Chen Pan-ling: Baguazhang comes from shaolin luohanquan

Discussion on the three big Chinese internals, Yiquan, Bajiquan, Piguazhang and other similar styles.

Re: Chen Pan-ling: Baguazhang comes from shaolin luohanquan

Postby Quigga on Sat May 21, 2022 2:01 am

But can we please stop deavaluing people like Mr. Wang with legit accomplishments?

The only difference between internal / external circle walking is that internal uses awareness (the same as in Vippassana practice) to become more conscious of the body and to allow for super-charged change on all levels to occur. It helps you become aware of your bladder, liver, how the moving diaphragm (like moving dia picture? idk lol) is massaging the Ming Men and kidneys, how your food effects you,...

The two don't need to be mutually exclusive.
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Re: Chen Pan-ling: Baguazhang comes from shaolin luohanquan

Postby greytowhite on Sat May 21, 2022 6:24 am

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Re: Chen Pan-ling: Baguazhang comes from shaolin luohanquan

Postby Formosa Neijia on Sat May 21, 2022 7:56 am

D_Glenn wrote:So there are a myriad list of physical enhancements that come about from Circle Walking (in the the practice specific to Baguazhang). Even 10 minutes a day will derive some physical enhancements. Agility, balance, overcoming the vertigo that happens when someone first starts practicing, forearm strength and resilience to impact (which is crucial because 95% of BGZ is using the forearms to strike and defense against an opponent striking you.), strengthening the knees when doing ‘Scissor Thigh Stepping’ along with Bai and Kou because you’re putting the knees through their full range of motion (caveat- sliding the foot on the ground can damage the patellar tendon in the knees which could end up being net negative and end someone’s circle walking career.), strengthening of the legs from continually walking at a lower than normal height, strengthening and stretching the muscles and fascia of the abdomen/ waist, the list goes on… but all things that will benefit the individual as a martial artist. ...

But the real benefits of Circle Walking come from an hour or hours a day practicing it. ...

So it’s a practice that can derive both martial and mental benefits. And for the active martial artist who is fighting and doing sparring, and throwing exercises, then the increase in CSF during the change, can help to alleviate the inflammation and causes of concussions that occur during the training sessions.

So it’s a win win. Two birds are killed with one stone.


That's a nice writeup and thanks for providing it. Based on my experience I'd like to give another side. Forearm strength and resilience is best done in iron palm and iron arm exercises because circle walking barely scratches the surface of that training. Walking a circle with only air as the resistance doesn't do nearly enough as dummy training, for example.

The supposed strengthening of the legs IME almost never happens. There are many reasons for this but the biggest is the lack of basic training. Few people IME are taught how to open the legs, pelvis, and torso because the training doesn't "look like bagua" and frankly it's both painful and boring yet necessary. This is especially true for students over the age of 25 -- they almost never receive a proper foundation training as in Asia such a thing is only given to kids. Without the proper foundation, when people try to walk the circle, they step too low, stride too long, and walk too narrowly with an inward twisting focus -- all of this places extreme stress on the knees. In many of the bagua classes I've taken nearly all the students complained about this but the teachers rarely have an explanation. You're just supposed to press on through and then the damage is done. Doing squats, lunges, deadlifts, etc. at least with body weight would be 10x more effective in less than 10:00 than an hour of circle walking for strengthening the legs with less risk of knee damage.

Third is the amount of low back pain circle walking causes. In one style i practiced in Taipei, I had an older kungfu brother that ran a chinese medicine clinic and when I visited him once, i was surprised to see 4 people from our bagua class come in for treatment. Everyone complained of knee and back pain -- but remember all that supposed wonderful connection to TCM that circle walking has? I guess they mean you'll be going for treatment. ;D The problem is twisting towards the center, which again without a proper foundation or teaching means most people will twist from the lower back. Twisting from the lower back while also having weak glutes and hamstrings is a recipe for disaster. Couple this with excessive palm changes on the circle and the problem is worsened. And the longer you circle walk in this compromised position the worse your back and knees will get. Once tendons and soft tissue have been damaged, it takes a long time for that to heal.

Finally is circle walking killing two birds or no birds? The taoist view is to somehow do neigong while walking but as I've pointed out above, there are serious issues just with the walking. How will students be able to stack any kind of internal practice on top of that? doing two things at once complicates the practice. The shaolin path is to practice the neigong at first in seated or standing sets without incorporating it at first into forms work. This allows bodybuilding via forms to take place and/or keeping a martial intent in the forms. It also allows the neigong to be more fully developed without having to worry about stepping, stances, techniques, etc. Only later when the two halves have been developed separately are they united into one practice.

I found this shaolin approach to vastly superior and after talking with some others associated with Cheng style as done outside the mainstream, my views were corroborated. Not everyone makes circle walking the centerpiece of their practice and some take a more shaolin approach by emphasizing sets like the eight brocades and doing straightline bagua.
So their is some variety in the approach that can be taken, what I was trying to get at with this thread.
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Re: Chen Pan-ling: Baguazhang comes from shaolin luohanquan

Postby wayne hansen on Sat May 21, 2022 2:07 pm

What about Tien Gan
I know 6 levels that will test anyone and stop the problems you discuss
It seems that many just go to forms too soon
It is all noi gung when done well
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Re: Chen Pan-ling: Baguazhang comes from shaolin luohanquan

Postby Appledog on Sun May 22, 2022 2:51 am

Formosa Neijia wrote:The supposed strengthening of the legs IME almost never happens. There are many reasons for this but the biggest is the lack of basic training. Few people IME are taught how to open the legs, pelvis, and torso because the training doesn't "look like bagua" and frankly it's both painful and boring yet necessary. This is especially true for students over the age of 25 -- they almost never receive a proper foundation training as in Asia such a thing is only given to kids.


