by jonathan.bluestein on Sat Sep 20, 2014 5:15 am
This is very bad Jingang Bashi. Shown are the 8 basic movements of the art, known as Liu He Ba Shi. Everything is incorrect. He is trying to use Baji shenfa, but his Baji shenfa isn't good either. How do I know? Because I was taught these and have helped Zhou shifu teach them many times, most recently as last week.
Here is a long list of problems in the video, compiled in less than 5 minutes of observation:
- Stances are supposed to be very elongated and low. They're not.
- Lifting of the rear heel.
- Overt exaggerated sounds.
- Opening movement with the hands is wrong (should be using a 'Buddha-like' praying posture; it's a Buddhist art).
- First movement is supposed to have the weight on the rear leg, and it's on the front.
- Striking forward is never with the fingers and palm pointing sideways or with an open fist.
- Baji sliding into Ma Bu (again, not Jingang Bashi move) is done with the butt being tossed sideways... which is wrong.
- Ma Bu has the feet pointing sideways.
- The downward striking variation does not feature heavy hands as required. The hands are stiff.
- The Kai/He (open-close) variation shown on 01:07 is supposed to have the hands 'hugging' the body and then opening wide. They are not. So it doesn't develop any of the gongfu it is supposed to.
- The uppercut variation which follows is all wrong as well. The fist is misaligned with the wrist. The arm is misaligned with the body.
- Variation at 01:35 is just painful to watch. Nothing is done right.
- Variation at 02:10 is lacking two movements, and as with the rest of the variations he does not go low, and his openings and closings are too small.
- At 02:34 - wrong again. Shen fa he made up himself as with all the rest. The palm should target the chin and eyes, not the chest. Lucking a 'sucking in' power before going forward, too. Needless to say, doesn't go into gong bu, lack of any other proper foundations.
At this point I just give up. He obviously learned this from video. The guy has no clue. It is saddening and insulting he is teaching that stuff to other people.
What happened is that at one point, some Baji lineages borrowed the Liu He Ba Shi from the Jingang Bashi style. From then on, it seems, the vast majority of them have lost the essence of these movements entirely, and have been filling in the gaps with a lot of 'insights' which are not even remotely related to Jingang Bashi. The practice is also out of context. The Liu He Ba Shi are Jibengong intended to build a foundation with the Jingang system. These are just the first eight - there are 8 variations of each of these 8, total of 64. Then there are further '64 hard hands', and then '64 soft hands', etc etc. Each stage features a more evolved way of practicing the same concepts and techniques.
So call it whatever, but it is not Jingang Bashi. Frankly though, it's not good gongfu either, by any means.