Articles About: First Posture
Primary Motion, Paused
This article forms the foundation of this website. Let me know what you think or what you’d like to know about Baguazhang in the following comments section.
The Bagua and Baguazhang
Bagua refers to eight trigrams representing basic concepts: Sky, Earth, Fire, Thunder, Wind, Water, Mountain, and Cloud. Interpretations vary, more commonly Sky is referred to as Heaven and Cloud as Lake. I remove religious concepts by focusing on Sky, and while Lake has a variety of interpretation, Swamp being one, Mist another, Cloud offers an accurate vision for employing our hands.
Baguazhang means Eight Trigram Palms and is a classic internal art (or Neijia); the other two are Taijiquan and Xingyiquan. Baguazhang is sometimes referred to as the sister or the daughter of Tai Chi Chuan (that’s the other spelling of Taijiquan), suggesting that
- Baguazhang originates alongside or after Taijiquan
- and is more feminine in nature
Baguazhang uses palms to strikes, circular footwork with a peculiar mud-step (for real lower body power development), and a strange way of looking—gazing directly at the working palm. A fantastic and powerful art, when it’s done correctly, Fa-jing develops swiftly and delightfully.
The foundational form and early, beginning training in Baguazhang (also spelled Pa Kua Chang) teach circular, coiling concepts. The circular and coiling, waist shaking motions require precision and articulation to see and develop the potencies of Fa-jing. Later, more advanced forms and training methods retain the Fa-jing aspects, while adding barging, linear attack methods.
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