Zhuan in Baguazhang

[D_Glenn]

轉 Zhuan - means to turn or rotate. In Baguazhang we have a practice often translated as "Circle Walking" which is a translation of the practice which was traditionally called '轉掌 Zhuan Zhang (Rotating Palms) or is often just simplified to 轉 Zhuan (Turning/ Rotating) or when you turn around a fixed point you begin to walk in the shape of a circle so it's also called 轉圈 (Turn Circle), or even 走圈 (Walk Circle), or 走掌 Zou Zhang.

The word 掌 Zhǎng is difficult to translate properly because it's a character variant and a tone change of the actual word of 仗 zhàng (which means weaponry; or to hold or wield a weapon). Dong Haichuan used this variation of the word to further hide the fact that the empty hand movements were hiding the actual weapon usage and to signify in a sense that it's a weapon form only done with an empty palm. The character does not mean that one must use an open palm instead of a fist, Baguazhang uses both. What it does mean and what is lost in translation is that we want to train our empty-hand skills to such a degree that they are in themselves like weapons (仗 zhàng).

Another thing about Dong Haichuan is that he was a very practical, matter-of-fact, type of person with a very dark sense of humor, almost sarcastic. So there's a common story regarding the history of Baguazhang that is being re-told again and again but with a very simple mistake of Bagua's most basic terminology. In the past when people saw Dong Haichuan walking/ turning around in a circle with various postures and asked him what he was doing he would give them the most sarcastic and simplest answer that he was just doing 'Circle Walking/ '轉掌 Zhuan Zhang (Rotating Palms)'. There was no need to elaborate even though he knew they were asking for the name of the Martial Art he was practicing, not just the specific practice. He kept the name and theories to himself and for his actual 'Inner Door' students. Anybody, to this day, who actually practices Baguazhang, would of known, and should know that he was simply stating that he was just doing the practice of 'Circle Walking', and not actually telling them the name of the martial art he practiced.

Can we please let this improperly translated piece of history die it's long overdue death already. There's enough wrong with so many of the other poor translations into English that I think we can safely dispel this truly rookie mistake of Baguazhang history.


Cheers

[edededed]

As far as I know, should be 轉圏 and 走圏, not 轉圜 or 走圜. Anyway, 圜 is "yuan," not "huan." Don't know about the other stuff you are saying.

[D_Glenn]

Duly noted and edited, except 圏 appears to be the Japanese variant of 圈.

[edededed]

Sorry, don't have access to Chinese IME right now...

[meeks]

The word 掌 Zhǎng is difficult to translate properly because it's a character variant and a tone change of the actual word of 仗 zhàng (which means weaponry; or to hold or wield a weapon). Dong Haichuan used this variation of the word to further hide the fact that the empty hand movements were hiding the actual weapon usage and to signify in a sense that it's a weapon form only done with an empty palm. The character does not mean that one must use an open palm instead of a fist, Baguazhang uses both. What it does mean and what is lost in translation is that we want to train our empty-hand skills to such a degree that they are in themselves like weapons (仗 zhàng).


Can we please let this improperly translated piece of history die it's long overdue death already. There's enough wrong with so many of the other poor translations into English that I think we can safely dispel this truly rookie mistake of Baguazhang history.


Cheers

Thats interesting. So you mean that it is correctly written as bagua weaponry and not bagua palm? Do you have a credible source we can read more of this on or is it something that was passed to you orally? I'm not dispelling what you say, it's just that after Yang Guotai spent over 50 years training at the beijing institute of bagua since the early 1940s and always wrote it as palm (granted he said it was not just about palm strikes) i find this to be quite an eyebrow raiser that peaks my interest.

[D_Glenn]

Thats interesting. So you mean that it is correctly written as bagua weaponry and not bagua palm? Do you have a credible source we can read more of this on or is it something that was passed to you orally? I'm not dispelling what you say, it's just that after Yang Guotai spent over 50 years training at the beijing institute of bagua since the early 1940s and always wrote it as palm (granted he said it was not just about palm strikes) i find this to be quite an eyebrow raiser that peaks my interest.

I didn't catch all the nuances of the oral description but traditionally it wouldn't even be written down at all , but I'm pretty sure that the answer is no, that it wouldn't have been written down as 仗 zhàng, that's just the correct meaning or root of the character and in this context of the our martial art the proper definition of the word is 仗 zhàng 'to wield' (a weapon). Also note that the word 掌 Zhǎng can still also mean 'to wield' in the proper context in Modern Chinese so there's no reason to use the older character. One just needs to understand that it doesn't really mean 'Palm' in this context.

I just can't come up with a decent way to translate and phrase it in English though.


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[meeks]

cool man. that's given me something to think about for the next 20 years...damn you!

