Hing gung: suitable for long-range travel?

Distances across China are vast. It would take months to travel by foot from, say, Guangdong Province in southeastern China to Beijing in northern China. Even with a fast horse, it would take a month or at least several weeks. Wuxia characters, however, seemed to schlep from one end of China to the other in much shorter time.

We know that wuxia characters often use a burst of hing gung (lightness skill) to get away from enemies (or, if the characters are stronger than their enemies, to take advantage of their enemies), to negotiate through rough terrain (mountains or walls), or gain access to places not easily accessible to ordinary people. Is hing gung suitable for long-range travel? Some of the high-level martial artists had nearly inexhaustible inner power, which means they would effectively never fatigue. If so, they could conceivably use hing gung to leap for days on end. This would significantly cut down on travel time if it's feasible. Is it, however?

For a few hundred miles, I'd say yes. However, from the scene in HSDS where ZWJ and the Bat King Wei Yi Xiao were on their way to Wudang to stop Zhao Min's fighters, where they agreed to rob some horses and ride them to Wudang to save inner energy, I'd say that it wouldn't be a great idea to waste inner energy that way. These guys did have to regenerate their energy and it takes time (sometimes a lot of time) to recover.

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Originally Posted by Candide

However, from the scene in HSDS where ZWJ and the Bat King Wei Yi Xiao were on their way to Wudang

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Interesting observation. Yes, especially the Bat King is specialised in using hing qung but he hasn't thought about using it at that time.

The Bat King's lightness kungfu is only fast in small area, such as a battlefield. Long distance travel relies on internal energy. That mean in the long run, ZWJ would out run the Bat King because he can last longer.

You could say that the Bat King have a small gas tank, that need to be refill every once and a while. While ZWJ have a bigger gas tank, can travel father.

and ZWJ is a F1 car whereas the Bat King is a Porsche ...

bat king is F1 because he is fast but not that big of a gas tank but ZWJ would be something like a 4x4 or something with alot of gas and stron as well!

But in LOCH didn't East chase West for like a few days, or was that just added in by stupid script writers?

I havn't actually read it but I've read that ZBT chased QQR all the way from the central plains to XiYu and still couldn't catch the "water floater"

The KCY and ZBT chase-a-ton in LOCH was certainly long distance exhibition of lightness kungfu and inner power. And that chase was throughout the whole central plains.

Yeah, but what if QQR and ZBT were on their way to fight another 2 Greats in Mongolia? You will find that they wouldn't run there, but would use horses instead, to save inner energy. Same with ZWJ and WYX. They knew that Wudang enemies would be a very formidable force, since they just wiped out Shaolin, so they had to save inner energy (ZWJ was thinking about this then told WYX).

not to take the wind outta your sails or anything but I was just answering the question initially put up, which was its suitability for long range travel, not whether they were gonna brawl after their run.

Candide's observations are relevant to the discussion, however, because using hing gung for long-range travel, while possible in theory, might not be practical if the martial artists in question are anticipating heavy combat immediately after traveling. Perhaps that is why, despite their great hing gung skills, martial artists generally travel long distances through more conventional methods.

It's not advisable simply because in the martial world, you never know when you are going to meet up with an enemy. Not worth taking the risk. QQR took it because he HAD to in order to get away from ZBT; although a horse would have greater stamina, ZBT would've caught him. ZBT did it because he was an old crazy guy who didn't really care :)

In fact, I was getting the feeling that the more he was chasing after QQR, the happier/more energetic he was getting.

A question: can a martial artist sort of practice and thereby increase his lightness gongfu if he/she often travels long distance?

What about the HYS-OYF-ZBT chase culminating in the fight of HYS vs the QZ 7 and also HYS. Certainly not much of a physical deterioration in terms of performance of HYS.