown that Americans work more and take fewer holidays than most other countries in the world.  Americans are also fanatical when they find a thing they are passionate about, we tend to over do whatever our focus is.  We spend more on participating in sports and building parks and playing fields than any other country as well.   Our children start playing sports competitively at a younger age than most nations, and a big chunk of school budgets are spent on sports teams.  America has more gym's and personal trainers than most other countries as well.  If you look at the average TKD or modern martial arts school in the US, their membership numbers are very high, usually 150-200 students that come at least once a week.  When we look at all these factors, we see that Americans are very passionate about recreational activities, so that in and of itself proves that we aren't lazy as a group.  The being more overweight fact actually strengthens this fact.  If all Americans were in perfect shape, then much more money and time would be spent on recreation!

Secondly, the lazy comment is normally made by teachers with few students as their excuse for not growing. But why would anyone in their right mind want to train with an American teacher who insults other Americans??  Nobody would unless they were trying to find a group that gave them the feeling of mental superiority over others.  As in 'I'm a Kung Fu person and we work harder than anyone else'  That is actually a common thing since humans constantly try to differentiate themselves from others to prove their worth (ask a shrink if you don't believe me).  The phrase "McDonald's Mentality" is used in a derogatory way as well describing the Western desire for quick results, or because they have a specific goal for training and many aren't interested in doing only what the teacher wishes.  Again, who would pay money to be insulted?  What does it say about a teacher who insults his own culture?  This type of  teacher usually doesn't understand that small gains that come quickly are the best way to motivate students to come to class more often and to practice harder at home.  We should show new students simple exercises that are quickly beneficial to excite the student, not cut them down because they want results and aren't interested in following a plan that isn't clearly laid out for progress.

I think teachers who say this are usually the sole party responsible for their school's condition.  We should take several things into consideration when talking about this to get a better understanding of why they are having trouble.  The biggest hurdle for CMA teachers is that Chinese martial arts come from a culture steeped in Confucian ideals and Eastern philosophy and now we are trying to spread in a society that is based off of Western ideals which are the complete opposite.  Its crazy to get upset because an American doesn't come in with the understanding that is needed for success in CMA.  Many teachers think that as soon as a student walks through the door, they should just start obeying without question everything the teacher says, but that is contrary to the Western mindset.  Americans love to ask "Why", and any teacher who wants to be successful in America would be wise to understand that and be prepared.  I'm not saying that Eastern thinking is wrong by any stretch of the imagination, but I am saying that if you want to take people off the street and turn them into good students, you MUST understand how Americans think and introduce Eastern concepts slowly and in digestible amounts.  Lets think for a second.  If you were that new student and had no idea about CMA or the code of behavior required in a CMA school, you would be confused and maybe even uncomfortable if you are exposed to everything at once.  Think about the Sun Toi or school altar.  An American would have no idea why that was there, since Westerners don't have altars outside of church.  Don't you think that might be something they are uncomfortable about at first?  Or that maybe that is the reason some Americans tie religion and Kung Fu together and avoid it?  There are lots of examples, but if you really want your school to grow, you will sit down and think about what new students have to be feeling or thinking when they come through your doors.

We should also be explaining things at first in a way that Americans can understand.  A great example is "Qi".  The notion of life energy is just now starting to take hold in the Western world and many prospective students would scoff at that idea still.  But a VERY basic idea of "Qi" can be given by teaching the student that the meridians follow the same path as nerves, and that the old Chinese drawings of pressure points are in fact nerve centers.  Even the dimmest student knows that energy runs along our nerves, so the idea of "Qi" suddenly becomes more palatable and easier to accept, right?  Of course that isn't the full theory of energy work, but its an introduction that students can easily understand and the teacher can use that base to introduce more foreign terms and ideas about "Qi" without confusing the student.  See how using terms and words that are directed at the students understanding can make harder concepts easier to understand?  Stance work is another pill that is hard for Americans to swallow.  Most won't understand the point of sitting in horse stance for long periods of time, and there is nothing wrong with that initial way of thinking.  Its the teacher's job to show how stances build strength.  One way to teach it is to push the student on the first lesson, and when they complain about sore muscles at the second lesson, give them a pat on the back for working so hard and point out that their legs are already getting stronger.  Show them how great of an exercise stances are!  That is one thing Americans understand, the need for exercise.  So use that term!  Or show them a student who has been only training a few months and demonstrate how strong his legs are now.  Demonstrate how powerful it will make their kicks.  Anything along these lines is better than a teacher ordering the student to keep doing it without any explanation of why they need it.

Again  I would like to point out that I'm not challenging the old ways of doing things.  But I am saying if you want to mold a person off the street into a dedicated student, you have to make the changes gradually, not full throttle.  Introduce new ideas slowly at first and the understanding will start to snowball and become more complete very quickly.  The reason that TKD schools have so many more students?  Because they know how to teach to Americans.  The same goes for modern martial art groups like the East-West schools, they understand how Americans think and start there.  You might look down on their style (and I'm almost positive that if you think Americans are lazy that you think you are better than TKD) but their results speak for themselves and their schools are growing while yours isn't.  I also think that teachers who say that are usually the least traveled.  I have been lucky enough to travel to many different countries and what I have learned is that people are the same the world over.  They want the same things and they are willing to work hard to get it.  So stop insulting a whole culture just because you aren't happy with your school size, because after all, your school is the product of your efforts, not anyone else's.

