Bagua Stepping

[northern_mantis]

Hi all

Quick question to settle a discussion I am having with a work colleague regarding Bagua (which neither of us know much about). In your experiences which styles use a natural step and which use mud stepping or similar more formal method and what is the rationale behind it? We decided to see how hard it is to walk a circle of varying sizes at lunch time today and whilst we made some nice patterns in the fallen autumn leaves we both now have sore hips and knees!

Thanks in advance for your time.

[edededed]

Hmm - no answers yet?

In my experience, Liang style predominantly trains with the mud stepping; however, in usage, the stepping may appear similar to the "natural step."

There are many benefits to training walking in this way; one is that eventually, you can move quickly and nimbly, yet with stability, kind of like a merging of cursorial-type movement with graviportal-type movement.

[Tiger Mouth]

I know very little about bagua (or anything much else, come to that), but the small amount I've done is Liang, so being curious I have searched Youtube for examples and info. In one instructional video the teacher explains six types of stepping "imagines" and two "forced measures". In each of the six stepping methods one uses the imagination (hence "imagines" in the curious translation):

1. Poling (as in a punt/boat)
2. Walking (as if on thin ice)
3. Rubbing (your feet along a cord laid out in front of you)
4. Wading (as if through knee high mud)
5. Kicking (a stone out of your path with your toes)
6. Stepping (as if on a poisonous snake's tail and head)

The two measures are light and heavy.

He suggests practising each stepping method for two hours a day for three months before moving on to the next. Then all through again walking above the ground (i.e. on bricks and stakes) - i.e. light. Then all through again with weights attached to arms / hands / legs /waist / etc. - i.e. heavy.

Phew.

[gerard]

Have you watched this video first (you stated not having much idea about this art)?

***** rating

[shawnsegler]

Master He always brings the goods.

S

[D_Glenn]

As per the original question, right off the bat Circle Walking is unnatural, so it's best to walk the same way that you've always walked as Circle Walking is actually just continually 'Zhuan' Turning, like turning a corner when making a 90 degree turn down a hallway or similar, the best thing to think about is how you normally and subconsciously navigate your way around in your daily life, only now you're continually Turning (Zhuan) in the same direction.

Eventually there are some things you want to start imagining so that it's more productive and you gradually change your previous natural stepping into a new-natural (ziran) type of Bagua stepping:

In one instructional video the teacher explains six types of stepping "imagines" and two "forced measures". In each of the six stepping methods one uses the imagination (hence "imagines" in the curious translation):

1. Poling (as in a punt/boat)
2. Walking (as if on thin ice)
3. Rubbing (your feet along a cord laid out in front of you)
4. Wading (as if through knee high mud)
5. Kicking (a stone out of your path with your toes)
6. Stepping (as if on a poisonous snake's tail and head)

The two measures are light and heavy.

He suggests practising each stepping method for two hours a day for three months before moving on to the next.

These are in order of easy to difficult, but ultimately you should be doing all 6 at the same time, but to learn them you should just focus on one idea at a time.

For some reason some of the different Bagua lineages, and later the performance wushu, became fixated on one single concept, or imagining, which is #5 'kicking a stone': like a kid kicking a rock down the street where when you go to kick it you actually step on the rock because your foot is slightly too high and you do the splits, or walking on gravel that's on the street and all the little pebbles also collectively roll-out and you do the splits/ pull a groin, so this imaginary idea is fixed by keeping the toes pressed to the ground or street so that there's no chance for the rock or pebbles to get under the foot; but this is the wrong imagining, it should be the way that when you were a kid kicking rocks down the street that you learned to focus all the power into the kick but stop your foot as soon as you touch the rock to send it skipping further. The rock is hard and jagged, it's not like a round rubbery foot ball that benefits from following through. The front 1 centimeter, or less, of one's shoe is where all the bounce is and as the rock has many faceted sides you don't know how it's going to bounce after it's hit, so it's best to just stop the foot.

These Six all build certain strengths, flexibilities, and have direct applications to fighting but it's subtle, and they're complex to be thinking about while having to also think about everything else that the rest of the body is doing. And it's important to keep them as just imaginations as fixating on them as a true physical thing will likely injure something. Fixate on number 5 and wreck your knees, fixate on #1 and possibly tear your achilles tendon. The most important rule that overrides all others is that nothing in Circle Walking should cause injury to your own body. When it comes to all the parts of your legs you should be extremely careful as it's all under control of your 'Xindi' (Mind-Ground) which is the aspect of your mind that's in control of the lower half of your body, and it's not very bright/ smart. One of the main reasons for doing Circle Walking is to develop one's 'Xindi' and until it gradually improves it's very prone to doing stupid things and getting injured.

