The sabre set transmitted to Mr Moy contains a move called The Beauty Runs to the Moon which is not present in the 13 line poem which describes the Yang Family sabre set. What is this strange name?
The name itself is surely a reference to the Chinese legend of 嫦娥 Cháng’é, the wife of the mythical archer 后羿 Hou yi. Her name means “Beautiful Cháng”.
In Chinese mythology it is told that there were originally ten suns, whose great heat was burning up the earth. Hou yi shot down nine of these with his arrows and as a reward was given an elixir of immortality by Xiwangmu, the Queen Mother of the West, but did not wish to drink it himself. There are different versions of what happened next, but in all of them, Cháng’é takes the elixir and drinks it, becoming an immortal. In an early version she simply steals the elixir. In a later version, Hou yi’s apprentice Feng-meng attempts to steal the elixir so she drinks it to prevent it from falling into the wrong hands.
Chang’é’s journey to the moon is described by the phrase 嫦娥奔月 (Cháng’é bēn yuè), Beautiful Chang Runs to the Moon. In Cantonese her hame is pronounced Sheung Ngoi. Today she is considered a moon goddess and is often depicted (as above) with a rabbit – whilst in the West we see a man in the moon, the Chinese see a rabbit.
I found a Tai Chi club in Quebec that lists the move Queen Sheung Ngoi Flies to the Moon in its sabre list. They trace their lineage through Master Dong Yingjie (Tung Ying-chieh) 董英杰 (1898-1961), a top disciple of Yang Chengfu.
And what is the move The Beauty Runs to the Moon? Flying to the Moon means ascending: the rising of the blade. The move is the transition into Fair Lady Works Shuttles. After ‘Push Sabre Left and Right we square up and express the sabre in front of the body. Then comes a a clockwise turn combined with a rolling of the sabre. The weapon rises and effectively we turn underneath it. This movement, which leads into Fair Lady Works Shuttles, appears to be The Beauty Runs to the Moon.
The Lunar New Year began on February 17th, 2026, and brought in the year of the Fire Horse. The colour associated with fire is red, and there is a further legend about the “heavenly horses” – not mythical creatures, but real historical animals taken by the Han Chinese from the nomads of the Eurasian steppe – having a blood red colour. For this reason, this year is also known as the Red Horse Year赤馬年. The year of the Fire Horse is an especially powerful year in which we can expect great dynamism and change, but not necessarily for the better. I am reminded of the famous line of Margot Channing (Bette Davis) in the film All About Eve (1950): Fasten your seat belts, it’s going to be a bumpy night.
What were the heavenly horses? To the North and West of the Chinese plains lies the Mongolian steppe, whose tribesmen harassed the Chinese. The Chinese called these tribes the Xiongnu; we know them as the Huns. The tribesmen were mounted on horses which, having evolved to cope with the mountainous terrain of the steppe, were larger and stronger than the horses native to the Chinese plains. To combat them the Chinese needed better warhorses.
During the Han dynasty (206 BCE–220 CE) the emperor sent expeditions to investigate and then to import the highly coveted “heavenly horses” (tiānmǎ) from the Central Asian kingdom of Ferghana in Uzbekistan. These expeditions were long, arduous and costly. The envoy sent to investigate the tribesmen’s horses spent ten years in remote jails before escaping and returning home. When the Chinese then sent an ambassador with a thousand gold pieces, the Ferghana refused to sell and the ambassador was executed, sparking a war which lasted several years. The Chinese eventually seized 3,000 horses. Most of these died on the long journey home, but enough survived to establish these horses in China. They immediately proved their worth in battle, giving rise to the Chinese saying 馬到成功mǎ dào chéng gōng: Horses arrive, instant success.
Those born in the Year of the Horse (1930, 1942, 1954, 1966, 1978, 1990, 2002, and 2014) are said to be intelligent, strong, and energetic with an outgoing nature. They enjoy interacting with others and are good at multi-tasking, although they rarely finish projects because they’re off to the next one before they finish the last. Typically they have money issues, and when it comes to matters of the heart, they fall hard and fast.
Horses are heroic creatures in Chinese mythology, capable and loyal. In the classic novel The Journey to the West, known in the west from it’s television adaption as Monkey, the horse belonging to the monk Tripitaka, White Dragon Horse, is one of the main characters, and becomes a Bodhisattva (enlightened being) at the end of the tale thanks to his endurance and perseverance. In China, the combination of the spirit (jīngshén精神) of the dragon (lóng) with that of the horse (mǎ) is thought to be particularly useful, giving rise to the idiom 龙马精神lóng mǎ jīngshén.
The Chinese also have a legend of the qianliama or Thousand Li Horse, capable of travelling 1000 li (just over 250 miles) in a single day. Today, qianliama is a metaphor for an extremely capable person.
The Fire Horse
Fire Horses are thought to be particularly strong willed, the fire element amplifying the horse’s natural qualities of enthusiasm and leadership. The “phase” of fire is associated with the colour red, and the Fire Horse Year is also called 赤 馬 年chìmǎRed Horse Year.
The Horse in the Taoist Arts
In an earlier article we spoke about the Tai Chi move Wild Horse Parts Mane, but the horse also shows up in the Taiji Sword set and in the Lok Hup set.
The Flying Horse of Gansu, discovered in the tomb of General Zhuang (2nd century CE) in 1969
In the Taiji sword set, Move 28 is 天馬行空tiānmǎ xíng kōng – Heavenly Horse Flies through the Sky. Heavenly Horse tiānmǎ refers to the warhorses captured from the kingdom of Ferghana, as we explained above, and should not be interpreted as a reference to a literal flying horse such as the greek legend of Pegasus.
In Lok Hup, a long sequence in the second part begins with move 48 走馬觀花zǒu mǎ guān huāMoving Rider Looks at Flowers. In this movement we look down as if from horseback, but the phrase also turns out to be a metaphor for seeing things fleetingly and thus superficially, just as a galloping rider can only glance at the scenery as it passes by.