I also have some knee problems but it might be because of other factors (previous injuries). Do you think tantui or xingyi would be good enough to patch up a foundation or are special exercises required (like yoga for example)? My teacher teaches me that exercise where you put your foot on one knee and sink down a bit. A monk's pose (and I hate it, because it's hard to do for me). Is that what you're talking about?
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Re: Chen Pan-ling: Baguazhang comes from shaolin luohanquan

Postby Doc Stier on Sun May 22, 2022 5:59 am

Formosa Neijia wrote:The shaolin path is to practice the neigong at first in seated or standing sets without incorporating it at first into forms work. This allows bodybuilding via forms to take place and/or keeping a martial intent in the forms. It also allows the neigong to be more fully developed without having to worry about stepping, stances, techniques, etc. Only later when the two halves have been developed separately are they united into one practice.

This is definitely a great training method, but it is not unique to Shaolin styles. The older versions of IMA styles in our Shen Men Tao System are similarly trained in three stages to gradually develop both physical athletic attributes externally and intrinsic energetic attributes internally without injury.

Stage one is to practice standing in every individual stance and posture included in the forms and drills until a correct structural alignment, proper weight distribution, and optimal muscular relaxation with downward release of all body parts is achieved in a stationary position, and can be consistently monitored and maintained through acquired feeling which doesn't depend upon constant visual observation to validate.

Stage two is to practice repetitions of individual postures with a fixed stance until they can be performed without violating foundation principles or sacrificing any of the attributes developed in stage one. Then, repetitions of the individual postures are practiced with active steps until they can also be performed in a similar manner.

Stage three then progresses to practicing repetitions of short combinations of different postures linked together as stand alone drills, followed by learning and practicing complete form sets. In this way, it is possible to dramatically reduce or eliminate the need to constantly go back to square one for correction and refinement of the individual postures in any form.

I have practiced the IMA forms and drills I was taught in this way for more than half a century to date without any joint injuries or low back and spinal issues. Of course, as always, ymmv.
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Re: Chen Pan-ling: Baguazhang comes from shaolin luohanquan

Postby origami_itto on Sun May 22, 2022 6:07 am

Doc Stier wrote:Stage one is to practice standing in every individual stance and posture included in the forms and drills until a correct structural alignment, proper weight distribution, and optimal muscular relaxation with downward release of all body parts is achieved in a stationary position, and can be consistently monitored and maintained through acquired feeling which doesn't depend upon constant visual observation to validate.


For this do you mean standing in the form movement end postures or do you break them all into the individual components (bow stance, mountain climbing, lady's horse, etc, the five elements)

Or do you stop within the "transition" movements between the end postures?
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Re: Chen Pan-ling: Baguazhang comes from shaolin luohanquan

Postby Doc Stier on Sun May 22, 2022 6:18 am

origami_itto wrote:
Doc Stier wrote:Stage one is to practice standing in every individual stance and posture included in the forms and drills until a correct structural alignment, proper weight distribution, and optimal muscular relaxation with downward release of all body parts is achieved in a stationary position, and can be consistently monitored and maintained through acquired feeling which doesn't depend upon constant visual observation to validate.

For this do you mean standing in the form movement end postures or do you break them all into the individual components (bow stance, mountain climbing, lady's horse, etc, the five elements)

Or do you stop within the "transition" movements between the end postures?

Great question. At some point, it would include everything you mentioned in order to eliminate any weak links in the chain. Thus, the end result is the ability to move with full speed and power without loss of balance and stability or loss of correct structural alignment, with picture perfect postures at every point simultaneously.

This is much easier said than done, but well worth the effort needed for anyone seriously interested in applying the movements in fighting applications, rather than simply performing them as an exercise.
Last edited by Doc Stier on Sun May 22, 2022 7:51 am, edited 4 times in total.
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Re: Chen Pan-ling: Baguazhang comes from shaolin luohanquan

Postby Formosa Neijia on Sun May 22, 2022 8:00 am

Doc Stier wrote:
Formosa Neijia wrote:The shaolin path is to practice the neigong at first in seated or standing sets without incorporating it at first into forms work. This allows bodybuilding via forms to take place and/or keeping a martial intent in the forms. It also allows the neigong to be more fully developed without having to worry about stepping, stances, techniques, etc. Only later when the two halves have been developed separately are they united into one practice.

This is definitely a great training method, but it is not unique to Shaolin styles. The older versions of IMA styles in our Shen Men Tao System are similarly trained in three stages to gradually develop both physical athletic attributes externally and intrinsic energetic attributes internally without injury.


Thanks for the corroboration as that was partially why I was throwing this out there. There are other ways to train the material and the more I dig, the more I find. Some ways seem to be an older model that got ditched for a newer one somewhere along the way and perhaps some things were lost in transition. Speaking personally I've found that being exposed to a variety of methods is preferable as long as they work because not every method resonates (that word again) with everyone. And certainly with such large systems as these sometimes are, i would assume there would be more than one path to success with them as a large curriculum should allow multiple points of entry.
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Re: Chen Pan-ling: Baguazhang comes from shaolin luohanquan

Postby Doc Stier on Sun May 22, 2022 8:16 am

You're welcome. I agree that the various modifications and editings of the existing major styles since the creation of their original curriculums has sadly caused the loss of foundation training methods and practice material in the transition. :-\
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