the rum soaked fist: internal martial arts forum

There is the saying in Xingyi:

Step into the middle door even immortal finds it difficult to defend.

But this is not so easy to step into the opponent's middle door or between his or her leg from a open position. The strategy of Baguaquan is to go to the blindside before stepping into the middle door. The single changing hand technique is a good technique to move into the middle but the opponent can still attack with the other arm or grab both arms. This is where pushing hands and wrestling techniques can be of some advantage.

Yeung wrote:The single changing hand technique is a good technique to move into the middle but the opponent can still attack with the other arm or grab both arms.

This is why one will need entering strategy. How to guide your opponent's arms away from your entering path so his arms won't give you any trouble during your entering. This is not part of the Bagua stepping training.

Yin wading basically is protecting the testes, and finger thrusting when possible. So it is difficult to do a front entry, and wade around a center trains practitioner to switch from side to side. The Bagua strategy is to go to the blind side and attack from the rear, etc. The Bagua two person set is difficult as both persons are moving all the times and that forces practitioners into some frontal wrestling or pushing hand techniques as well.