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.
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.
Time to put the QUAN back in taijiQUAN. Time to put the YANG back in YANG style taiji.