Title: Pa Kua Chang Journal
Post by JessOBrien on May 10th, 2008, 9:02pm
http://www.pakuachangjournal.com/index.php
Nothing new yet, but this is a good sign!
-Jess O
Title: Re: Pa Kua Chang Journal
Post by T J LePetomane on May 10th, 2008, 9:46pm
Interesting, I think that's the first time I've seen the Post-Heaven arrangement in a logo like that. I could be mistaken, but I think it is.
Title: Re: Pa Kua Chang Journal
Post by cerebus on May 10th, 2008, 10:35pm
Dayum. Lotsa cool video clips...
Title: Re: Pa Kua Chang Journal
Post by ninepalace on May 11th, 2008, 1:01am
no doubt. but isn't that bagua push hands clip just a guy teaching about taiji's press?
Title: Re: Pa Kua Chang Journal
Post by Eddie Mush on May 11th, 2008, 1:49am
Great find Jess!
If anyone forgot why the fell in love with the practice of Ba gua Zhang the just have to look at that site. Great info and articles.
On a sidenote... I remember when I lived in London in '97 I just begun studying with Alex Kozma and I would often go to the small martial arts supply stores in the west-end/Chinatown where they would have old copies of the Pa Kua Chang journal often for as little as 1 or 2 £.
When I couldn't find any more copies in those shops, one day my friend Simon took me to visit Paul Crompton who at that time had a small shop or actually it was just a room full of books and magazines.
He basically had 100's of copies of the Pa Kua Chang journal but I was at that time only interested in finding the newsletter edition with Wan Lai Shen and the Zi Ran Men style, I found it and bought a few other copies.
Sometimes I regret I did'nt buy more back then..
Oh well now everything is on the CD
Mush
Oh by the way TJ what did you mean with saying you never saw the hou tian bagua in a logo like that?
Title: Re: Pa Kua Chang Journal
Post by Walter_Joyce on May 11th, 2008, 6:22am
Thank you Jess.
Title: Re: Pa Kua Chang Journal
Post by T J LePetomane on May 11th, 2008, 6:55amon 05/11/08 at 01:49:44, Eddie Mush wrote:
Oh by the way TJ what did you mean with saying you never saw the hou tian bagua in a logo like that?
Just that I'm used to seeing the pre-heaven arrangement in all the Taiji, Bagua, and generic CMA logos I've run across. If I've seen the post-heaven it just hasn't jumped out at me.
I would assume, seeing it, that they use it for more than chineseish decoration.
Title: Re: Pa Kua Chang Journal
Post by count on May 11th, 2008, 7:22amon 05/11/08 at 06:55:08, T J LePetomane wrote:
I would assume, seeing it, that they use it for more than chineseish decoration.
You'd be wrong.
8)
Title: Re: Pa Kua Chang Journal
Post by Eddie Mush on May 11th, 2008, 7:41am
on 05/11/08 at 06:55:08, T J LePetomane wrote:
Just that I'm used to seeing the pre-heaven arrangement in all the Taiji, Bagua, and generic CMA logos I've run across. If I've seen the post-heaven it just hasn't jumped out at me.
I would assume, seeing it, that they use it for more than chineseish decoration.
To the best of my knowledge the xian tian bagua is perfect in it's creation so it can't be used in our chaotic world only in places where the energy is stall (not moving), like graveyards etc. Therefore we should use the hou tian bagua in our human world.
So the Pa Kua Chang Journal and their use of the houtian is correct imo.
Someone please correct if I'm wrong.
Mush
Title: Re: Pa Kua Chang Journal
Post by T J LePetomane on May 11th, 2008, 8:10amon 05/11/08 at 07:41:42, Eddie Mush wrote:
To the best of my knowledge the xian tian bagua is perfect in it's creation so it can't be used in our chaotic world only in places where the energy is stall (not moving), like graveyards etc. Therefore we should use the hou tian bagua in our human world.
So the Pa Kua Chang Journal and their use of the houtian is correct imo.
Someone please correct if I'm wrong.
Mush
Don't know so much about that, bein all feng shui and stuff.
What I mean is just that most schools that use a bagua just put the pre-heaven up because it looks cool. Some among that group actually assign parts of their system to the trigrams but go no further, and a rare subgroup actually explore the interrelation of the trigrams in evolution.
Rather than "perfect" I think the pre-heaven is more of an archetypal representation of their primal state, before they begin interacting with each other. Heaven is then opposite earth because they are diametrically opposed in their extremes.
Post-heaven then starts illustrating how they react and interact with each other.
For instance, with Taijiquan, pre-heaven, ward-off/heaven is opposite roll-back/earth, shoulder/mountain is opposite elbow/lake, and pull-down/wind is opposite split/thunder. This illustrates their basic natures in opposite qualities, but doesn't tell how they interact. With post-heaven, ward-off/heaven is opposite pull-down/wind, and roll-back/earth is opposite shoulder/mountain because they can defeat each other with their opposing effects. Pull down penetrates ward-off, and roll-back neutralizes shoulder, but roll-back does nothing against ward-off and pull-down is pointless against shoulder.
