Bagua Zhang

Southern Beijing Bagua Zhang ...

Legends:

According to Zhang Jie, my instructor (http://www.wuji.com/Masters/zhangjie.htm), this style came from Dong Hai Chuan through Cheng Ting Hua to Liu Bin and then through two of Liu Bin's students -- Liu Hsing Han and Wang Weng Kui (sp), both of whom taught Zhang Jie in Beijing China. He said he received more 'inner door' training from Wang Weng Kui and more open door training from Liu Hsing Han.

Forms:

This system has both open handed forms and weapons forms.

Warmups:

There are some misc. warmups to start with.

Beginning forms:

Bagua circle walking form

24 Forms of 8 animals

8 palms, fists, elbows

Intermediate:

Wu Xing Can Sai Ban (sp)

8 mother palms

Advanced:

64 palms forms

9 palace form

Weapons:

Turning sword

Angel sword

Broadsword

Dragon staff

Circle Walking

One of the first practices that I learned from Zhang Jie was walking the circle. It involves something called 'snake walking' or 'muddy wade step' (depending upon who names it). It is very hard to describe. It involves a shuffling step, and the person walks as though sliding through mud (or wading through mud), or shuffles their feet along the ground like a snake would creep along the grass.

Then, then person walks a circle. Supposedly, Dong Hai Chuan was taught by Taoists this practice somewhere in China (reportedly either on Nine flower mountain or somewhere in Anhui province, China), with the palms down and outstretched in front of them. The foundation practice according to reports is to walk around a tree for several hours a day for a year.

Trigram Palms

My journey into trigram palms started with baguazhang (eight trigram palms) lessons with Zhang Jie of Beijing, China. He started me out with something called warmups, and then moved onto 24 palms of eight animals.

It took me quite a while to learn the applications for the forms. He would show me some applications to the forms, but it wasn't until I started applying my older martial arts knowledge, and doing a lot of research into applications, that I started to understand the applications to the forms.

After a while, I was hooked on studying baguazhang! I would train daily, in addition to my daily workouts. I trained for five years, and then got really tired! I also tried to do some taijiquan, but dropped it because it took too long to practice in addition to my baguazhang practice.

IMHO baguazhang is one of the most effective martial arts around. The difference between it and other martial arts is that it teaches stand up fighting, and stand up grappling, in a way other martial arts don't teach.

After 5 years of practice, Zhang Jie taught me a LOT of applications of baguazhang. He answered a lot of my questions about practice. IMHO he is one of the best teachers around for martial arts, but it takes a lot of patience to learn the fundamentals before getting to the applications, and the proper martial attitude (wude).