Ba Gua
Ba Gua (also known as Pa-Kua) is a sophisticated style of Martial Art that is based on continuously changing in
response to the situation at hand in order to prevail with skill rather than brute force.
Practice involves learinging to understand "change" and how and when it should be applied.
The emphasis in Ba Gua is on smooth change which generates centrifugal and centripetal power for techniques
applied during the turning and shifting of body position. Power generation and understanding
can be augmented further through the practice of the "swimming body method" (yu shen fa).
Techniques of "attract-and-evade" and "repel-and-follow" take control of the opponent's center and create
openings.
The turning and spinning movements of Ba Gua stimulate the joints and intrinsic muscles
not normally utilized in everyday activities. This compressing and relaxing of the core muscles provides
an internal organ massage and promotes good circulation and flexibility. Practicing Ba Gua
techniques promotes a sense of total body connection and relaxation while enhancing coordination and
agility.
Ba Gua emphasizes the use of the open hand instead of the closed fist and consists of
circular movements to circumvent and neutralize attackers. Designed to fend off multiple attackers
simultaneously, the fundamental training method in Ba Gua is “walking the circle.”
This trains the practitioner in the concept of circumvention through movement.
The practitioner circumvents and redirects the attackers, seeking a position of tactical superiority.
Great emphasis is placed on continuous movement, mobility, and nimble footwork while rapidly moving
in circular patterns. All movements are intended to be smooth and coordinated, with the body
employed as a whole. No reliance is placed on using muscle power generated from a
single portion of the body. Ba Gua teaches the development of timing, flexibility, and agility.
Although Ba Gua is a relatively new form of Martial Art developed in the late 18th century, it became famous throughout
China during its inventor's lifetime mainly because of its effectiveness in combat and the resulting high
prestige this gave its practitioners. Many believe that the principles and many of the movements on which
Ba Gua is based
were developed thousands of years ago in Taoist meditation rituals. The belief was that the movements
involved in these rituals helped achieve meditative states. In this way Ba Gua
can be considered a "moving meditation" as well as a Martial Art, and is known as one of the "internal"
Martial Arts.
Ba Gua movements have a characteristic circular nature and there is a great deal
of body spinning, turning, and rapid changes in direction. Ba Gua is an Art based on a
kind of guerilla strategy applied to personal defense in that it relies on strategy and skill,
rather than the direct use of force against force or brute strength, in overcoming an attacker.
The Art of Ba Gua involves teaching the practitioner how to control his or her momentum and
timing in order to generate power with the entire body mass as a coherent unit. In the Chinese
Martial Arts, this type of power is referred to as Whole-Body-Power (Zheng Ti Jing).
Whole-Body-Power enables the practitioner to issue force from any part of the body with the support
of all other parts. Each part of the body coordinates with every other, generating the maximum amount
of power available relative to the individual's size and weight.
Ba Gua technique seeks to avoid the apex of the attacker's force. By circling around and
circumventing incoming force and resistance, the Ba Gua practitioner applies his own
Whole-Body-Power from a position of superiority. This strategy allows the smaller and weaker
practitioner to apply maximum force from an angle at which the larger and stronger attacker cannot resist,
effectively making the weaker practitioner more powerful at that moment
(for example, if you have 50 units of total strength and your attacker has 100, and you attack
with your full 50 units of strength at an angle at which your attacker is only able to use 25
units of his total strength, you are, at that moment, twice as strong as your attacker).
Ba Gua teaches the practitioner to employ the basic strategies of circling around
the attacker or rotating the attacker around oneself to avoid a head to head
confrontation with the attacker's power and obtain a superior position from which to defend.
In this process the attacker often loses control of his center of balance,
as correctly applied momentum overcomes brute strength. The skilled Ba Gua practitioner’s
movements are spontaneous and difficult to predict, and his relaxed physical and mental state makes
it possible for him to change and adapt as the situation may require. Ba Gua is one of the
internal Chinese martial arts based on Taoist principles.
Ba Gua teaches you to redirect the opponent's offensive force with as little resistance as possible.
The key to this is the effective use of your center of gravity and leverage to convert the opponent's
Linear energy into Circular energy and use this energy to redirect him.