.

[meeks]

As per the original question, right off the bat Circle Walking is unnatural, so it's best to walk the same way that you've always walked as Circle Walking is actually just continually 'Zhuan' Turning, like turning a corner when making a 90 degree turn down a hallway or similar, the best thing to think about is how you normally and subconsciously navigate your way around in your daily life, only now you're continually Turning (Zhuan) in the same direction.

I completely disagree with this statement. "How" to circle walk is unnatural for a reason - it is training connective tissues and fascia throughout the body to work together so your whole body moves as one - not just for stepping, but for everything in bagua. It is weight lifting for your core. If your school of bagua simply practises natural step then I guess that's their thing, but for us it is the cotter pin of power development - hell, I sometimes put heavy ankle weights on and do it very slowly, mind you we don't do 'roll the pencil' stepping, ours is very similar to 'wade through mud' stepping which really engages the core. Circle walking not 'just continually zhuan' - there's so much happening throughout the entire body on every facet of the movement in just one step I can't even put it to words here as I don't have all day.

**edit - I'm not trying to sound like a douche or anything - but it is difficult to get a sense of emotion and I can often be read as "grumpy" because of my writing style - not my intention...

[D_Glenn]

I completely disagree with this statement. "How" to circle walk is unnatural for a reason - it is training connective tissues and fascia throughout the body to work together so your whole body moves as one - not just for stepping, but for everything in bagua. It is weight lifting for your core. If your school of bagua simply practises natural step then I guess that's their thing, but for us it is the cotter pin of power development - hell, I sometimes put heavy ankle weights on and do it very slowly, mind you we don't do 'roll the pencil' stepping, ours is very similar to 'wade through mud' stepping which really engages the core. Circle walking not 'just continually zhuan' - there's so much happening throughout the entire body on every facet of the movement in just one step I can't even put it to words here as I don't have all day.

+1 (although not a fan of ankle weights)

I too was being brief. It has so many complexities that involve the whole body that is why I said it's unnatural stepping right off the bat.

We don't "simply practice natural step" (tianran or tiansheng) but all the eventual complex mud-wading step, scissor-thigh stepping, three harmonies (upper middle lower unison) etc. should eventually should all become your 'Ziran' (new-natural, like ziran in Daoism) stepping but in the beginning one is using only their Mind (Xin) to keep track of the whole body, but over time the Ground-Mind (Xindi) will take over the complexities of the lower half of the body and it's done through a gradual process of adding more and more complexities into the stepping.

So in the beginning you could just completely forsake the upper half of your body and only focus on the stepping, but this is not recommended to do as it does nothing to develop or promote the usage of your the 'Xindi' as it's still just your 'Xin' (mind) doing all the work. What one should do, as I mentioned above, is in the beginning to forsake all the advanced complexities involved in the circle walking stepping (what's happening in the lower half of your body), and let your Mind (Xin) focus on the upper half while you keep the stepping simple, as you already know how to walk (using your tianran stepping) but gradually add in more and more complexity as your 'Xindi' develops.

Every sport has it's own 'Xindi' but I think Skateboarding has the most complex and thorough usage of and development of the Ground-Mind as one's feet are having to work like hands and do all sorts of complex maneuvers to jump, spin, and flip the board all while your 'Xin' is being aware of the environment/ the obstacles that you're skating past and trying to do tricks on. The better the skateboarder, the more developed their skateboarding 'Xin' and 'Xindi' have to be as they're doing flip tricks while jumping onto a 10 stair handrail, sliding down it, then spinning the board at the end of the handrail.

There is some overlap between sports but as I said the 'Xindi' is dumb and probably won't realize that it's similar until it's too late but there is some 'Xindi' epiphanies that you may come across depending on your previous experiences.

It's also hard to have two different martial art styles 'Xindi', as they can be so similar that it may always resort to the first learned one, for example your 'Xindi' will be doing Xingyiquan, but your 'Xin' is trying to do Baguazhang.

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