Page 1 of 2

The Energy Foundation of BAGUA Circling — Scott Meredith

PostPosted: Wed Sep 05, 2018 7:18 am
by marvin8
Scott Meredith
Published on Sep 2, 2018

This video teaches the 3 key training points of traditional Ba Gua circle walking. These are essential for developing the internal power of the art. Check out 8 Vimeo full-length instructional films on Tai Chi, Xingyi, and traditional weapons for internal power development: https://vimeo.com/user41495533/vod_pages
This Ba Gua Circles video is free, if you want to tip head over to: https://www.patreon.com/arc_
There is another, additional 2nd layer of advanced practice of this same basic circle walk and single change, which I may cover in a "Volume II" at some future time:


https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oEW6hDBfd34

Re: The Energy Foundation of BAGUA Circling — Scott Meredith

PostPosted: Wed Sep 05, 2018 10:30 am
by everything
Super helpful thanks. Ironically, unlike even xyq and tjq, baguazhang came in part directly from qigong (according to stories of Dong meeting Taoists in the mountains), yet no videos ever seem to cover this aspect, so good to hear some of this instruction.

Re: The Energy Foundation of BAGUA Circling — Scott Meredith

PostPosted: Wed Sep 05, 2018 10:31 am
by everything
p.s. 1: what happened to the person in your avatar pic hahaha
p.s. 2: you must have the best MA subscriptions on youtube and look at them 15 hours per day hahaha

Re: The Energy Foundation of BAGUA Circling — Scott Meredith

PostPosted: Wed Sep 05, 2018 3:02 pm
by marvin8
everything wrote:p.s. 1: what happened to the person in your avatar pic hahaha

Panda using ling kong jin, flashing right hand and foot points to victim at the right time and distance causing the reaction. Panda should have finished by helping her up and getting a phone number.

everything wrote:p.s. 2: you must have the best MA subscriptions on youtube and look at them 15 hours per day hahaha
No subscriptions. But, spending more than ample time on youtube. :)

Re: The Energy Foundation of BAGUA Circling — Scott Meredith

PostPosted: Wed Sep 05, 2018 5:33 pm
by edededed
Could a kind person post some of the main points discussed in the video? ;)

Re: The Energy Foundation of BAGUA Circling — Scott Meredith

PostPosted: Wed Sep 05, 2018 7:52 pm
by everything
paraphrasing
- the outer form stuff looks cool yeah.
- sweeps and trips are super cool and fun yeah.
- that's not what I will talk about. I'll talk about the energy work
- bagua is the best for working on this.
- sweeps are super cool but if you don't work on this you got the present but didn't unwrap it. why? why not? do it.
- what are the basics that I talk about in my books? "ARC" (his vocabulary)
- accumulate/activate - energy in dantian
- rebound - energy down and rebounding up from feet/earth connection
- catch - energy is flowing, felt in forearms and palms
- all of the lesson material is really in the first lesson. in this case, single palm change.
- single palm change details and posture relationship to work on the energy. rewatching this part so will try to summarize later.

Re: The Energy Foundation of BAGUA Circling — Scott Meredith

PostPosted: Wed Sep 05, 2018 9:13 pm
by windwalker
Is this the mud step or not.

viewtopic.php?f=3&t=27299&start=0&st=0&sk=t&sd=a

He seems to have a lot of bouncing in his stepping movement.
Is that normal.

Re: The Energy Foundation of BAGUA Circling — Scott Meredith

PostPosted: Wed Sep 05, 2018 11:46 pm
by Bao
windwalker wrote:Is this the mud step or not.

He seems to have a lot of bouncing in his stepping movement.
Is that normal.


No it's not mud steps, he use natural or plain steps. This is more the way you walk in Sun style Bagua. Cheng style primarily use mud steps. Other styles might have more varied use of different types of footwork.
This is mud steps:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=t29SuJ_0-8c

Toe meet the ground first. Then you slide with the foot. The whole foot should be as close as possible to the ground all of the time. You can see that there's some shift of height due to the footwork, but other than that you should try to keep the same height as you walk.

Don't know from what tradition this gent have learned Bagua. It seems Sun style from the footwork, but not from the positioning and alignment of the hands. Many Sun Bagua stylists tend to walk a bit bumpy because they are more or less just taught to walk like they always do. This is wrong though, there should still be sinking, both a sinking of posture and internal sinking. One should also try to keep an even height while circle walking.

Re: The Energy Foundation of BAGUA Circling — Scott Meredith

PostPosted: Thu Sep 06, 2018 12:34 am
by wiesiek
Mr Meredith nicely presented important points,
but
I`m not quite satisfied from his turn,
I learned circle walk with more tie and visible figure 8 step, and closer to body + higher hand change /hidden lotus /
but
I`m not Bagua teacher.

Re: The Energy Foundation of BAGUA Circling — Scott Meredith

PostPosted: Thu Sep 06, 2018 4:16 am
by Trick
Bao wrote:
windwalker wrote:Is this the mud step or not.

He seems to have a lot of bouncing in his stepping movement.
Is that normal.


No it's not mud steps, he use natural or plain steps. This is more the way you walk in Sun style Bagua. Cheng style primarily use mud steps. Other styles might have more varied use of different types of footwork.




Many Sun Bagua stylists tend to walk a bit bumpy because they are more or less just taught to walk like they always do. This is wrong though, there should still be sinking, both a sinking of posture and internal sinking. One should also try to keep an even height while circle walking.

Curious, when doing the BGZ “natural/plain” step does it require any other specific awareness visualization than just sinking in the stepping ?

Re: The Energy Foundation of BAGUA Circling — Scott Meredith

PostPosted: Thu Sep 06, 2018 5:08 am
by Bao
Depends on who you ask. Some teachers say that not even sinking is required. Some others put a great deal on bringing twisting energy all the way up from the foot.

Re: The Energy Foundation of BAGUA Circling — Scott Meredith

PostPosted: Fri Sep 07, 2018 3:18 am
by I-mon
Trick wrote:Curious, when doing the BGZ “natural/plain” step does it require any other specific awareness visualization than just sinking in the stepping ?


Yes. It is a very specific training method with many difficult postural and movement requirements.

Re: The Energy Foundation of BAGUA Circling — Scott Meredith

PostPosted: Fri Sep 07, 2018 4:51 am
by Bao
I-mon wrote:
Trick wrote:Curious, when doing the BGZ “natural/plain” step does it require any other specific awareness visualization than just sinking in the stepping ?


Yes. It is a very specific training method with many difficult postural and movement requirements.


Maybe there should be one specific methods... But there's not "a very specific training method". There are few different. Just one difference is about hips. Some teach that you should turn the hips slightly towards the center of the circle and not twist your waist too much. Some others says that the hips should be kept straight and turn the waist only. The different methods have very different impact on the knees, so how you place the weight in the steps must be adjusted accordingly. Different teachers also teach less or more curved spine which has an impact on the height of the stances/footwork. There's no real standard.

Re: The Energy Foundation of BAGUA Circling — Scott Meredith

PostPosted: Sat Sep 08, 2018 1:58 pm
by I-mon
True. Just trying to clear up any ideas people might have that it's "just walking in a circle".

Re: The Energy Foundation of BAGUA Circling — Scott Meredith

PostPosted: Sun Sep 09, 2018 12:56 am
by Trick
So how has it been cleared up ? Peoples/teachers ideas on the topic seem to vary(on the stepping, not the circling)