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What is the truth?

What is the Truth?

Like many people know, I get a deep, perverse pleasure in asking the question "Why?" In that one word is the stumbling block for most belief systems and methods of practice.  I know it's not mature of me, but sometimes I can't help myself when someone starts to talk about something that is outlandish or not based in reality.  I also understand that my love of that question can make me come across very poorly to some people, especially those who I question.  I come across very brash and judgemental, but most of the time I just don't care enough to explain what I mean on a deep level (I know that sounds terrible)  But maybe I can shed some light on my personal views and the reasons for them here.
I would like to start by sharing a little about my martial journey that I haven't shared before.  Several years ago I felt totally lost and had no idea where to go as far as the direction of my training.  I have been lucky enough to meet and train with several amazing masters of Xingyi, but not one of them shared the same beliefs on training or what Xingyi was actually for.  Each master held a different origin story to be true, each one believed that the art evolved differently, and each saw a different goal for high level practitioners.  So while I was lucky to train with them, this left me deeply confused at the same time.  Where did Xingyi come from?  What was its original purpose? What is high level?  So after a lot of soul searching and coming very close to quitting due to frustration, I decided to use the tools at my disposal and proven methods to see what I could learn about my favorite martial art.  Since I'm not the most learned person I was left with simple yet irrefutable techniques.  I decided to base my research off of the scientific method of hypothosis, experimentation and conclusion, the technique of "Occams' Razor" as well as a method from our legal system, namely "Its not what you know, its what you can prove" Now obviously that is a quote from a movie, but its sums up very well how we as Westerners fuction and understand things.  And that is the only way I will ever understand things, no one can honestly say that they completely think and understand another culture without having lived in it for many years, so I would have to make do.
So having said this, nothing I say in this article is meant to insult or degrade anyone's personal beliefs, but I am simply putting out the plain facts about Xingyi that can be proven easily.  I will speak in general terms, but please don't take that as an attack, its not meant to be.  But really, if  writing about my research bothers people, they are forgetting a great quote from Aristotle "The mark of a great mind is being able to entertain an idea without accepting it"  So I hope that I get the chance to share this with many great minds in the hopes of starting a positive discussion.
Now that the disclaimer is out of the way, lets speak honestly and bluntly.  Xingyi is an amazing art with a world full of potential, but it's dying.  There is no sugar coating it, it's simply true.  I believe the reason for this is that Xingyi teachers are so far scattered and when we meet most of the time we can't agree on simple practices. How can we ever work as a whole to propegate our art?  We can't.  There must be a core of common knowledge and understanding for Xingyi practitioners so we can present a united front to the world.  We all must work together in the future, the old method of the wandering teacher doesn't work on a global scale.  Often times in the past it was only effective in a single province, not even across the whole of China, so how can it work across the world?
Where to start?  For me, that was easy.  I wanted to learn the most logical and provable origins of Xingyi.  Common myth is that General Yue Fei created Xingyi for his troops as well as creating Eagle Claw.  This is a fun and romantic idea, but that is all that it is.  There is sufficient proof that Yue Fei was a great general, but there is no written proof that he had anything to do with Xingyi.  Remember, we are using a proof based system of understanding here, if its not recorded, we can't use it.  I already know the arguements of some, that oral traditional is just as valid.  No its not.  We often play a childrens game in America that a group of children will sit in a line and the first child will whisper a story to the second, the second repeats it to the third, and so on.  The fun part is when the last child stands up and repeats the story, it is drastically different than the original story told by the first!  The same concept is true for adults, they are just able to hold onto a story for longer before it starts to change.  So writing has to be the way to go, that way a group can read the same words at the same time.
The first recorded Xingyi master was Ji Ji Ke, the spelling may differ from group to group, but we all know who I'm talking about.  He was a famous spear master apparently and based his empty hand techniques off of the spear movements.  This is very effective, since the practitioner would only have to learn one set of movements, not two.  It also cuts down on the training time for proficiency, since half the number of techniques are learned.  Many people claim that Xingyi was a battlefield art, but this isn't supported by historical records.  I feel that the Chinese were amazing record keepers, and we still have many of their writings from ancient times, especially concerning wars and martial tactics.  I personally believe that it wasn't begun as a battlefield art, but as a personal combat art.  I very rarely see people acknowledge that personal combat and duels at that time were usually armed fights.  Professional fighters roamed with their weapon of choice.  This same practice was very common in Japan at the time, why is it so hard to believe Chinese martial artists would do the same?  I see that Ji Ji Ke simplified spear techniques to their purest form which is the reason for the direct and linear nature of Xingyi, no wasted movement.