Smaller persons, because of their
lower centers of gravity, can use some Ba Gua techniques to avert attacks of taller opponents.
The key to this is to use the opponent's own momentum against him and blending with the attacker by moving in
such a way as to neutralize the
force of the attack. This is done by using spherical movements which allow the Ba Gua practitioner to
deflect the attacker's energy while simultaneously entering close to the attacker, blending with the attack
and neutralizing it.
One of the goals of Ba Gua is to "fight smarter, not harder." This is done using techniques
that redirect the energies of the opponent by using his own force against him while expending a minimal amount
of energy to do this.
The martial artist who understands the movement principles of the human body can hone his hands,
feet, knees, and elbows into effective tools for self-defense. Weapons can be used as extensions of the
body with the internal energy of the practitioner flowing through the weapon. When you fully
understand how
to use a particular weapon, you will also understand how to defeat it. By studying its strenghts
you will
learn its weaknesses. This is why it is possible for an unarmed skilled martial artist to defeat an
armed attacker.
A skilled martial artist, who has knowledge of the weapon he is facing, can penetrate the attacker's zone
and knock his weapon away and/or take it from him and use it against him. So you should understand
the limitations
of your weapon and be prepared to compensate for it in extreme situations.
You should understand the
delicate balance of opposing forces, advantages versus disadvantages, and strength versus weakness, as
understanding this is a never-ending process, and this is why even the greatest master is always a student of
his art.
Ba Gua does not rely on strength, size, or weight for its success.
It relies on your own internal mind/body state, and the fact that when someone attacks you, he has
made himself vulnerable. --When someone attacks you, he commits his body to that attack, at least for
an instant, and if in that instant you don't behave as expected, he will likely lose both physical and
mental balance. Ba Gua works by first getting the attacker to lose his balance by reacting to
his attack in ways he would not expect, then while keeping him off-balance, redirecting him away from you.
Ba Gua trains you to maintain your own balance and relaxed mind/body state to avert attacks from
others with as little harm to them as possible. This training teaches not brute force or violence,
but mind-body training that can lead to development of coping skills
helpful to excel in today's world. The mental training involved in Ba Gua is designed to
reduce stress, enhance clarity of mind, improve relaxation, and uplift mood, and increase energy.
Training in Ba Gua promotes flexibility, coordination, and a sense of awareness due to the emphasis
of mindfulness,
developing balance and a stable rootedness in the feet, and deft stepping skills that enable evasion and
repositioning along with developing the whole-body method for driving the techniques.
The human body is made for movement.
If you stop moving it, it starts deteriorating. Movement is like medicine as the body ages.
There are many different activities you can do to move your body in ways that promote health.
The smooth movement involved in practicing Ba Gua can be a good activity for this
purpose in addition to the self-defense and mental training aspects involved, even as you age – especially as you age.
Many people practice Ba Gua not only for the martial art aspect, but for the healing/meditative/stress
management
aspects with the belief that the movements involved in Ba Gua done correctly exercise every muscle
in your body, massage every organ in your body, and elongate the spine and release pressure there, and
calm the nervous system. Many believe that some of the movements involved in Ba Gua stimulate
and cleanse the liver, causing it to dump toxins, and that it is therefore very important to drink water before
and after doing. Many believe that consistently practicing the movements involved in Ba Gua
help to improve circulation, stimulates the kidney system, improves cardio-respiratory function, hypertension,
muscular strength, flexibility, and cholesterol, and
that this, in turn can ease complications of diabetes.
Now that it is so commonly known that stress and anxiety can harm you in many different ways,
many people practice Ba Gua as self-defense
against stress and anxiety, every bit as much, if not more,
than as self-defense against possible physical attack.
Ba Gua is an extremely unique martial art. It is the only martial art that has
Taoist
origins and techniques. In Ba Gua
everything is circular and you never
stand still. It's very mobile and moving.
Click here to see a demonstration of ba gua techniques 1
Click here to see a demonstration of ba gua techniques 2
Click here to see a demonstration of ba gua techniques 3
Click here to see a demonstration of ba gua techniques 4
Click here to see a demonstration of
Eight Drunken Immortals techniques
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