The 36 Verses of Bagua Zhang - 2

[wushutiger]

Hua Jin Online Learning Program - Classical Theory & Concepts - The 36 Verses of Bagua Zhang - 2

From the Hua Jin Online Learning Program - Originally published December 2022

In addition to instructional lessons on the technical training of Bagua Zhang and Xingyi Quan, learners in the Hua Jin Online Learning Program also have access to lessons covering classical theory, concepts as well as history.

In this discussion video I introduce the classical / traditional verses/songs of Bagua Zhang and explain the second verse of the 36 verses/songs.

[GrahamB]

Hi,

Disclaimer - I don't do bagua.

Is this advice universal for all bagua, or is it style specific?

For instance, compare the advice in the OP with 6.10 in this video, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vGjYUITaRmM&t=145s which would seemingly be the complete opposite - the arms are being kept away from the body?

[wushutiger]

The 36 Songs are pretty much universally referred to within bagua and that what I was explaining in the video.

[D_Glenn]

Paul Rodgers is doing Zhang Zhao Dong style, which is basically using the front arm of Bagua’s dragon palm. While the rear arm is doing a Xingyi palm.

The all-bagua Dragon is keeping the rear arm right below the elbow of the front arm so that it can quickly move into the “cross-shaped arms” that Baguazhang is known for.
The Dragon is sort of the precursor to the monkey palm, which is sort of using dragon arm methods and attacks but combined with a lot of kicking. It’s arm posture literally starts with the arms crossed and held out in front of your chest. While the dragon has the cross hidden, but ready to be employed in an instant.

.

[GrahamB]

It's weird isn't it - Tai Chi, bagua and xing yi all "internal arts" but Tai Chi keeps the elbows if not "away" then at least "not touching" the ribs a lot of the time (sometimes they do), with space under the arm pit, while bagua and xing yi clamp the arms tight in an 'embrace' of the ribs (not all the time, obviously they extend the arms on occasion).

Then, as we can see, there are all the people who do a mix of two styles, e.g. bagua, but with the elbows 'out'.

It is what we might call a desire for universalism that produces the tendency to conflate these differences and call them versions of the same. It is the desire that leads people to insist that all roads lead to ‘Rome’, but do they? Or should they?

If we bracket off the possibility that all roads lead to Rome – then we are able to disambiguate the differences and see them for what they are: training regimes that map a territory differently in order to build completely different things there. Perhaps not a bad thing...

[Bao]

No, you don't need to have the joint open all of the time, you don't need to have the shoulders pressed down and you don't need to look like a hunchback practicing Tai Chi. Mostly it's about general advice to beginners, things that become rule for teachers who continue to be perpetual beginners. Sadly, in general and all too often, Tai Chi "principles" are interpreted way too strict, in a way that the rules act restricting on the body instead of liberating.

[D_Glenn]

Well, first off, according to what my Bagua teacher taught me and just basic common sense, a training posture is not going to be ‘held static’ at anytime during a violent assault. If somehow an assailant managed to stealthily sneak into your house and catch you unawares while circle turning or doing Zhan Zhuang, then they might see you holding the posture and, unlikely, somehow catch you off guard while holding the posture, then yes, it technically would happen in an assault.
But the real reason is 1. It’s the framework for our strategy or ideal tactics we try to employ in an assault. 2. It is the starting point for the attacking and defending methods of the animal system. 3. It develops the strengths of the limbs and hands, while ingraining new habits.

The Penetrating Palm posture is the basis for our Bagua. It has the arms in the ‘Y’ Shape, which can quickly turn into an ‘X’ Shape. The Dragon, Phoenix, and Unicorn use a variation of the this. During an assault one of the tactics is to to try and cross-up the assailants arms, or use one of their arms to block the other arm. So using a fighting method where your own arms are crossing is a gamble. But that is what Dong Haichuan designed. Both as a way to learn how to get out of that situation, if the assailant managed to get your arms crossed, and doing something unexpected. Something that a person who’s beaten up a lot of people, might not expect. It takes a modicum amount of skill, or experience rather, to do these Animal systems.
So there’s a beginner system (the Lion) that doesn’t use a ‘Y’ Shape posture. It can quickly turn into the Penetrating Palm posture, but that’s just a momentary thing. The Lion posture is LOOSELY based around the idea of a person, when being assaulted, grabbing the nearest thing they can find, which typically in a Chinese household is a meat cleaver, and then displaying it in a menacing manner, as to hopefully avoid a confrontation, and not having to actually fight, being that you may not actually have a high level of skill in fighting. If the opponent still decides to attack and get past the meat cleaver, then they might find that the bagua Lion system has methods of using both arms to attack and defend, and that the meat cleaver is almost a feint or a bluff, but obviously would be used if the opportunity presented.

So it’s not a manner of right, or wrong, in Bagua. It’s primarily tactical and strategical. As it should be.
.

[Bob]

Byron, looks like the makings of your next book - Bravo!