Baguazhang - 1980’s documentary
This is a wonderful historical documentary of Baguazhang (shortened to ‘Bagua’ here) orginating in the 1980’s and recently edited and translated by Byron Jacobs of https://www.mushinmartialculture.com. I strongly recommend you visit his site. Byron is a Liang Style practioner, whereas the Wutan school is in the Yin Style lineage.
My notes are presented here as ‘revision notes’ as part of my goal to deepen my understanding of this art. I thought this was going to be a ‘quick and dirty’ article, but it turned out longer than expected!
Whilst it is very useful to see live action footage, my brain needs text to begin to understand the terminology, and as part of a searcheable ‘knowledgebase’ that I can refer to.
My notes lean heavily on the translation by Byron Jacobs.
In the fifth year of emperor Tongzhi’s reign (1861-1875, so 1866), a guard in Prince Su’s mansion - Dong Haichuan - developed and dissemintated Bagua Zhang in Beijing
He learned martial arts in his youth, travelling to the North and South, studied many styles of martial arts, and combined them with Daoist ‘cultivation methods’
He developed an art focused on circle walking named ‘Bagua Turning Palms’
Bagua trigrams (‘post heaven arrangement’), derived from the Zhou Yi ‘book of changes’
Features the changes of Yin and Yang
Symbolises the subtle changes within human society
Representation of dialectical law
The eight trigrams describe the styles actions and theories
The current styles of Bagua include:
Fixed posture circle walking
Palm changes whilst circle walking
Free-combat applications
Fixed posture circle walking (‘eight fixed posture palms’):
Downward sinking / pressing palm
Horizontal lifting palm
Double crashing palm
Carrying the spear palm
Point to heaven, stab the ground palm
Lifting the sky / heaven palm
Yin Yang palm
Millstone pushing palm
When stepping, the feet only lift 7-8 cm off the floor, as though you are wading through muddy water, hence ‘mud-wading stepping’. Turn around with toe-in and toe-out hook steps. Keep the neck straight, eyes level. Shoulders and elbows sunk and ’settled’ (relaxed). The body is sunk (I take that to mean the knees are bent and the weight is on the back foot). Centre about the lower abdomen.
Bagua is an internal style, using intent to guide Qi (compare with Xingyiquan ‘form intent fist’, see my earlier post) and Qi leads to power / force. Connecting intent, Qi and power to fully mobilise Qi.
Through one’s intent the body and limbs are mobilised. The brain, blood organs and the limbs are all exercised, so it is a style that combines martial arts with health building.
Bagua features the core practice of palm changes:
Swimming body Bagua linked palms (the ‘old eight palms’)
Trains the combining and coordinating of body work, foot work and hand work and the interchange of power
Within the soft there is hard, with hard and soft complementing one another with lively circling continuously without stop
Power and strength are contained and concealed within
When beginners practice this they will be covered in sweat and out of breath
Martial arts are handed down by the instructor through oral teachings and vary from person to person. Dong Haichuan’s original students all had martial arts backgrounds, which is why, from the second generation onwards, different styles with differing characteristics emerged. Even within the styles there are differences as the skills are handed down. This is common across all traditional Chinese martial arts.
Bagua has multiple styles, including:
Yin Style
Cheng Style
Liang Style
Fan Style
Song Style
Each has its own characteristics.
The video includes demonstrations of Cheng Style, Liang Style and Yin Style (‘sharp, cruel, fast and fierce’ and goes on to show a fascinating training technique with ‘nine palaces posts’ - Bagua’s eight directions + the centre = nine. The practitioner moves quickly, striking, kicking and barging.
Liu Dekan - 64 palms / hands
Separated into eight straight lines
Each line featuring eight techniques
The practice of applicable skills
Each technique can be used in combat
Examples shown in partner drills:
Advanced scooping palm
Advanced stamping palm (hands and feet together)
Crouching tiger leaps the ravine (with an elbow lock and throw)
Attack and defence techniques:
Bagua applies a focus on footwork and palm changes
Strike where there is an opening
For example Ye Zhang (Stealing Palm), targets just below the chest
Rich variety of palm variations including ‘three-section’ applications - root, middle and extremity. Looking at the arm - shoulder, elbow and palm respectively (the technique is applied with palm first, then elbow and finally shoulder).
Fa li (issuing of force) begins from the feet (root), through the waist (middle) and finishes at the extremity. Power from the root arrvies at a single focused point. Power must also be generated further (through the body) to generate penetrating force.
In combat, Bagua includes twisting, overturning, moving and circling in order to counter the opponent’s force.
Bagua includes throwing, striking, kicking and locking. It also includes training in weaponry such as spear, broadsword, straight-sword and ‘Meridian Mandarin Duck Cresent Blades’. Although no longer used on the battlefield, partner exercises with bladed weapons help to train the body.
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Speaking of weird and interesting weapons used in Bagua, I recently found this clip shared by Wutan USA, showing Grandmaster Liu using Double Hooks 雙勾 from the Bagua Ying Zhang 硬掌 set. Supposedly the set can also be performed with Antler Knives (another name for Mandarin Duck Cresent Blades, also called deerhorn knives), and bare palms.
Cover photo extracted and edited from Byron Jacobs YouTube video https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tC1PkBkurdo
The content linked (as with all content in this blog) is the copyright of the creator and is not official material endorsed by my school, Wutan International. It is offered here as reference material only. Please ask your instructor for advice and guidance on training in Baguazhang.
