Mother palms of Baguazhang

[neijia_boxer]

Is it me or did i just waste 90 minutes of my life listening to this? I didn't get any useful information on the mother palms. Neil Ripski should of been the only speaker and not have multiple people talking. Just my opinion, he seems well spoken.

http://www.blogtalkradio.com/templeunde ... ther-palms

People who I would like to hear talk on Bagua mother palms:

Marcus Brinkman
Bradford Tyrey
RSF's own D_Glenn

My view on Mother palms:
4 cores of Baguazhang are
1. single palm
2. double palm
3. mother palms
4. circle walking.

mother palms- 4 are single changes, 4 are double palm changes.

each one is based on the following:
8 palms:
1. Yang chang- up palm (heaven).
2. Pi chang- split palm, upright. (wind).
3. Pao chang- embrace (water).
4. Tiao chang- enticing palm (thunder).
5. Lo shuan chang- drilling palm (earth).
6. Liao chang- seizing palm (mountain).
7. Shu chang- outward palm (fire).
8. Fu chang- downward palm (lake).

[leftwose]

bgz is so diverse that unless you define your terms, their is no hope of discussion.

Cavitation.



mother palms- 4 are single changes, 4 are double palm changes.

This. This I think is a core. Some bgz I have studied call these Animal/Body changes. Some have no name for the distinction, but if you look at the changes they are clearly split into this distinction.


Other lines would say
- Single
- Double
- Returning Body


You say - Lo shuan chang is Earth palm. Shouldn't Earth Palm be discussed as a counterpoint to Heaven Palm. I.E shouldn't Lo shuan chang be named (yin Palm) in relation the palm you named as (heaven) , Yang chang. And what does it mean that you have related them not this way?

Why is Pao chang not kan zhuang, while Shu chang is not Li zhuang? The kan/li, embracing/expressing duality is important here. How is your terminology different or better than mine? And to the point, are we talking about the same thing?

The thing that makes D_Glenn such a resource is that he describes his understanding and then clarifies it when questions come up.

Please describe your understanding of the terms presented, and we can begin to discuss from there...

.conal.

[Kevin_Wallbridge]

All those palm names describe shapes more than qualities. The "yang" in Yang zhang is 仰 Yǎng = upward facing, not as in Yin-Yang.

[kenneth fish]

IMO the core of BGZ is
1. learning to move around your own vertical axis
2. learning to control movement inside the joints of the ankles, hips, shoulders, and spine
3. Plum flower pattern stepping and "mud step" mechanics (the "mud step" is really a means of training force projection in the lower extremity)

IMO there are only two fundamental palms (please stop translating MuZhang as "Mother Palms". The term "Mu" in this case means fundamental, primary, or foundation). Single palm change and double palm change.

I see no reason to mix philosophical concepts with this or any other martial art. My favorite Park Boknam quote is "good philosophy makes lousy martial arts"

[chud]

Is it me or did i just waste 90 minutes of my life listening to this? I didn't get any useful information on the mother palms. Neil Ripski should of been the only speaker and not have multiple people talking. Just my opinion, he seems well spoken.

http://www.blogtalkradio.com/templeunde ... ther-palms

I just saw this thread.
I had started listening to this podcast a few days ago and got about halfway through, but couldn't bear to listen to the whole thing because of the sound quality issues they had with one of the guests (Al-wah-lee Muhammad).
I'm sure he had interesting things to say, but I couldn't keep listening due to the sound quality.

IMO there are only two fundamental palms ... Single palm change and double palm change.

Yes. One thing Richard Clear pointed out during the podcast (before I tuned out) was that some of the palms differ between styles, which is fine.

But the commonality among different Bagua families' palms is single palm change and double palm change, and as Dr. Fish said THOSE are the core palms of Bagua.

Sort of like in Xingyi, the five elements are the core fists of Xingyi. Animals may differ between styles, but the five elements are the core of the art.

[roger hao]

Neijia - Yes

[gasmaster]

IMO the core of BGZ is
1. learning to move around your own vertical axis
2. learning to control movement inside the joints of the ankles, hips, shoulders, and spine
3. Plum flower pattern stepping and "mud step" mechanics (the "mud step" is really a means of training force projection in the lower extremity)

+100

[kenneth fish]

And Ken--your MuMu wears Army boots.

Oh yeah?

[edededed]

What defines the two fundamental palms of single palm change and double palm change? (Is this definition constant throughout various baguazhang schools (Yin, Liang, Fan, etc.?) - my background is Liang).

At least outwardly, there are many differences between schools - some Cheng-type schools (Sun, Gao) seem to have single- and/or double-palm changes separate from their set of fundamental 8 palms; others (other Cheng, some Yin, Liang) just have the set of 8. Still others (some Yin) don't seem to have a set of fundamental 8 palms (such as Cao Zhongsheng's school, which just has the set of 64 instead - although the first 8 are often used as the "fundamental 8" as a result).

[kenneth fish]

All Bagua schools have the single and double palm changes. The outward appearance of the technique is less relevant than the mechanical aspects (see my post above).

[D_Glenn]

If you look at Single Palm (Dan Zhang) as being more like 'Dan Cao' (drilling one technique over and over- 1,1,1,1,1...) and Double Palm (Shuang Zhang) as being like drilling two different techniques over (1,2,1,2... or 2,1,2,1...). Then 3 is where there is actual change. If you know only 3 techniques then you can have a lot of variations of technique in a fight (1,2,3,1,2,3... or 1,3,2,1,3,2... or 2,1,3,2,1,3... etc.) It becomes strategical. And that's where we get 'shun shi zhang', 'Fan shen zhang', 'Bei shen Zhang', etc.

Roy Nelson was someone, who for a time, won fights using what we would call a 'Single Palm Change'.

.

[edededed]

All Bagua schools have the single and double palm changes. The outward appearance of the technique is less relevant than the mechanical aspects (see my post above).

I guess that I am looking for clarification for the double palm change - the vertical axis point makes sense and matches the single palm change for me. Mud step is a part of almost all bagua practice. I am a bit less clear about the other points - do those relate to the double palm change? Although one certainly can move in special ways after fairly long practice...

[kenneth fish]

These points relate to all movement in Bagua.

[edededed]

Thanks, Dr. Fish!

In my bagua, the old 8 palms are very important themes repeated throughout the curriculum. Each represents a different technique, strategy, power, pattern, and so forth. There are also different ways of practicing them. A lot of the meanings, for me, didn't become clear until about 10 years of practice But I'm curious about correlates in other lines of bagua as well (because I don't think I'll be spending 10 years in another line, too).