This is sort of straying from the topic, I think, but it's something I like to think about, sometimes.
Title: Re: Pa Kua Chang Journal
Post by shawnsegler on May 11th, 2008, 8:46am
Quote:
Rather than "perfect" I think the pre-heaven is more of an archetypal representation of their primal state, before they begin interacting with each other. Heaven is then opposite earth because they are diametrically opposed in their extremes.
Try moving in time and not moving in time. Not moving in time= you can gauge up as up down as down etc because it's static...then you extrapolate that into moving over time.
S
Title: Re: Pa Kua Chang Journal
Post by count on May 11th, 2008, 9:08amon 05/11/08 at 08:10:57, T J LePetomane wrote:
What I mean is just that most schools that use a bagua just put the pre-heaven up because it looks cool.
This is sort of straying from the topic, I think, but it's something I like to think about, sometimes.
Dude, you don't know about most schools. But didn't you just say the latter was decorative? ("chineseish decoration"(sp) I believe?)
If by "pre-heaven", you mean the earlier version, Fu Hsi arrangement, than that is for fortune telling and if you mean the later, well that's for fortune telling too.
I would say you'd be right that schools that use the Fu Hsi layout do it because it looks cool. Schools that focus on martial arts would probably use the King Wen arrangement but wouldn't think about it often. Schools that focus on the scholarly aspects would also use the latter. So I think the Pakua Journal got it right. 8)
Title: Re: Pa Kua Chang Journal
Post by ashe on May 11th, 2008, 9:14am
it's a small world after all...
Title: Re: Pa Kua Chang Journal
Post by Uatu the Watcher the Ed on May 11th, 2008, 9:47am
Actually, most bagua schools use both the preheaven and postheaven arrangements...
Title: Re: Pa Kua Chang Journal
Post by T J LePetomane on May 11th, 2008, 10:34amon 05/11/08 at 09:08:53, count wrote:
Dude, you don't know about most schools. But didn't you just say the latter was decorative? ("chineseish decoration"(sp) I believe?)
What I said was that most folks seem, in my limited experience and opinion, to simply use the diagrams, either diagram, purely for decorative value and with no real analysis or use of the underlying principles being described in the diagram.
Quote:
If by "pre-heaven", you mean the earlier version, Fu Hsi arrangement, than that is for fortune telling and if you mean the later, well that's for fortune telling too.
I fail to see the relevance of fortune telling to this specific discussion. Pre-heaven and post heaven, as described above refer to the way the trigrams are arranged to illustrate either a static or evolving view of forces interacting in the universe. The fact that the pre-heaven was invented and used before the post-heaven is incidental.
Quote:
I would say you'd be right that schools that use the Fu Hsi layout do it because it looks cool. Schools that focus on martial arts would probably use the King Wen arrangement but wouldn't think about it often. Schools that focus on the scholarly aspects would also use the latter. So I think the Pakua Journal got it right. 8)
Right, wrong, or otherwise, I was just remarking on what seems, in my limited experience and opinion, to be a more rare arrangement of the diagrams when used as a logo. Most times I see logos with the pre-heaven, this one is post heaven. I haven't made any sort of value assesment based on that, other than it would appear from the use of the post-heaven that they would be more likely to analyze the principles illustrated by the diagram as they apply to the style and interact with each other, and that they would not simply be choosing the diagrams to look chinesey.
[/quote]
Title: Re: Pa Kua Chang Journal
Post by count on May 11th, 2008, 10:56amon 05/11/08 at 10:34:00, T J LePetomane wrote:
I haven't made any sort of value assesment based on that, other than it would appear from the use of the post-heaven that they would be more likely to analyze the principles illustrated by the diagram as they apply to the style and interact with each other, and that they would not simply be choosing the diagrams to look chinesey.
On that you may be correct, keeping in mind that the use of the trigrams, indeed even the name bagua didn't occur until much later in the development of the martial art called bagua-zhang. And still has more to do with fortune telling than martial arts.
Title: Re: Pa Kua Chang Journal
Post by Doc Stier on May 28th, 2008, 1:31pm
Insofar as the use of the Eight Trigrams is concerned, the Earlier Heaven/Fu-Hsi Trigram Arrangement refers primarily to the complimentary, balanced relationship between the polar energies of Yin (-) and Yang (+) within the realm of mind, thought, ideas, consciousness, mysticism and spiritual philosophy, prior to a material or physical manifestation.
The Later Heaven/Wen Huang Trigram Arrangement refers primarily to the interactive relationship between the polar energies in the physical realm of manifested form, shape, and action.
As a result, the Earlier Heaven Arrangement is typically used in writings and discussions of Taoist Philosophy and related spiritual concepts, whereas the Later Heaven Arrangement is used when referencing physical activities, such as IMA, and other material manifestations of Yin and Yang.
Here they are side by side for direct comparison:
Doc
