Thanks Tom for the citation. LOL
Here is also a great website:
http://www.bajimen.com/http://www.bajimen.com/index.php?page=bajiOrigins
BaJiQuan originates from the DongNan town of Cang county, HeiBei province, in the area of Meng village, about seventy to eighty li ( about 40 km ) from the city, traditionally called "The nest of BaJi". Actually, this area is the old home of PiGuaQuan as well, it's even more popular there than in the famous PiGua county LuoZhong.
About seventy, eighty years ago, BaJiQuan was only popular in Cang county and its surrounding areas such as NanPi and NingJin counties. The local name for it was 巴子拳 or 鈀子拳( BaZiQuan: rake fist ), the name came from the fact that when holding the fist, the fingers resembles a rake. At about the end of Ming, and start of Qing dynasty, literary practitioners of the style changed the name to 八極拳 ( BaJiQuan: eight extremes fist ) as we call it today. In the northern dialect, the pronunciation for the characters "BaZi" and "BaJi" are very similar, and the meaning of the new writing form sounds more refined. By the end of the Qing dynasty, almost no one knew that the original name for the style, save for its place of origin -- Cang county. Some also call it "KaiMenBaJiQuan" ( Open gate eight extreme fist ), or KaiMenQuan, that's because BaJiQuan practioners will ram into the opponent as soon as they are in position, forcefully opening the opponents' gates, disrupting the center of mass and destroy the balance.
The identify of BaZiQuan's creator and era in which it was created can no longer be traced. Grandmaster Liu believes that this style should come from the BaZi fist and staff that was recorded in the "JiXiaoXinShu" ("New Book of Effective Techniques"), where it was written: "Among the fist families of old and new...Yang family spear methods and BaZi fist and staff, are the famous families of the day." From its ancient and simplistic favour, as well as the focus on lance and long staff training, we can estimate its date of creation to be around the beginning of Ming dynasty ( 1368 AD ); It also has strong connections to the military arts of the era.
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The Name
Northerners call martial arts as "把式"(BaShi: skill), "八式" (BaShi: eight forms ). The meaning of 八極 (BaJi: eight extremes ) is to encourage the students to practice their "BaShi" to the highest level. Also, the style requires the usages of the head, shoulder, elbow, hand, rear, waist, knee and feet, all eight parts of the body. Therefore the name BaJi is to remind the students to be alert, and train the usage of the eight body parts to the best of their abilities
The Han dynasty king LiuAn wrote in book HuaiNanZi: "There are eight reverences outside the nine rivers, there are eight expands outside the eight reverences, and outside of those are eight extremes." Here, the eight extremes represent extreme distances. The name BaJiQuan is also to inspire students to training their skills to great heights.
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The People
The record of BaJiQuan's people and history can mostly be found in the Cang county's records. These records were told by HanHuaChen in 1933. At the time Grandmaster Liu and his teacher LiShuWen were visiting friends in ShanDong, and weren't able to participate. HanHuaChen was from LuoZhong, his descriptions were mostly based on that of the LuoZhong people. The descriptions for BaJiQuan's place of origin -- Meng village -- were few and had mistakes. The following are based on the Cang county records, combined with what was told by Grandmaster Liu.
WuZhong
Also named TongYin, he was from the Meng village of DongNan town in Cang county. Born around the end of ShunZi rule and the beginning of KanXi ( 1662 AD ), a northern Chinese Muslim. He was outstandingly intelligent at eight years old, and by the time he was eighteen he was much stronger and braver than his peers. As a result he stopped his literary studies to focus on martial studies. One night when he was practicing sword in his courtyard, a daoist suddenly jumped down from the roof. WuZhong asked for his name, the daoist refused to answer. When the two started converse about martial arts, WuZhong found that much of the daoist's skills and knowledges were unknown to him. As of such, he became the daoist's student, and studied BaJiQuan from him. After ten years, one day the old daoist said to WuZhong: "You have studied all my skills, I will now leave you." WuZhong cried, kneeled and bowed to him and said:"I have learnt much in the last ten years, but regrettably the only thing I haven't learnt is teacher's name." The old daoist said: "Anyone who knows the name 'Lai' are all my students." and jumped away from view. After another two years, another daoist by the name of "Pi" visited WuZhong, introduced himself as Lai's student. He taught WuZhong BaJi lance methods, and gave him a book of BaJi secrets. Pi asked WuZhong to go to a temple in HangZhou to compete with a head monk, who was an expert in ShaoLin martial arts. WuZhong defeated the monk many times consecutively, and the monk was very impressed by his skills. When they parted, he gave WuZhong a bag of throwing darts as gifts. Afterwards, WuZhong went to BeiJing to seek employment. At this time he competed in spears methods with the emperor KanXi's eleventh son, King XunQin. WuZhong was able to smear the white dust at the tip of his spear on the king's eyebrows without him noticing. The king thought WuZhong was capable of magic, and changed the white dust to flour, but the result was the same. The king was deeply impressed by his skills, and became his student. At the time people in BeiJing called WuZhong as "Spear king WuZhong".
[Editor's Notes] The teaching and passing of Chinese martial arts places great emphasis on teacher-student relations. The fact that WuZhong would follow the Daoist Lai to practice BaJiQuan for over ten years without knowing his name, does not agree with our expectations. It's said inside our style that: Lai, Pi, as well as the monk in the HanZou temple were all officials during the Ming dynasty. After the demise of Ming, they all hid themselves amongst monks and daoists, hiding their names to continue their work against the Qing government to attempt to restore the Ming. In the beginning of Qing dynasty, there were many such patriots. Because of the political background of the era, to prevent affecting teachers and peers in case their activies were discovered, many hid the lineage and teachings of their martial systems. As a result, today it's very difficult to rediscover this history. At the same period, Chinese martial arts made the transition from the battlefield art that emphasized on weaponry, to the personal defensive art that emphasized on empty hands. Many martial art systems that developed during this period also have such vague lineage history. It's highly likely that these systems share the same historical background as BaJiQuan! . . .
Written by Dr. James Guo, I think this is one of the most articulate writings on the history and lineage of baji.
Good luck!