Bagua linear and angular stepping drills?

[Climb-up]

Hello,

I was thinking back to some books I used to have of Park Bok Nam’s. I remember that he spent a long time teaching various linear, angular and pivoting stepping drills; I believe before he even taught basic circle walking. Also, many of these were similar to boxing footwork, where the lead leg stays in front the whole time (eg in moving forward the front foot moves first and the back foot moves second, ending up in the same stance you started I ).

I’m my (extremely limited) experience, I generally see mud stepping taught linearly first and then circle walking and that’s more of less it, with other steps built-in to the palm changes or linear forms.

I’m just curious if the first approach is common in many Bagua schools. I think I read somewhere that it was a characteristic of Yin style Bagua, is that true?

[edededed]

I never read Park's books, but I learned various stepping drills in (Liang) bagua.

[Yeung]

From Sun Lutang's Study of Baguaquan (translated by Paul Brennan):

To begin, first your waist sinks, then your right foot steps straight forward, so that your feet make a diagonal rectangle, as in the photo. The distance between your front foot and rear foot depends on your height, and is ideal if it does not cause the succeeding step of your left foot to require extra energy. The bend in your legs should have a rounded fullness, and must not be a dead bend. Your heels both have an energy of twisting outward, and your legs are as if in a horse-riding posture, having an intention of closing inward, but must not noticeably do so. In the beginning of the training, your body must not go too low and should probably even be rather high. Being too low is very strenuous. When over time your skill becomes pure, then you can do it at whatever height you please. The posture of your legs, before you turn and walk, has your left hip and left foot aligned with each other. Then when you turn and walk, the tip of your right hip twists until it is aligned with the roundness of the forefinger of your front hand. The posture of your right knee and heel is that they are in line with each other above and below.

[Yeung]

Sliding in the mud:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=n2fJ7y0_u-c

[Climb-up]

From Sun Lutang's Study of Baguaquan (translated by Paul Brennan):

To begin, first your waist sinks, then your right foot steps straight forward, so that your feet make a diagonal rectangle, as in the photo. The distance between your front foot and rear foot depends on your height, and is ideal if it does not cause the succeeding step of your left foot to require extra energy. The bend in your legs should have a rounded fullness, and must not be a dead bend. Your heels both have an energy of twisting outward, and your legs are as if in a horse-riding posture, having an intention of closing inward, but must not noticeably do so. In the beginning of the training, your body must not go too low and should probably even be rather high. Being too low is very strenuous. When over time your skill becomes pure, then you can do it at whatever height you please. The posture of your legs, before you turn and walk, has your left hip and left foot aligned with each other. Then when you turn and walk, the tip of your right hip twists until it is aligned with the roundness of the forefinger of your front hand. The posture of your right knee and heel is that they are in line with each other above and below.

I’m not clear on how this relates to the question.

[Climb-up]

Sliding in the mud:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=n2fJ7y0_u-c

This one too I’m not really clear on its relation to the question.
As I said in the OP, mudsteppimg is what I’ve generally been taught and what I’ve seen being taught.

[Climb-up]

I never read Park's books, but I learned various stepping drills in (Liang) bagua.

Cool. I like Liang Bagua! I watched the first DVD in Tom Bisio’s Liang Bagua concepts, and I use to have a little collection of Liang style VCDs.

Would mind sharing some of the stepping drills you do?
Not an instructional or anything, but just what they are?

[meeks]

I'm a Cheng style bagua guy. We have a variety of stepping exercises but the cotter pin of these drills is circle walking. By this I mean there is no general "you must start with this one first" exercise, you can learn any of them in any order, but generally the daily goto includes some degree of circle walking - 1 hour, 2 hours... up to you.

[wayne hansen]

Check out this guy he should answer your questions

https://youtu.be/Ai_0tdVrLnQ

[Climb-up]

Check out this guy he should answer your questions

https://youtu.be/Ai_0tdVrLnQ

Thank you for your response, but it does not answer the question.

I like this video, but this guy is not doing footwork drills, he’s doing the 7th set of a Bagua linear form and isolating each movement and drilling them.
Again, that is good stuff; no question. But if you notice in my OP I said I generally saw circle walking as the footwork taught, and that other footwork was taught in the context of the palm changes or linear forms. This video would be the latter.

This is Gao style right?
Do you do Gao style? Do you ever practice just stepping back and forth and at various angles?

[johnwang]

I have learned the inside crescent kick, side kick combo (at 1.28 - 1.40) during my long fist year. It was one of the kicking drills that I trained daily. This is the 1st time that I have seen this kicking combo online. The only difference is when I do the side kick, I use my hand to pull the other wrist to force my body to face side way forward.

I also like the side punch footwork (at 2.29 - 2.46). It makes sense by using the body rotation to generate power for side punch (similar to Xingyi Heng Chuan).

[Climb-up]

I'm a Cheng style bagua guy. We have a variety of stepping exercises but the cotter pin of these drills is circle walking. By this I mean there is no general "you must start with this one first" exercise, you can learn any of them in any order, but generally the daily goto includes some degree of circle walking - 1 hour, 2 hours... up to you.

That makes sense. What type of non-circle walking footwork drills do you do?
Have you seen Park Bok Nam’s books, or footwork drills of boxers? Are they at all similar?

Also.
2hrs circle walking each day!? ...nice!

[johnwang]

but this guy is not doing footwork drills,

He is doing different footwork for each of his drills.

Drill #1:

- Step in leading foot.
- Step in back foot, back foot slide.

Drill #3:

- Step in front foot, back foot follow.
- Step in front foot again, back leg attack.

Drill #6:

- Reverse shin bite.
- Cover step.
- Stealing step.

[Climb-up]

but this guy is not doing footwork drills,

He is doing different footwork for each of his drills.

Drill #3:

- Step in front foot, back foot follow.
- Step in front foot again, back leg attack.

Drill #6:

- Reverse shin bite.
- Cover step.
- Stealing step.

Undoubtedly, he is of course doing a lot of footwork; no question.

It may be my use of terms that isn’t clear, and I apologize, I had something specific in mind when I said “footwork drills” that apparently isn’t as clear as I thought it was.
I mean drills that are either solely stepping/footwork, or may have a strike or simple movement here or there but whose focus is on developing mobility in stepping.
Maybe there is a better term for this.

This isn’t the best example, since it’s from mma, but if you look at how “wonderboy” is moving around at around 5:25 maybe that will make more sense what I mean.
[youtube]https://youtu.be/Cj-exEvpmbI[/youtube]

[Climb-up]

Also, unrelatedly, is there some trick to getting YouTube videos to embed correctly?
It looks to me like I’m doing it; but they don’t seem to work.