bagua: heel toe vs. flat foot stepping

[D_Glenn]

Daniel, yinyang ba pan zhang was the name they invented when they realized their bagua looked so different the other common styles, which being the QiLin palm/unicorn it is. They tried to say that Liu Baozhen 刘宝珍 (1861-1922) was the senior most student of BaPanzhang and that when he studied with Dong HaiChuan 董海川 (1816-1882) he was already adept at BaPan but when we do the simple math Liu Baozhen was maybe 21 years old when Dong died so say if he had got in a good 3 years of study he was 18 years old when he started but supposedly already adept at a never before heard of style.

There is also the same material considered to be from BaPan in Fan Zhiyong's baguazhang, which is probably due to: "In 1898 Fan Zhiyong (1840-1922) , invited by Liu Baozhen (1861-1922), moved with whole family to Gu’an County in Hebei Province, and stayed there for three years." Where Liu likely learned more Baguazhang from his senior.

[Haoran]

Nobody grabs the ground with their toes? I love the "toe seek/grab" of Tangnibu. We don't "slide" along the ground. Perhaps hover is a better term until the foot is planted. Kinda like blindly feeling for position then setting now.

I think Tangnibu develops the feet/ankles/lower leg and that with the incorporation of grabbing the ground with your toes (like a suction cup) is excellent training. It's already incorporated into the art. Why separate it out into something else like Doc was mentioning?

[Haoran]

Nice post Tom. Based on what you posted on the principles of your style it is one of the closests I've found to Wang ZhuangFei's Bagua in Shanghai.

Thanks,

[johnwang]

http://maguibagua.net/fundamental_skills/1_circle-walking_basics.html



Here you can see a big difference between SC and Bagua circle walking. The requirement for SC circle walking are:

- If you are right hand person, you should move to your left. If you are left hand person, you should move to your right.
- Whether you walk fast or slow, your feet should be in a T shape.
- If you need to move, you should move your back foot first.
- The moment you move your back foot, your front foot should follow immediately.
- You move your back foot 1 foot distance, you should only move your front foot for 3 inch.
- You footwork should always be clean, use your back foot to protect your front foot.
- If you need to retreat, slide your front foot back.
- When you move your back foot side way, always remain side T shape.



The SC circle walking require that your back foot, front foot and your opponent be always in a straight line. You should never "cross" your legs in front of your opponent. Someone asked a question in another thread whether a SC teacher would teach the Bagua system. I don't see that's possible at all just because the circle walking principle are conflict between 2 systems. You can not teach your students "never cross your legs" one day and then ask them to "always cross your legs" on another day.

[Haoran]

John, what's "SC"?

[DeusTrismegistus]

John, what's "SC"?

shuai chiao= SC

[Daniel]

SC= Shockingly Cool.



D.

Sarcasm. Oh yeah, like that´ll work.

[Haoran]

Ok, If I understand you correctly John, you're describing "shuffling" in a line to keep your opponent in front of you. This wouldn't confuse me at all. I could clearly differentiate between straight line shuffling and circle walking and can easily change back and forth. What's the problem?

Also, for our style, my teacher teaches "bu ba, bu ding" (feet are not in the shape of an 8, and are not in the shape of a T but rather somewhere inbetween).

[shawnsegler]

Roll a hemp rope

Yeah!

[Daniel]

D Glenn, thanks for answering. I´m a bit flummoxed here. I have no primary research on this myself, I only remember re-reading Bagua Journal (RIP ) going through the whole who-created-Bagua-was-it-Dong Haichuan-or-was-it-his-uncle´s-dachshound-thing, and then they talked in depth about Bapanzhang existing previous to Dong Haichuans birth.

Any comments on this? Like I say, I have no research on this myself, but I am really interested in knowing some more details about this.



D.

Sarcasm. Oh yeah, like that´ll work.

[shawnsegler]

You might want to talk to Maoshan too. He's pretty serious into the bagua history.

[Daniel]

Cool, Shawn. Oh, Maoshan? Are you listening? Maaaaoooshaaaaan...


D.

Sarcasm. Oh yeah, like that´ll work.

[edededed]

Interesting how a lot of styles use the words "high, middle, lower basin" but they all seem to mean something different...

[D_Glenn]

D Glenn, thanks for answering. I´m a bit flummoxed here. I have no primary research on this myself, I only remember re-reading Bagua Journal (RIP ) going through the whole who-created-Bagua-was-it-Dong Haichuan-or-was-it-his-uncle´s-dachshound-thing, and then they talked in depth about Bapanzhang existing previous to Dong Haichuans birth.

Any comments on this? Like I say, I have no research on this myself, but I am really interested in knowing some more details about this.



D.

Sarcasm. Oh yeah, like that´ll work.

Here's some info on it: http://www.chinafrominside.com/ma/bagua ... intro.html

http://www.chinafrominside.com/ma/bagua ... gbook.html

At one point someone had said that Ren Zhicheng finally admitted that he'd made the Dong Meng Lin story up.

I had heard before that Liu Baozhen was taught the 'qilin' but it wasn't until awhile back when I saw that same video you posted and could see it that all the pieces fell into place. Their horse stance is what is called 'squeezing horse' in the 'qilin'. The practice of only using 'kou bu' stepping around the circle is part of the qilin. The use of 'fan' power which is a reversing power using the tailbone since the qilin is the 'fan shen zhang' (reversing body palm). In the forms the 'qilin' is more linear- it does forms diagonally in straight lines across the center moreso than around the circle.

[D_Glenn]

I said earlier that 'tangni bu' is in all the stepping methods but actually I think it may only be connected to 'hebu' (crane stepping) and since there's 2 ways of doing the crane step- not lifting the knees where the foot just hovers over the ground which doesn't really look like crane-stepping but is now what seems to be called mud-stepping, or as Shawn pointed out the 2nd way of crane-stepping where one is lifting the feet, bringing the knees up, is also like pulling your feet out of knee-deep mud and then placing again. One of the important points to this stepping, no matter what one calls it, is that it comes from the Xun trigram where the broken line on the bottom represents the hip joints and in the stepping by leaving the back foot flat and not lifting the heel, in order to get the foot underneath and past you without raising up the whole body, you have to lift the hip itself up into the pelvis. This develops a new 'change' in the body and a higher level of hip mobility then one would get from the 'chelun bu' stepping which like I said before is like a wheel continuously rolling forward but it also has the quality of the body steadily rolling along with no movement up or down. The crane step is a little more erratic and is stepping over and around the opponents legs and also potentially develops bagua's crazy knee and shin strikes.

All the stepping methods should really be done at some point as each one is like learning to ride a bicycle where once you get it you can't really lose it.

Like for instance try messing around with using 'tui bu' (withdrawing stepping) by circle walking backwards- when the inside foot steps you'll be in a 'T' stance, when the outside foot steps you'll be in a 'bai bu' stance where both toes are pointing opposite directions and the kua is fully open. This is a small circle about 2 to 3 foot diameter, the turning posture is the 'yinyang yu' palms - inside hand is low behind the back, outside hand is high out in front of the head, palms facing out, this posture makes it a lot less twisted feeling. The almost direct application from this circle turning is 'Dai' (carrying throw) with the outside hand grabbing the opponent's wrist, inside hand grabbing their elbow, horizontally throwing them around your inside shoulder to the outside of the circle.

.