the rum soaked fist: internal martial arts forum

just wondering if you've tried to use bagua footwork in sports or found yourself doing so. if it's as good as claimed it should help with various activities besides bagua and other martial arts. i am especially interested in seeing what i can do with it in soccer/football, though it's obviously even more complicated by dribbling.

Bagua footwork is great for all kinds of dancing, as well as for basketball, tennis, and volleyball, which are the only sports I ever play.

Having used bagua footwork for several years while waiting tables, I can pretty much say I use bagua footwork 24/7.

have used ba gua stepping and hand movments many time when raving.. sort of allows one to get enough space to get funktastic...however I've also seen my training brother doing dragon circle walking on a dance floor... not a pretty sight

shawnsegler wrote:Having used bagua footwork for several years while waiting tables, I can pretty much say I use bagua footwork 24/7.

So you're saying you have the bagua-foot? The finesse of the strike!

I've got decent footwork. I've practiced real hard with it.

basketball and some in handball

I don't really look at bagua stepping as a technique where you can turn it on or off as you please. To me it's more of a natural way of moving that gets ingrained into your body as you practise it - so then it's either there or not all the time.

I practice sometimes when walking through crowded spaces. I guess it can be applied to anything that requires moving, whether or not it would actually benefit a sport like football or tennis im not sure

meeks wrote:I don't really look at bagua stepping as a technique where you can turn it on or off as you please. To me it's more of a natural way of moving that gets ingrained into your body as you practise it - so then it's either there or not all the time.

makes sense it should be ingrained, but not because it's natural but rather through long training. toe-in, toe-out seems very unnatural to me (but very smart). pivoting is usually taught in sports like basketball and also seems much more natural. I think the toe in toe out after long practice would help with even better agility but have no anecdotal evidence/experience yet...

seems like the overall skills should help in (American) football. Not sure of (rest of the world) football.

I meant "it becomes natural"

In general, simply sinking your weight a bit, not letting your head bob, and walking smoothly is immensely useful if you're walking through a busy crowd, or need to change directions, or are waitering somewhere. It's much harder to lose your balance. I frequently practice this centered stepping when I hear my tea kettle go off from upstairs -- I run down the stairs, sink, and then quickly snag the heavy tea kettle off the burner without losing balance. I can easily see how the story of Dong Hai Chuan getting recognized while waitering in the Prince's palace would be possible.

I spent several years honing my bagua footwork as a waiter and it's amazingly useful for moving through large amounts of people at speed while balancing things.

S- knows that walking stuff pretty well.

seems like the overall skills should help in (American) football.

The more I do this stuff, the more I'm convinced that the proper cadence for fighting where you have multiple opponents and room to move around is pretty much the same as that of american football.

You want to be agile and impacting.

S

shawnsegler wrote:

seems like the overall skills should help in (American) football.

The more I do this stuff, the more I'm convinced that the proper cadence for fighting where you have multiple opponents and room to move around is pretty much the same as that of american football.

You want to be agile and impacting.

S

lol almost makes one want to go find out, armed servicemen in a bar a little drunk against the locals style, but I take your word for it on the waiting tables thing