Chapter 65: 【061】Practicing boxing under the sea
The sky wasn’t bright yet, a light drizzle fell, and a figure was running swiftly on the still dark mountain dirt road.
As you get closer, you can see clearly: this person always lands on the tip of their foot while running, springing off instantly, moving so fast that it seems like they are flying, with their feet barely touching the ground.
While others need to take two or three steps to cover a distance, this person can do it in one step, as fast as the wind.
After Wang Longhu raised "Three-Body Posture" to Lv4, his comprehension of lightweight skill deepened significantly in an unseen manner.
In Xingyi Boxing, there is a footwork known as Mud Treading Step.
After the passing of Xingyi Boxing Grandmaster Guo Yunshen, Shang Yunxiang inherited his teachings, becoming renowned across the land, and was hailed by martial arts circles as the ’Iron Foot Buddha’.
This was a praise for his Mud Treading Step; his footwork was swift and agile, moving as if a whirlwind was underfoot, his stance stable, and feet landed like roots of an old tree, standing in place unmoved by others trying to push or pull.
The power of his striking was immense, hitting directly with no obstacles, fully embodying the martial arts feature of ’hand strike for three, foot strike for seven’.
There’s a saying: ’teaching strikes but not footwork, teaching footwork would defeat the teacher’; for any martial art, footwork and stance are equally important, and Xingyi Boxing emphasizes practicing this Mud Treading Step.
The so-called Mud Treading Step implies that a martial artist needs to imagine walking through thick mud; stepping as if entangled by weeds, only able to progress slowly.
This practice involves feeling the resistance from mud and water, as the boxing classic says: ’step as if trudging through water, persist to insert and advance, lift foot as if from mud, move with resistance’.