Li Ziming

Geoff Sweeting (Jiefu) has been training in the arts of Baguazhang and Xingyiquan since the early 1990's, beginning work with Shifu Roy Jenzen in Perth, W.A. After moving to Brisbane in 1994 and achieving qualifications in acupuncture and herbal medicine, Geoff travelled to China for post graduate work in Chinese Medicine, and to pursue further martial arts study there in the late 1990's. In Guangxi province he studied Baguazhang with the then national champion Jiang Xiao Min, and Taijiquan with Master Bo Le.

From the South, Geoff journeyed north to Beijing in further pursuit of the original systems. After considerable effort in Beijing, Geoff was accepted as an "inner door" disciple of Master Wang Tong, disciple of Li Zi Ming and Sun Feng Lin. This recognition gave Geoff the opportunity to become an official fifth generation Baguazhang and seventh generation Xingyiquan inheritor to these traditional systems. In an unprecedented move Master Wang agreed to travel to Australia in 2000, marking his first ever travel outside China, to help Geoff train students in Queensland.

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During Geoff's visits to Beijing, he was awarded a certificate to teach the Baguazhang and Xingyiquan of Master Wang Tong's lineage, in Australia, the first of its kind to be issued to an Australian citizen.

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Geoff's Freestyle Xingyi-Bagua approach is inspired by the example of past masters

Dong Haichuan, Liu Qilan and Wang Xiang Zhai (and in more recent times Kazushi Sakuraba and Vlad Koulikov)- all of whom embraced an open-minded attitude to continued learning and development of their arts, and were inclusive in their fusion of valuable insights from other styles into their original art.   

Geoff has sought to infuse core principles from Xingyi and Xinyi boxing, Baguazhang, Shuai Jiao and Wrestling, alongside elements of ground-fighting and submission grappling to practice a classically-based, yet refined and continually evolving combative and healing art.