Articles About: Revolutions

I stopped publishing for a bit. You may have read the last article, published in February, right after the great Dreaming Workshop. I continued to teach, but moving was inevitable.

I sought to provide my son, who’s 2 now, with fresh air. So my family and I moved to Montana. We live in Hamilton right now…downtown. A quiet town of a little more than 4,000 folks, Hamilton is just right. What amazing and dramatic Changes!

Publishing continues now.

I’ve been filming at Blodgett Campground, west of our little town. And as I grow closer to the forest, so I grow closer to Baguazhang. Keep your eyes on this site please.

Plus…

• If you’re local, get over here and play with me.
• If you’re into Baguazhang, consider publishing here.
• If you’ve studied with me, please write something for this site.
• If you’re a blogger, let’s trade links.
• If you’re reading this, please leave a comment.

I’ll tell you about Sky tomorrow.

Staring At The Hand

We gaze at one hand during circular Bagua forms.  There are exceptions, but generally the hand is our focus.  This seems like a fitting place for our gaze and intent, seeing as how Baguazhang translates to Eight Trigram Palms.  Our palms are our weapons as well as an extension of our center.

Focusing our intent and gaze on our hands we direct our Qi to our palms. Our intent is realized through the palms.  The relationship is somewhat indirect.  Physically, our intent moves our waist which moves our palms.  In the same way, our intent moves the qi from the dan tien to the palms.  Why move the qi to the hands?  Moving qi to the hands along with the way we hold the palms will help us develop Iron Palm.  Iron palm is beyond the scope of this article, but the basic concept is that the hands have the appearance of cotton while on the inside they are like iron.

We only look at the palm in the circular form and any time we’re walking the circle. This is to bring energy to the palm…[for] Iron Palm…but we do not smash our palms into bricks etc. to make our hand hard and senseless like most do. It’s also an eagle vision training method, by looking at the palm we can’t look at what we’re meant to be hitting. —Eli Montaigue

In walking the circle, I hold the leading palm in the circle’s center so that I end up walking around it while it turns on the center point.  This leads to moments of exhilaration and laughter in midst of a spinning world.  While the world outside is seemingly spinning out of control, I maintain my center and focus.  I reside in the peaceful eye of the storm.

Spinning Around Palms and Revolutionary Changes

During partner work, a funny thing happens. When the world starts spinning for both partners—there is simultaneous laughter and attacking.  Sometimes it sucks when my partner attacks while the world is spinning, because I was enjoying the ride.  Once the attack comes, I change, and it takes some work to get the world spinning again.  Another option is to attack my partner and deliberately disrupt the equilibrium.

Read Changing in a Spinning World »

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.

Read Hello Baguazhang World! »