The next question is "What was considered good Xingyi 200 years ago?"  Often in the modern age, a person's speed or fancy movements are what elevate their skill in the public eye.  Is that the same criteria that was used during the peak of Xingyi?  Not at all.  Xingyi skill level was determind by fighting or competing, a concept that is lost on most modern masters of Xingyi.  They claim that their art is too deadly to spar with.  Really?  Navy Seals spar with their combat. Marine Force Recon uses training drills with live ammo.  Army Rangers practice sentry elimination techniques on live opponents.  Is your Pi Chuan really more deadly than anything the Seals, Force Recon or Rangers have?  I doubt it.  Usually this is the claim of a teacher who deep down knows that they aren't ready to fight or isn't used to the stress of combat, so they give reasons to avoid conflict.  They are usually the first to start throwing personal insults in many situations.  Sadly they continue to talk about their 'traditional' methods after they have declined a fight.  This is completely the opposite of what was true in the golden age of CMA.  You fought to win, to keep your school open, or the challenger chased you out of town.  I am not advocating death matches or illegal fighting, but if we wish to tell people that we are masters of a fighting art, how can we run away from a fight?  There are even ways to show skill without fighting such as sparring or application drills.  Its easy to see if a teacher has a fighting heart through these.
The hallmark of good Xingyi used to be effectiveness.  We used simple techniques, few forms and very little of the "Qi Gong" work that is so prevalent today.  I like the expression that Xingyi is "ugly but it works."  Xingyi fighters were bodyguards and convoy escorts after only a couple years of training.  For some reason today we think that Xingyi must be trained for 20 years to yield an effective fighter but this is a recent turn of beliefs, not supported by history.  Where today many new students are taught in their first lesson about "Qi" and circulating it and how to refine their power, the older generations learned how to build strong legs and raw power.    After all, how can you refine power without first having raw power to refine?
Many teachers point back to Sun Lu Tang and his fantastic books on Xingyi and Tai Chi as the reason for the focus on energy work.  But I would counter that those books were meant to be reference material for people who already knew a martial art or practiced Xingyi.  While in his book he talks about lots of energy work, if you read the written accounts about Sun Lu Tang from his daughter, he personally practiced and taught his students much differently in the beginning.  In one story she talks about how her father would go to visit his friends Bagua school and would constantly yell  "Lower!  Faster!"  at the students who were walking the circle.  This is completely counter to his books, so we have to logically assume that he taught hard work in the beginning then energy work later.  I also know that some of you will question my using her words as proof, but written first hand accounts that are backed up with references of other people there at the time are allowed in our courtrooms, so they are allowed here.
I feel that so many teachers have tried to skip the hard physical work of martial arts and move straight into energy work, that it has almost become taboo to talk about building a strong Kung Fu body in IMA circles.  This is not a judgement of those teachers, like most humans they want the good stuff up front, the dessert before dinner.  But if we keep that analogy, in Kung Fu if you don't eat dinner first you don't have the ability to taste or digest dessert after.  Understand?  If you don't have a strong, flexible body there is no way that you can really feel the energy flowing through it and learn how to control that energy.  Think about the myth of the origins of Shaolin Kung Fu for another example of this idea.  Monks who didn't have strong bodies were constantly sick and weak, including their meditation and energy work.  If you ask most of the masters of the internal arts from China, they will tell you that their youth was spent training until they collapsed everyday, about how hard they trained.  Do they ever brag about never breaking a sweat while training?  Even masters from Chen village?  No, they don't.  So we can see that historically the Internal Arts were built off a solid foundation of hard work and training until the early part of the 20th century.  If you aren't sure, look at the writings from before then.  "Qi" and energy is mentioned, but not at the same rate or the same intensity as today.  There is a clear difference.
As for the 3rd question "What is High Level?", I really don't know the answer yet.  I haven't reached that level, but I am smart enough and educated enough to know what isn't part of high level.  Mystical words or ethereal topics weren't ever part of the study during the Golden Age of Xingyi, and they should be reserved for very high level practice now.  My Bagua teacher has a great saying that I think should apply to Xingyi as well, "My Bagua isn't a key to get to heaven"  I think that is totally true. If we try to take a combat art and devote it totally to spiritual development, we are losing sight of the original reason for the fighting art, and also at the same time not progressing down the spiritual path since Xingyi wasn't ever designed to help further that type of training.  I think that high level might just be the ability to know our own bodies and having the skill to help others do the same, I'll let you know for sure when I get to that level.  While I believe in the existence of "Qi" we won't address it here since it is an unproven topic.  Each master has a different belief on what "Qi" is and how to train it, I think that means that we should not try to base our understanding and common ground on energy, but we should use the simple, basic training to find common ground.
What I put here is just a light treatment of my past few years of study and practice.  It is looking at what can be proven and shown, not based off student memories of their teachers.  Any good student will say wonderful things about their teacher and how great their skill was, so we can't rely on that to further our understanding.  I have looked at all the historical references that I can, talked to educated people and most importantly I have crossed hands with many people trying to learn.  I have kept an open mind to being proven wrong since I knew I was lacking knowledge when I started looking.  If I am wrong in any historical reference, please point me to the record that proves me wrong so I can retract my incorrect statement.