Teaching Abstractions 
Thank you: all those who attended the First Baguazhang Dreaming Workshop. I appreciate your support and the powerful roles each of you played in capturing your dreams. Let me tell you a few things.
I typically prefer teaching specific and peculiar details about form or about partner drills or about proper anatomical movements. I can tell when people get it and understand it. I cannot tell what you dream.
Dreams defy specific teachings. And teaching people to unite with their dreams in their own, personal way is beyond the scope (so far) of being me.
So the latest workshop was a challenge….
Starry, Starry Night Bagua Workshop
I set up opportunities. I gently directed attention. I kept lessons brief and made space for inner exploration.
The deep secret: put pressure on normal living expectations, in this case pressure was on sleeping.
We contorted sleep while moving in a Baguazhang way around real, live blazing fires in the middle of the starry night. And I wondered often: how is it working for him, for her, for him, for her, for him?
In the First Dreaming Circles Workshop, practitioners got a mellow taste of proper Baguazhang and drank deeply of Earth Palms in the starry night. We started right at 10pm and rode a wave of sleepiness through 7am. In five teaching episodes, spaced by 45 minutes of sleep, people practiced:
- Circular Writing, heart-beat oriented, stream-of-consciousness writing
- Earth Palm Changes
- Single Palm Change
- Mountain Palm Changes
- Partner training drills that fit the night
- Qigong connecting the Palms to the Earth and Stars
- 8 layers of relaxtion for standing
- 8 layers of relaxation for dropping into dreams
Overall, everyone soaked in the night; each soaked in the freshness of the night, and all experienced some personal deepening of dreams. Not metaphorical dreams…
Real dreams became just a bit more tangible, memorable, and real.
Thanks again and I appreciate what you shared about your experiences.
Oh man. Oh man oh man oh man. What a weekend. Training in the cold. In the desert. In the middle of nowhere and the center of everything. I like that. I like that a lot. It was awesome. I, personally, have always been a bit scared of the night time in the wilderness, but not this weekend. This weekend we got to truly experience the night. And man, oh man. I’m at a loss of words. Training spliced with dreaming arouses a peculiar state. A very good state of mind. A new one that I hadn’t experienced before.
Also training in the wilderness like that is interesting. Two of the main reasons most people train in various martial arts are self defense and personal fitness. In the wilderness neither of those apply. While being fit is important in the wild I think that conservation of energy takes the cake. I’m speaking in long terms, of course. If you have to travel in the desert, you wouldn’t want to have a good workout before hand. There are very few people in the desert, and if you run in to one of them I doubt they are going to try and mug you. The only things you may have to deal with are snakes, big cats, and coyotes, so maybe self defense is going to factor in to desert training, but not defense against humans. When you take those two main aspects out of baguazhang, the two main excuses for walking the circle and doing these silly moves go out the window. Then the reasons for training become much more internal, personal, and universal. Baguazhang takes on a whole new meaning. One i enjoyed very much. Can’t wait for the next one
Hello Steven, Ben, and Everyone,
I’m glad to see that you had such a positive experience. The wilderness is one of the most ideal places to train, particularly when we’re able to re-locate in varied settings, such as upon uneven, rocky surfaces, beach sand, sheets of frozen ice, and so forth.
The approach to Baguazhang elucidated sounds absolutely fascinating. I hope to hear more about it.
Steven, is this one of your creations? Does it come from Erle? Whatever the case, I think it’s quite insightful. Why? Simple: the mind. Once we learn how to use it in our training the Art becomes far more meaningful. This has a plethora of levels, of course.
I am curious to know more about this sub-conscious approach. I won’t ask anything specific; anything anyone is willing to share. Train well to remain well. Peace.
Ben, I appreciate your words and your work. I share some sentiments too: that the wilds make martial arts a bit more visceral and potent, and it shifts our needs and our focal priorities.
Aaron, My expertise flourishes in the wild places. The design of the workshop and the orientation of 64 palm changes is as unique as I know of in Baguazhang Circles. We use the form that is taught by Mr.Erle Montaigue for proper form work. The deepening follows a sleep/wake period intends to disrupt the 1,000 voices that continually speak in the mind; it induces fluidity by both flowing through and writing out thoughts.
More Dream Circles will follow.
Excellent! I look forward to that very much. Peace.
I’ve been hesitant to comment on lots of articles because I am very new to all of this. With this article talking about the workshop and how it was structured I wanted to take the chance to comment on Steven and the things we study.
Steven is a great teacher equipped with a ton of knowledge on internal arts – specifically Taiji and Bagua. I have thoroughly enjoyed working with him and in the environments he creates for learning and growing.
These arts are based on sound principles and FEEL this way also. It seems as though the feeling precedes the identification of exactly what makes each part of these arts so right on. So, if it feels good, take a step into the dark and find out what is creating the feeling.
I would highly recommend Steven as a teacher and would also recommend the curriculum he teaches. As it is – I have found them both together and am very excited for the coming days and weeks as I have chance to learn and grow in this setting.
“The Original Circular Form,
Palm Chang Number 7: ‘Lion’”
Hi Steven and Everyone,
I’m interested in your thoughts on the seventh palm change in the Original Circular Baguazhang Form.
This palm change, known as”[The] Lion” is of particular interest to me these days. About two weeks ago, while doing the form, I experienced something new during this sequence; something I had never before experienced: the sensation of “having a mane.” Sounds weird, I know. Let me explain.
As the top palm bows over the head, seemingly plunging towards to central Sky palm (making a MAGNIFICENT stretch on the lateral side of the body I might add; a stretch which is most soothing and, in principle, could be a small subject of discussion all its own), this structure, to me, creates the feeling of me looking out through “a mane of energy”, which is created in the space between the two palms. Once I experienced this, I began looking at both palms simultaneously.
So, I’m curious about the possibility of this sensation contributing to the name of the palm change, in addition to the finger tips curling to make “claws”.
Thanks for your time, everyone. Train strong to remain strong.
Aaron, although I will grant that your image of the Enery Mane for the Lion Palms is splendid, I will add that I think it is based on the fact that this particular stance (Lion Opens Mouth) is associated with the Heaven Trigram in traditional Bagua, and that in popular lore Heaven can be represented by the Lion, much as the Earth is represented by the Unicorn or the Monkey is the Swamp, etc…. They are folk names for the energetic quailites of the Trigrams, much as te Trigram names (gen, kun, etc…) are more erudite names.
In Jiang Rong Qiao’s book this Palm is simply called seventh Palm. It is the individual postures that are named, and they have names of the Lion (ie. Lion Opens Mouth, Lion Throws Ball, etc…). I’ve never heard of it called Lion Palm, except as a practical, short hand way of doing it.
I think.
Thank you, Jose. Now I know. Train well to remain well.
I just found your site tonight by being silly on Google and searching for my own blog’s title along with my name, and I found that you’ve linked to me (I’m “Mr. Jim” from BecomingtheLion). I appreciate that. It looks like you’ve got a lot of interesting stuff to say on here, and I look forward to reading more of it!
It’s been a bit…but…
Thanks for your props Jim.
I’ll always dig the impressions you leave by walking circles.