Wudang Taiyi Five Elements Fist at the Poon Yue Association Annual Dinner · 2 August 2026武当太乙五行拳·番禺会馆周年晚宴 · 2026年8月2日

A banquet hall on the evening of the Poon Yue Association’s annual dinner. Red lanterns hang from the ceiling, round tables fill the room, and guests turn in their seats towards the stage. There, Master Yip See Kit (叶诗杰师父), in a long green robe and white trousers, performs 武当太乙五行拳 (Wǔdāng Tàiyǐ Wǔxíng Quán), Wudang Taiyi Five Elements Fist.

The form moves between stillness and bursts of energy. He opens with a calm stance, then turns, sweeps his arms wide and sinks low before rising with both hands lifted high. The robe follows every turn. Guests near the stage watch closely, and a few raise their phones to record it.

The five elements in motion

Taiyi Five Elements Fist is one of the forms associated with the Wudang tradition. Its name draws on 五行 (wǔxíng), the Five Elements or Five Phases of Chinese thought: wood, fire, earth, metal and water. In this way of seeing the world, each phase gives rise to the next, and each also restrains another, so that change stays in balance.

In the martial arts, these ideas become qualities of movement: rising and sinking, opening and closing, advancing and yielding. A form built on the Five Elements asks the practitioner to move smoothly from one quality to the next, soft and hard in turn, while the body stays centred. Watching it well performed, one sees less a series of techniques than a single flowing change.

An everyday moment

Clan and community associations have long been gathering places for Chinese communities in Singapore, and their annual dinners bring members and friends together each year. A Wudang form performed between courses is a small reminder that these traditions live on in such places, shared among people who value them, far from the mountain where they began.