What is Ba Gua Zhang

What is Ba Gua Zhang?
In this interview I talk with Tamar about several Ba Gua topics. Looking together at questions like:
What is the history of our Ba Gua lineage?
What is the most important basic to practice?
Why is our system focusing so much on wrestling applications?
And why Ba Gua Zhang is a very healthy and spiritual practice?
I hope you enjoy :).
In case you want to practice Ba Gua in a 4 days intensive, join us from 17-20 of August 2023 in our Ba Gua Camp!
This week is the last chance to register and deep dive one more time this year into our Ba Gua practice!
The focus of the Camp will be:
- Advanced Body Basics for Ba Gua Zhang (Turtle Back and Kua)
- Advanced Walking Principles of Ba Gua Zhang
- 4 Advanced Fighting Palms
- Application Practice in order to connect to the basic Ba Gua Princples
www.xuan-gongfu.de/

[@FredHWalker]

I am so happy to view your teaching. I am now 80 and studied and taught Chen style BaQua Zhang in Ontario Canada while mostly unknown. Thank you so much very encouraging . I am still fully mobile it has led me in a meaningful life.

[@xuangongfu]

This is such a heart warming comment! Thank you for sharing that! And it is very motivating to hear from all that experience and lifelong practice! All the best to you!

[@ozsvathlaszlo6805]

Very Very Beautiful Art !Thank You

[@michaelfinkelstein8380]

A complete path uniting mind and bodily practices, in fact, a cosmic dance!

[@xuangongfu]

Exactly, thank you for the beautiful summery :)

[@lifeishealinghealthwellnes1979]

Very good explanations of mind, body and spiritual connection and their relationship to energy and the spiral network of endless changes.

[@roadwarrior280]

Great interview. Well done

[@creightonfreeman8059]

A guy I met who practiced Tai Zu Quan told me he had been at a Ba Gua Zhang school, I think in Dongbei, and on the school lineage tablet it had Morihei Ueshiba's name as a student. At the time I had a hard time seeing the connection between Aikido and Ba Gua Zhang, but watching you apply Ba Gua Zhang in grappling the influence of it on Aikido is very obvious. Among other martial arts, I studied Shuai Jiao with the OSU club while in university, so watching and hearing about the connection with Chinese Wrestling is very interesting.

[@xuangongfu]

Thank you for sharing your thoughts with us :). It is a great compliment for me to read that you see the connection to Aikido through our work in Ba Gua. For me it was similar. I learned Aikido as a child a bit. Later I learned about the connection to Ba Gua, but I never really understood how it is connected until I started to get more and more serious with the applications and principle work of Ba Gua. Suddenly I started not only to see the connection of Aikido to Ba Gua but also I started to understand Aikido better and learned to appreciate it :).

[@christate65]

Most old sources say that Ueshhiba went to China and leaned Bagua and then went back to Japan and started aikido and because of Japanese nationalism they didn’t tell people that it was modified Bagua

[@Livingtree32]

The claim about Ueshiba learning Bagua is not more then that. But these myths get repeated over and over, so many people take it as truth over time. All of Aikido can directly be traced to the Japanese arts Ueshiba based it on.

[@xuangongfu]

@@Livingtree32 that sounds also possible to me, yet the fact remains that both arts have very similar concepts of stepwork, movement and how to guide on an opponent's force. If it was influenced or if it is just a coincident...who knows :)

[@bebodhi]

Yes its true about Morihei Ueshiba, also mentioned in two other sources that he was influenced by Bagua Zhang as well as Yin Yang principles. I am a practitioner of Bagua Zhang and Shuai Jiao. Peace

[@omararistidesflorestorres7757]

Thank you, very good interview, i enjoyed it.

[@hiddenturtle9610]

Thank you for the kind comment and the appreciation Omar!

[@Spectre2434]

❤❤❤

[@nigelmcgarr]

👍🙏

[@royalhaaki4064]

Like a good center of gravity

[@bebodhi]

The important thing is the circle, but thats not all.

[@ZalMoxis]

What lineage is this??? Is it Wudang's flavour of Jiang style??

[@hiddenturtle9610]

Exactly, it is coming from the Wudang Xuan Wu Pai lineage, and according to the records it arrived in Wudang from Chen Ting Hua to Jiang Rong Xiao to Wudang. But since our Ba Gua is always transforming, we would most likely consider it to be part of the Wudang Principles Lineage of Ismet Himmet.

