About this wiki

A source-based deep-dive reference on the martial art of Yiquan (意拳) — what it is for, and a plain account of how it comes about.

What YIQUAN.wiki is

YIQUAN.wiki brings together a staged training guide, an A–Z glossary, an interactive knowledge graph and the lineages and people of the martial art of Yiquan (意拳, “intention boxing”, also Dachengquan 大成拳) — compiled from curated sources, not from hearsay.

Why this site?

Knowledge of Yiquan is scattered across books, instructional films, interviews and forums — and often phrased in a way that is hard to get at. This reference work is an attempt to change both: everything in one place, explained clearly — with pronunciation audio, visualisations and a thoroughly cross-linked glossary.

What you will find here

• Training guide — the method in eight stages, from Zhan Zhuang (standing work) through Mo Jin, Shili, Mocabu, Fa Li and Tuishou to Sanshou.
• Glossary — every central term, A–Z.
• Lineages & people — who learnt from whom, from the founder of Yiquan, Wang Xiangzhai, through Yao Zongxun to the branches of today.
• Knowledge graph — an interactive graph of all the pages and their cross-references: drag nodes, zoom with the scroll wheel, click to jump to the matching section.
• Pronunciation audio — the correct Mandarin pronunciation can be played for over a hundred Chinese technical terms (with pinyin and characters).

Hearing the pronunciation — and picking up some Chinese on the way

Many Yiquan terms are Chinese (站桩 Zhan Zhuang, 试力 Shi Li, 发力 Fa Li …). So that they do not stand there as cryptic syllables, almost every technical term carries a small loudspeaker icon 🔊: one click plays the correct Mandarin pronunciation — for more than a hundred terms. Beside it stands the pinyin (the Latin transcription with tone marks), often together with the Chinese characters (hanzi).

That way you learn the terms as they actually sound — and pick up a little Chinese as a side effect: characters, pronunciation and meaning in context.

For whom — and how to use it

• Practitioners find a progression through the eight training stages they can follow.
• Teachers find a source-based reference for terms and lineages.
• The curious get an ordered way into Yiquan — from the glossary to the training guide.

The wiki is meant as a reference work: dip in anywhere, follow the terms, read into the depth — not as a linear course.

How this wiki comes about

YIQUAN.wiki is maintained by an LLM: a human curates the sources and directs the analysis, while a language model takes on the summarising, linking and filing. The knowledge is compiled carefully once and then kept current — not re-derived with every question.

Behind it lies a simple principle in three layers:

Sources → curated wiki → website.

With every new source the affected pages are updated, lineage attributions verified and contradictions marked explicitly.

For those interested in the architecture: at its core this wiki follows the pattern of an LLM-maintained wiki described by Andrej Karpathy. More in his GitHub gist: gist.github.com/karpathy/442a6bf….

A living document

This wiki grows with every source worked in. So that notes on errors, missing sources or contested claims can find their way easily, almost every heading on these pages carries a small blue annotation icon. On the start page it appears as soon as you move the mouse over a heading.

Clicking it opens a pre-filled e-mail to the site’s ingest mailbox, with a reference to this very section — so a correction or addition can be proposed precisely. The contact address is assembled only at the moment of the click and never sits unprotected in the page source. Try it now: move the mouse over the heading “A living document” — that is exactly where this button appears.

Notes are expressly welcome — alternatively via the contact address given in the legal notice.