[Franklin]

so just a question

in your opinion how does the weapons aspect of zhang relate to the daoist origin/practice of the circle walking?



franklin

[Daniel]

Well, if we look at DGlenn´s character and translate the phrase as "Spiraling Weapons" you can see how a name like that can arise from "just" the circle-walking itself. If you do a lot of non-martial circle walking (as the Daoists would), then you will build up power, change your body significantly and basically be able to manifest this spiralling into a weapon. Maybe this then slowly grew into more of a inclusive martial study of it. An interesting idea just struck me while writing this, actually: intent forms the IMA completely. What if the original phrase of zhuanzhang was the specific intent for Bagua as a martial practice? "I change my intent to zhuanzhang and then I am focusing more on it as martial practice" or even as the specific intent for combat itself.


D.

Sarcasm. Oh yeah, like that´ll work.

[D_Glenn]

Again, it doesn't quite mean 'weapons' but how one would hold or wield a weapon, and more about the shape your hands or arms are in when holding various weapons.

Second is that 轉 Zhuan in Baguazhang is the same as it's used in other arts like Taijiquan, Bajiquan, etc. and it means basically 'turning' or like walking down the street and your 'turn a corner'. In Bagua however say we take a left turn (轉 Zhuan), then another left turn, then another, and so on. And we also have the upper body twisted in as the 'corner' we are 'turning' around is the bridge or point of contact that our forearm would have with the opponent's.

When doing striking practices in diagonal lines we 'turn/zhuan' left, strike, then 'turn' right, strike, then 'turn' left again, and so on down a line.

So '轉掌 Zhuan Zhang (cirlce walking) is essentially just practicing the 'turning' part of the practice, without the strikes, except when we change direction we 'turn' and strike.

It's a pretty pragmatic and martially oriented practice and the application of circle walking isn't too much different from some other Chinese arts and how they use 轉 Zhuan. A spinning (zhuan) backfist for example is a more robust example of 轉 Zhuan. Although in Baguazhang there are some throws and locks where one continues 'turning' in the same direction a lot more then you would see in any other styles.



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[onyomi]

Again, afaik, it doesn't quite mean 'weapons' but how one would hold or wield a weapon, and more about the shape your hands or arms are in when holding various weapons.

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Would you say that the various positions held when walking the circle could map onto the ways one would hold various weapons? The deerhorn knives look like they might map onto the "bear" position, for example, and a spear might map onto the position the name of which I forget but which involves one palm extended out and facing up and one palm over the head... Would you say there is one or two specific weapons which "define" Bagua? For example, my Longfist/Mantis teacher showed me how a disproportionately large number of Longfist moves map onto broadsword/dao, whereas a large number of Mantis moves map onto jian and/or double dagger.

[Baguaplayer]

As indicated by his voluntary castration . . .

I was actually that DHC was not a eunuch as was previously thought. Can anyone clarify either way?

[Baguaplayer]

As indicated by his voluntary castration . . .

I was actually under the impression that DHC was not a eunuch as was previously thought. Can anyone clarify either way?

[D_Glenn]

Would you say that the various positions held when walking the circle could map onto the ways one would hold various weapons?

Yes and no.

The idea behind the concept and Dong Haichuan's choice of word is more about understanding fighting in that a weapon has a fixed shape, and we can learn to wield this weapon shape to a high level of proficiency, and learn to effectively use it against any type of weapon the opponent may have. So if we can successfully 'Link' or 'chain' together (lianhuan) all of the weapons possible techniques then we have a tactic or strategy that we know is good and reliable. When we look at empty hand fighting there is no fixed shape and we can move in any myriad of 10,000 different ways so where or how do we begin to 'lianhuan'/link together techniques in a way that we can rely upon? The answer is we already have a good model to go off of in the weapon, so why not start there. We look at our arms and the opponent's arms as a weapon and we can build and base our strategies off that idea but unlike with an actual weapon we can 'change' (bianhua) to any variation of hard or soft, strong or relaxed that we want to, ideally based upon the situation and the opponent's defensive moves. First though we need to thoroughly learn and understand one 掌 Zhang before we progress to learning other 掌 Zhangs and their differing strategies and tactics. And as we begin to understand how Dong Haichuan organized the art we begin to make sense of the unlimited possibilities in an empty-hand art. So while the number of techniques is unlimited we can still begin to see and encapsulate the empty-hand into a set of tactics and methods that we can make sense of rather than having too many choices in front of us and hesitating, thereby making a wrong 'change'/'bianhua', and the 'lianhuan'/ chain of techniques is broken, or ill-logical, and we lose the confrontation...

So we can go from a weapon to empty-hand, but the empty-hand is so much more evolved and complex that we would have to lose something in order to map the empty-hand back to a weapon.


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[D_Glenn]

Please don't derail this thread.

If you guys want to talk about DHC's balls, or lack of, then do it on your own thread!


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