Extent of your Bagua System

[Haoran]

I don't know much about other Bagua systems and how extent they are so I'd like to ask, how much material past the 8 mother palms, and 8 animals (8 x 8 = 64) does your system contain?

As far as I've been exposed in Wang Zhuang Fei's system, there are quite a few intense forms, standing practices, two man and single drills. We don't have any qigong or neigong exercises (other than circle walking of course) that I know of.

Please introduce your system. I would love to hear about it.

[edededed]

Not all bagua systems contain an 8 animals set, although many do (they are distinct).

Liu Bin's Cheng style has 16 standing methods, 8 mother palms, 8 animals in 3 basins (24 palms), 8 animals (8 x 8, but different animals from Wang Zhuangfei's system), another set of 8 x 8 (8 palms, 8 fists, 8 claws, etc.), 5 element legs, as well as a large number of weapon forms (5 element short staff, 3 harmony turning sword, mandarin duck axes, 2 sets of seven star rod, etc.).

Standard Yin style in Beijing (Cao Zhongsheng, Yin Yuzhang, etc. lineages) has luohanquan, 64 palms (no animals), standing methods, supplementary exercises, and various weapons forms (wuji staff, descending dragon sword, 18 intercepting saber, etc.).

[Haoran]

edededed, cool stuff. What's the definition of a basin?

Thanks,

[shawnsegler]

In general it means the level or frame you practice your form at.

S

[Haoran]

In general it means the level or frame you practice your form at.

S

I see, so in Taiji, Chen might be considered a lower basin practice and Wu might be a upper or high basin practice?

[edededed]

Also:

Liang style has 8 old palms, linking palms, dragon shape palm, 8 sides palm, 64 hands, 72 legs, 8 elbows, 6 combined seizes, 72 seizes, various partner exercises, various sets of single techniques, lots of supplemental methods, and a great number of weapons forms (turning saber, left hand saber, double-headed snake spear, chicken claw razors, hook sickle swords, wind fire wheels, 3 sets of seven star rod, some flexible weapons, etc.).

(Note that there is more material in all three systems, but I am only mentioning that which is known in the public domain.)

Liu Bin's system seems to have a lot of material divided into 3 basins, giving them 24 methods for various sets.

[jaime]

all the necessary materials are there. We are only limited by our imagination.

[JAB]

Ed-
Care to elaborate on the Eight Elbows practice?
Thanks
Jake

[mixjourneyman]

Cheng style is a huge system.
Here is a list of some routines from Cheng style including stuff from both Cheng Youxin in Youlong:

Single movements
circle walking
eight basic palms
eight big palms (3 frames)
lian huan (3 frames)
64 palms
eight big sword
linking sword
swimming body palm
swimming body spear
64 linear palm
dear horn knives
judge pens
guan dao
bagua dao
Cheng Youlong's ten skills (I think its ten, haven't learned it yet).
Lots and lots of other miscelanious variations of things
probably a few routines I don't know about.
Lots of applications based on everything.

[I am...]

Ed-
Care to elaborate on the Eight Elbows practice?
Thanks
Jake

Jake, what would you like to know more about?

[Doc Stier]

Hmmm! Eight trigrams, eight palms, eight fists, eight kicks, eight steps, eight stances, eight animals, eight elements....etc. Very interesting!

You know, I think there may be a connected pattern here somewhere.

Doc

[edededed]

Haoran: not sure, I've heard the basins talked about in bagua and xingyi, not sure about taiji.

Jake: Well, basically it is a short set of eight elbow techniques - you can practice them singly, or as a linked set.

[Haoran]

Haoran: not sure, I've heard the basins talked about in bagua and xingyi, not sure about taiji.

Jake: Well, basically it is a short set of eight elbow techniques - you can practice them singly, or as a linked set.

Wow, that just jarred my memory. My teacher also taught me 8 elbows which I had totally forgotten about.

[edededed]

Haoran: Glad to have been of help!

Mix: The Cheng (Liu Bin lineage) and Liang styles seem to have enormous amounts of material, in part because of a lot of sharing between bagua practitioners in Beijing back in the day. Dozens of weapon sets, lots of paired sets/methods, secret methods, etc. Some sets are more well-known than others. (Guess they were more friendly back in those days...)

[Mephisto]

Cheng style is a huge system.
Here is a list of some routines from Cheng style including stuff from both Cheng Youxin in Youlong:

Single movements
circle walking
eight basic palms
eight big palms (3 frames)
lian huan (3 frames)
64 palms
eight big sword
linking sword
swimming body palm
swimming body spear
64 linear palm
dear horn knives
judge pens
guan dao
bagua dao
Cheng Youlong's ten skills (I think its ten, haven't learned it yet).
Lots and lots of other miscelanious variations of things
probably a few routines I don't know about.
Lots of applications based on everything.

That's an impressive list. Not many Cheng lines have all of this material. Does Yang laoshi know/teach all of this? If he teaches the judge pens and guan dao, that just gives me another excuse to come and visit one day.

My teacher, Bruce Lin (student of Sun Zhijun and one master Duan) teaches the following:

Single movements
Linear walking
Circle walking
8 basic palms and transitions
8 big/mother palms (3 basins)
linking palms (3 basins)
24 forms (aka 64 palms, Sun's own fighting set)
sword
battle body spear
big saber
deerhorn knives
8 two-person drills (from Duan)
push hands
application drills

Like Sun, my teacher emphasizes mainly the middle and lower basic for training the big pushing steps which are fundamental to our shuai applications.