Laugh
8: Deadly Serious Reasons To Laugh
Published Monday, December 22nd, 2008 by Steven Smith
Baguazhang, solemn sister of Tai Chi Chuan, is well known among internal artists. While she’s whispered about by Tai Chi practitioners and envied by Xingyi-ists, the diversity of her changing palms wraps a serious face around practitioners.
We take our practice seriously, almost religiously, certainly ceremoniously, circling deliberately the center of something. We walk around trees. We slip circles in mud. We step around and around posts and poles, bushes and barrels, and we saunter ‘round and ‘round on circles we find or circles we make on the floor, on the ground, or in the Earth.
We try to act humbly. But we’re so self-centered. Who else stares at themselves so much, so often, with such intensity? We gaze at our palms. We stare at our hands. We look right into those metacarpals, our eyes wisting and wondering right into our center(s). It’s so serious, self-centered circling.
She’s so deadly—Baguazhang with her rising, writhing, falling, coiling, drilling, screwing, turning, twisting—she’s very hot. Consistent play with power and passion turns Qi over into Jing! We learn Dim-Mak and Fa-Jing and we slip past, around, and behind opponents while attacking with multiple deadly blows. Our deadly practice with deadly seriousness provokes grace and beauty. The freedom of grace and power of beauty emboldens passionate practice: quaking Qigong sessions and round after round of form work, circle walking, and palm changing.
It is serious—sometimes too serious.
Bagua Flavor
Published Friday, November 21st, 2008 by Steven SmithA exciting and humorous taste of what you might expect from Baguazhang…
Air Avatars Know Nothing About Mud Stepping
Published Friday, October 17th, 2008 by Steven Smith
Many Baguazhang Styles Avoid Mud-stepping—It’s Difficult
Mud-stepping is a peculiar method of gaining….[doh! the why and what-for of mud-stepping is for a different article].
How-To-Mud-Step seems simple—
- Slide your weightless front-foot forward,
- Quickly step onto it,
- Swishing the old back-foot past the new back foot,
- Never pick up your back-heel before your back-toes.
It’s not a sequential order because it all happens so fast!
It’s tough at first. There’s a nnnrrghhing sense of lifting the foot without lifting the heel first. How do I do it? You’ll wonder. Doesn’t it seem natural to push from the toes?! Then you’ll fake it, pretending to not-lift the heel before the toes, gently pressing from the toes.
Many (I bet most) Baguazhang styles and even more Baguazhang instructors never bother with mud-stepping. That’s fine; many versions of Dong Hai-Chuan’s Baguazhang exist, thrive, and produce martial artists. Tension, difficulty, and lack of understanding drive folks to avoid mud-stepping.
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