the rum soaked fist: internal martial arts forum

I know there are a lot of Baji fans here, so I thought you might be interested in my most recent podcast - Nordic Bajiquan!

https://podcasters.spotify.com/pod/show ... an-e26uneo



Both Rikard Elofsson and Miika Wikberg are senior Baji students of Lü Baochun, based in Finland who has over 40 years’ experience in the training and practice of baji. He has trained under many of the famous martial artists who used the style, such as Han Longquan and Zhang Xuchun.

Timestsamps:

0.40: - Rikard - Introduce yourself/how did you meet your teacher Master Lü Baochun?

3.15: - Miika - Introduce yourself/how did you meet your teacher Master Lü Baochun?

7.15: What makes Baji different to other martial arts?

8.30: Old Baji and new Baji

9.20: Trademark techniques of Baji

10.15: How is Baji power different? Training methods and the 3 stepping methods -

12.40: The forms and sets in the Baji system

19.20: The history of Baji

25.15: The mixing of Baji and Pigua

26.09: Baji and body guarding

29.41: Is Baji hard to practice?

31.29: Baji and stamping/stomping

34.34: Baji and Tai Chi being taught together

36.25: How to train with Master Lü Baochun

38.00: Do you spar?

40.15: Can you add Baji to an existing skill set?

41.05 Is there a Baji Qigong?

42.18 Are there Baji conditioning exercises?

43.54 Iron Body and Baji

44.35 How do you integrate Baji with other arts?

47.24: Baji standing exercises

51.00 - Wrap up and the Muhammad Ali influence


Links

The Baji Association (English):
https://www.baji.info/en/

Bajiquan Wasa
https://www.facebook.com/bajiquanwasa/
https://www.instagram.com/bajiwasa/

Baji Kung Fu Stockholm:
https://www.facebook.com/kungfusthlm/

Video:
https://www.youtube.com/@Jumfer
https://www.youtube.com/@bajiwasa8400

Much appreciated for your baji posting Graham

Speaking of Baji.. anyone know what Omar's up to these days?

Damn you, Asura.

Finny wrote:Speaking of Baji.. anyone know what Omar's up to these days?

Damn you, Asura.

Looks like he´s taking his strength training seriously :

That's great - good for him. Thank you for the assist!

I enjoyed the conversation, thank you.

Interesting to get a better understanding of Bajiquan. Thanks for sharing. I met a few lads training it in China, but don’t think that they were serious enough.

Do you want even more Bajiquan? No problem - here's another one!

I've recorded a follow up to the first Baji podcast with my Heretics podcast co-host Damon Smith who is also a Baji practitioner.

"This episode follows on from Episode 26 of Graham's Tai Chi Notebook Podcast in which he interviews Woven Energy patrons Rikard Elofsson and Miika Wikberg about the little-known martial art of Baji. We discuss the possibility that the Baji Xiaojia is the most perfectly balanced form from any martial art - "Xiaojia is more Tai Chi than Tai Chi", and look in a bit more detail at the history, technique, strategy and background to this subtle and robust martial arts style."

Look for Heretics on all podcast platforms or get it here: https://www.spreaker.com/user/9404101/97-baji

Some Baji applications:



Also here are the Liu Da Kai discussed in the episode:

https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=P ... EW7qQ8gUPG

Always nice to see Lu Baochun do his thing...

These two episodes are actually very nice. Enjoyed listening to them!

Thanks - it was interesting to dive into Bajiquan for a bit, there's a lot of depth there, but I think I'm done for now. My next topic is..... Bruce Lee....

GrahamB wrote:Thanks - it was interesting to dive into Bajiquan for a bit, there's a lot of depth there

I finally made time to listen to both of these podcasts.

Well done on both counts.

I’ve not had a lot of exposure to Bajiquan outside of my own tradition, so it was nice to hear the perspective of Miika and Rikard. Everything that was said was right inline with what I was taught by my Wutan teachers. It was a fun renewal of the art for me.

I thought the second interview was with Rikard and Miika again, until I started looking for it and was directed to the Heretics podcasts.

I have to say that this was my favorite Heretics podcast. I thought you both were spot on with your observations and information.

I loved your discussion of the origins of Bajiquan. I don’t remember the exact wording. I’ll have to go find it. But, we should treat the origins of all martial arts that way. With very few, mostly modern, exceptions, no one man created a martial art, and those that did stood on the shoulders of giants.

The only thing that I was taught concerning the origins was that Bajiquan was likely Baziquan and staff (巴子拳棍) mentioned as being famous in his day by Qi Jiguang in his 1560 manual.

Damon also mentioned the Hui people. It’s not a popular view today, but I think there is evidence the influence of the Hui was a catalyst that invigorated CMA in the Ming Dynasty and may have given birth to CIMA. The Khans of the Yuan Dynasty imported conquered educated of Indo-Persian lands and others as engineers, scholars, and even elite soldiers. With the collapse of Yuan, for the most part, the Ming Dynasty embraced these peoples. Many were integrated into Chinese society and others maintained an Islamic (Hui) community.

Their influence on weaponry is blatant. The talwar had a strong influence on dao development. Middle Eastern bows and archery revolutionized both Mongolian then Chinese archery. Chinese military strategy was forever changed. But, these were evolutions of technologies of cultures that dated back to the Parthians and ancient Scythians.

I’m a bit of a heretic myself, I guess.

Two Circles, I met Kurt Wong, a wutan baji teacher in Canada. He was telling me stories about Li Shuwen. Some think he was a sociopath. And he did have handlers, so to speak, who escorted him around the towns. So it might be a case, where students know he’s a sociopath, but he’s really good at martial arts, so they want to extract all of his teachings. And ignoring incidents where he kills people for essentially no reason, other than to test him, and then hide him from the authorities.

Have you heard stories of Li Shuwen?

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