I was shocked and saddened to learn today of the passing of Dalian's great baguaquan teacher Huang Zhicheng last November. This news seems to have gone completely unnoticed by the entire Anglophone world - I accidentally stumbled on it at Neldo Sacomani's (Master Huang's student in Buenos Aires) blog at http://209.85.229.132/translate_c?hl=en&sl=es&u=http://kungfutradicional-nos.blogspot.com/2008/11/fallecimiento-de-mi-maestro-sr-huang.html.
Huang Zhicheng was one of the last surviving traditional old masters. Born in the 1930s, he spent thirty years learning the intricacies of baguaquan with his teacher Sun Ruwen. He undertook research into his grandteacher Gong Baotian's origins and life during China's liberalization period in the 1980s, locating his home in Qingshan village, meeting family members and erecting a tombstone at Master Gong's grave. He published the following moving biography of Master Gong in 2007 on the 64th anniversary of his death: http://www.smilingtiger.net/Research%20on%20Gong%20Baotian.pdf. Here's a bit of the only VCD he ever did, recorded 20 years ago and now unobtainable:
Master Huang was the 'real deal', one of the very few who retained and could demonstrate proper old-style Yin Fu bagua and its application. Renowned in his hometown, and respected outside it, he had no interest in self-promotion, nor did he need it. I hope his successors, bagua's 6th generation, will be able to do justice to his memory. He will be greatly missed.