Yang Qinglin was born in the summer of 1894 and passed away in the summer of 1992, shortly after his 98th birthday. His father hailed from Zhaoqiang County in Hebei Province but later moved to Shandong for business before eventually settling in Tianjin. Yang Qinlin’s father owned a qian zhuang (Chinese native bank), which played a significant role in China's early economic development.

Yang Qinlin had an older brother and an older sister. After his brother passed away, leaving behind a son, Yang Qinlin adopted his nephew as his own son. Due to his brother’s poor life choices, their father decided to send Yang Qinlin to train under Zhang Zhaodong, one of the most renowned martial arts teachers of the time and the founder of Xingyi-Bagua Palm.

Li Cunyi, an elder kung fu brother of Zhang Zhaodong, owned a biao ju (merchandise bodyguard company) that provided protection for traders and their merchandise. Yang Qinlin worked for Li Cunyi’s company which was operated by his students, to make a living while practicing martial arts alongside other bodyguards, who were martial artists themselves. However, Yang Qinlin’s career as a bodyguard was relatively short-lived due to the invention of firearms. He often recounted to his grandson, Master Yang Hai, how bandits would attack them with machine guns while they could only respond with spears and swords.

To adapt to the changing times and ensure the survival of the business, the bodyguard company began transporting goods by train and equipping themselves with firearms. Eventually, Li Cunyi’s students decided to shut down the company. Following this, Yang Qinlin started working for the British-American Tobacco Company until his retirement.

In 1949, when the Communist Party came to power in China, the British-American Tobacco Company was expelled from the country. Its properties in Tianjin were seized and converted into a nationalized import and export company. Yang Qinlin retired from this company with a good pension and healthcare package.

Yang Xinlin studied Xing Yi and Xingyi-Bagua Palm under Zhang Zhaodong for nearly two decades. During this time, he also received extensive training from Li Cunyi. Zhang Zhaodong had two distinct approaches to his practice and teaching. In his earlier years, he emphasized hard force training. However, after reaching the age of 50, his teaching shifted to focus on soft force training methods, making his style more internal and refined than before.

Yang Xinlin also practiced Li Cunyi’s Bagua, but he preferred Zhang Zhaodong’s Xingyi-Bagua Palm. This style was more circular and represented a true integration of Xing Yi’s power with Bagua’s movement, making it both unique and highly practical in application.

Yang Qinlin’s work as a caravan bodyguard allowed him to travel extensively across China. This exposure enabled him to learn diverse practices from various individuals, not only in martial arts but also in qigong and meditation. Additionally, he studied traditional Chinese medicine (TCM) under some of his kung fu brothers.

After Zhang Zhaodong passed away, Yang Qinlin began teaching martial arts. However, this was not his primary source of income, as he already held a well-paid job.

Yang Qinlin belonged to an older, more orthodox generation in terms of mentality, attitude, and perception of martial arts practice. For him, martial arts were not merely a way of life but a matter of survival—a distinction between life and death in his everyday reality. He witnessed and experienced significant social changes, including the transition from the Qing Dynasty to the Nationalist and Communist eras, as well as the Cultural Revolution and the subsequent socioeconomic reforms. Yang Qinlin never considered altering or improving the styles he taught. In his view, his teacher’s teachings were the golden standard—rules to be neither bent nor broken. He emphasized rigorous, hard practice to develop genuine martial capability.