The Numbers 5, 7, 8, and 13 in Chinese Martial Arts

I wrote this initially as part of my weekly reminder e-mail for my Sunday Taijiquan class, but realized there was enough here it might stand on its own as a short blog post. This is 101-level stuff, so if you’re a newer student to Chinese martial arts or Chinese culture in general, it will serve you well!

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I wanted to elaborate on something I talked about last class: why the numbers 5, 7, 8, and 13 seem to be so important not just in Taijiquan but also other Chinese martial arts:

If you’re familiar with basic Daoist cosmology, you learn that in the beginning, the universe was wuji 无极, i.e. boundless and unseparated, until it separated into taiji 太极, the two extremes of yin 阴 and yang 阳. Thus, the word “taiji” can generally refer to those dual extremes and is not necessarily a specific reference to Taijiquan. For example, Taiji Praying Mantis is a completely unrelated art that also named itself to invoke the idea of yin and yang.

From there, the universe divides further into different combinations of yin and yang, yielding the ba gua 八卦, or eight trigrams, and the wu xing 五行, or five phases.

Because these concepts were commonly known in the Ming and Qing dynasties, the founders of many modern Chinese martial arts frequently sorted things things into groups of 5 or 8 as a simple mnemonic for students. In Taijiquan we have the eight methods, ba fa 八法, which all correspond to different trigrams, and the five steps, wu bu 五步, which correspond to the five phases. Together they form the “13 postures,” shi san shi 十三势, a phrase you’ll see across all styles of Taijiquan, and sometimes as a shorthand to refer to the art itself.

The internal art of baguazhang 八卦掌, which some of you might be familiar with, gets its name from the eight trigrams, and discusses eight distinct “palm change” techniques. In xingyiquan 形意拳, another internal art, there is a form called the wu xing lian huan quan 五行连环拳, or “Five Phases Continuous Fist.”

Another number you will end up seeing a lot in Chinese martial arts is 7. Not because 7 is a lucky number (funny enough, 6 and 8 tend to be more auspicious numbers to the Chinese), but because it corresponds to the seven stars of the Big Dipper, which is a significant constellation in Daoism that represents the throne of the Jade Emperor. One of the common references is the “seven fists” of the body, i.e. all the parts that can be used for striking an opponent: the head, the shoulders, the elbows, the fists, the hips, the knees, and the feet. There’s a Seven Star set in Shaolin kung fu, and even another separate style called Seven Star Praying Mantis.

I just bring these numbers up to remind you that they are broad conceptual mnemonics, and are descriptive, not prescriptive. They will not cover every nuance and situation we encounter while training. While the eight methods are peng 掤, lu 捋, ji 挤, an 按, cai 採, lie 挒, zhou 肘, and kao 靠, if you go into texts by taiji masters you’ll find numerous additional words, like chong 冲 to describe driving a fist forward in a straight punch, or tuo 托 to describe lifting with an upward-facing palm.

Don’t panic if you see something that is not neatly described by the mnemonics. It’s not an error, it’s just further refinement. The visible spectrum of light isn’t actually divided discretely into three primary, three secondary, and three tertiary colors, however the color wheel is still useful when teaching an introductory painting class. In the same way, “eight methods, five steps, thirteen postures” do not fully encapsulate all of the possibilities of Taijiquan, but they’re an easy way to start talking about it.

I throw a lot of words around, but Taiji is not about the words. I just happen to have a degree in Chinese and remember the words easily, but you don’t have to be a linguist to truly understand Taiji.

Anyway, enough yapping from me. See you all tomorrow!