windwalker wrote:Some styles use circle walking as an intrinsic part of their method and strategies,
without it much of the method wouldn't work.
GrahamB wrote:Now that we've all agreed that circle walking isn't "martial".... It's obvious to me that circle walking is a basic shamanic practice that has existed for thousands of years - often around a bonfire.
The place where shamanism has survived and thrived the longest seems to be Mongolia.
Where did Dong Hai Chuan and Yin Fu go collecting taxes for 9 years? Mongolia.
Bagua's Deer horn knives = representation of fire wheel = representation of shaman's drum?
Warrior God NeZha:
Shaman from Siberia:
Doc Stier wrote:windwalker wrote:Some styles use circle walking as an intrinsic part of their method and strategies,
without it much of the method wouldn't work.
That's definitely true of the older Sun Style which I learned.
Circle walking methods are taught for use in actual fighting applications, not merely as a training method focused on other agenda priorities. As always, ymmv.
Doc Stier wrote:I am an Oglala Lakota American Indian with extensive experience in the shamanic Wicasa Wakan practices indigenous to our people. All traditional dances are done in a leftward moving counterclockwise circle. Although war dances have a 'martial' quality inherent to the purpose of the dance, most dances do not, but all are performed with 'circle walking' movement.
Beautiful deer horn knives with the eight trigrams incorporated into the design. Very nice!
Tom wrote:windwalker wrote:
My taiji style as practiced from my teacher has a lot of inner - bagua influence which only lately have I come to see
in the outer movements...
He started bagua in 1945, Beijing.
Practiced for 17yrs before meeting his last teacher, a taiji master not named....
Never asked him about who his bagau teacher might have been, he mentioned he was undefeated until meeting the taiji master who later would be his future taiji teacher. .
. . . .
IIRC from conversations in China, Zhang Yongliang was close to a well-known Yin Style baguazhang teacher in Beijing, someone of roughly the same generation as Zhang. That of course doesn't mean Zhang's baguazhang was from the Yin school, since most people in Beijing who had real skill at baguazhang in those troubled times probably knew each other.
Tom wrote:edededed wrote:Tom wrote:But it is interesting that the 36 Songs and 48 Methods attributed to Dong Haichuan's direct verbal instructions do not provide any real detail on circle-walking
I thought that the first few songs of the 36 are instructions for circle-walking (specifically the pushing mill posture).Tom wrote:Postural and stepping details are indeed described in the first few of the 36 Songs (see example below). But the turning of a circle for an extended period of time is not described as a foundational or basic practice anywhere in the 36 Songs or 48 Methods that I can find (two different translations, one from Tom Bisio and one from Andrea Falk). In particular, the use of the curving step is described in a number of different places, but in connection with actual usage (for example, responding to a straight-line or angled attack). Circle-walking as a discrete foundational practice is not mentioned.ededed wrote:Although one can argue that the word "circle walking" does not preface the descriptions, I am curious to ask, what do you think they describe if not pointers on circle-walking?
. . . .
Exactly that: pointers. As I wrote above, "(t)he turning of a circle for an extended period of time is not described as a foundational or basic practice anywhere in the 36 Songs or 48 Methods . . . " Andrea Falk says it more clearly in "A Shadow Fallen on Plum Blossoms" (2017), her thoroughly-researched line-by-line comparative (between different versions) translation of the 36 Songs and 48 Methods:
"Are the verses legitimate words from Dong Haichuan and the first-generation masters? I think so. They are not particularly organized in a methodological way, from basic to advanced, from simple to complex, or from structure to techniques to tactics. There are duplications in content between the 36 and 48 verses. The traditional learning is working things out for yourself, not having them presented in too orderly a fashion. There are 'note-takers' and 'not-note-takers' (I have piles of notebooks), and Zeng [Zenqi, student of Yin Fu on whose notes the 36 Songs and 48 Methods are based] sounds like a 'note-taker'. The verses often refer to fighting against weapons, as if the weapons involved were not firearms, which suggests they are based on early oral instructions.
The verses give specific instructions for the structure, feelings, techniques, applications, tactics, use of power, and training methods of baguazhang. They do not contain any non-practical theory. They are specific enough to describe the unique flavor of baguazhang and general enough that most instructions apply to all its branches. The verses do not give away any secrets. They do not describe circle-walking in any detail. They remind you of the posture and movement details, and tell you some methods and tactics that work if you have done your circlewalking and achieved rooted stepping attached through your body. They do not describe specific techniques. They basically say, ' do what I've taught you, keep to it, trust it, and it will work'. It is said that if you have done baguazhang for awhile you will understand the 36 verses, and that you will need more time before you understand the 48 verses, because the 36 are more about structure and the 48 are more about tactics. No one could understand the real secret of baguazhang by reading these verses. They are unique in that they were written not to spread, or even teach, but to remind. They are meant as memory aids to those within the circle." [bold added for emphasis]
So Ed, I'm not saying that circle-walking isn't fundamental to baguazhang. I've done a fair amount of baguazhang of different traditions over the past 23 years, and the one practice from that art I've found the most valuable is turning the circle for extended periods of time. It's the first thing I was ever taught in baguazhang. And while the pointers to circlewalking in the 36 verses with different emphases by ten different very competent teachers, there are so many more details and methods within turning the circle that are simply absent from the 36 verses but taught by those teachers in person. These additional details have been absolutely essential to whatever small amount of internal connection and power I've developed from the circlewalking. This kind of work makes turning the circle into a deeply transformative practice. And those practice details and transformative effect are not described by the 36 verses and 48 methods.
It's just an opinion.
D_Glenn wrote:More often than not, when a student asks a question, Jinbao lights up and says “aha, there’s actually a Song that answers that.” Then he sings it.
Tom wrote:D_Glenn wrote:In a fight you use Triangle stepping- either a right side up triangle (step horizontally then enter diagonally), or an upside down triangle (step diagonally then enter horizontally).
Devlin, how you described triangle stepping above seems to me to be a two-step process, e.g., step off-line then step to enter. This most definitely is too slow at combat speed and is not what He Jinbao is doing in the video clip I posted yesterday. It's not what he demonstrates or explains at seminars. If I'm misunderstanding your description I quoted above, then by all means please clarify what you're trying to describe....Those attributes then emerge when responding to an attack in the manner Wayne describes--the attack will show the parameters of how to step. In the previously-posted video where HJB demonstrates applications from the different animal systems of YSB, he will take a single step and turn the body to engage/strike/entangle/throw/kick even before a second step is taken. That is what I see, which doesn't jibe with triangle stepping as a two-step process the way I understood your description above.
Formosa Neijia wrote:Yes, the lianwuzhang are practiced by some northern mantis groups and include a two-man form such as the one you showed above.
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