[@Livingtree32]

It was transmitted to Wudang in the 80ies, it has very shallow content, only the outer appearance. Yes, it’s a watered down version of Jiang Rongqiao style.

[@xuangongfu]

​@@Livingtree32 This is why i say its most likeley better to call it Wudang Principle Ba Gua Zhang. Watering down is happen when students copy their master generation after generation, always aming to follow excactly the path of the teacher. Its natural that on that way things get lost. Because with every copy the honest art the founder established through restless research and honest selfexpression loses a bit more of its truth. Arts need always to develop, because times and people change. What you see here is a lineage of people that dedicate their lifes to an art. Giving up their jobs to commiting 10 hours a day to nothing more than training, as it was done in Wudang in the old days. Not bound by dead traditions with a always adjusting and developing practice...

[@Livingtree32]

@@xuangongfu Yes, That’s also a way to schönreden this stuff 😅

[@xuangongfu]

@@Livingtree32 You are welcome to visit us. Sparr with us, train with us a day or some weeks, as you wish. Like that you can make yourself a more honest opinion about what we do. It is important that internal martial artist start to exchange friendly, for that I prefer real life instead of KZbin. Still thank you for sharing your opinion!

[@DOAKE4N]

It’s so hard to chose martial art 😂

[@schitmuler1488]

Es gibt doch jemand in deutsch der ein lehr video machen könnte

[@bebodhi]

Some of the practice that you are doing is not real. Because of that you will not be able to make the connection in a real situation. Peace

[@xuangongfu]

To judge other peoples art via youtube is not real.... This kind of behavior will not connect in real situation.

[@LaetareIerusalem]

a general assumption that would have to be precise to be a useful critic

[@shawn6669]

Sigh....

[@illiJomusic]

There is so much dogmatic nonsense and parroting in this..

[@xuangongfu]

I think that is a very hard and fast judgment. But thank you still for sharing your thoughts 🙏

[@illiJomusic]

@WUDANGDEUTSCHLAND DHC Taught and hung out a Chengs school until his death, even though Yin was an earlier student. Cheng's school which was in what I think was south Beijing. The style was called southern style or south city style. Shuai Jiao has deep leg work and much of the practice apparently was practiced walking around the sand pit (circle) which Shuai Jiao was practiced in. Training form as forms is relatively new and most martial arts are practiced in single movement/applications. Early Baguazhang wasn't practiced in the circle originally. The forms are catalog.. Walking the circle for six hours a day for years is nonsense. Circle walking is zhan Zhuang and if you're doing either approach for six hours a day for martial Qi development you are way off the path. Even on a logical level its absurd idea for any working class person. Mastering oneself through life-long practice absolutely. These are martial arts practiced by gangsters, fighters, bodyguards and warriors. Get rid of the pajamas and treat BGZ like a martial art that people actually lived, killed and died by.

[@xuangongfu]

@@illiJomusic Thank you for your extended explanation of your earlier critic. For me the old stories are a very nice inspiration for our training nowadays. Yet, it is not sooo important for my work, what there was done. We study here martial arts 8 hours a day at our school. This makes me not a historien, but a researcher... I use old tools, and see how they bring me value nowadays.. that is requiring that we change also a lot of what we do. Times are different... people are different.... Ba Gua is different... For all we do I see a clear value... but i dont expect that everyone is seeing that as well. So that you say it is nonsense, I understand and respect... but for me it is sense... this is why I do it... it is as simple as it is. Thank you for the exchange! All the best to your work :)

[@podcastkringkring5903]

Saya berasal dari Indonesia ,sangat Antusias mempelajari bagua sebagai kebiasaan hidup sehari-hari . Mempelajari nya 5 tahun lalu melalui chanel youtube "jakemace" and "clear's internal combat art" Dan tebak!! Saya berhasil memperbaiki postur tubuh yang sebelumnya bungkuk dan menguasai dasar "internal power" Setelah saya menemui video ini . Penjelasan anda adalah yang paling mudah untuk dipahami So. Dengan segala hormat tolong terus bagikan video anda mengenai baguazhang langkah demi langkah sehingga saya dapat terus mencintainya. ❤ Goodjob !!! 👌🏻