One Bagua Technique

One Bagua Technique -- One Hour

baguazhang Aug 20, 2007

During the past week, I've been dusting off a bagua form - the Cheng style "8 Palm Changes" form.

I work in a university, and late this afternoon I was waiting for the president to arrive for a meeting. Everyone else had gone home, so I waited in the secretary's office, practicing one bagua movement from the form. The movement is "Yin Yang Fish."

It involves very tight circle-walking -- so tight that it just looks as if you're spinning. I practiced the movement slowly, then fast, then slowed it down and analyzed it. I looked for blocks, strikes, and joint locks hidden in the movement and the changing positions of the hands.

I worked for one hour on this one movement, and I felt liberated. I felt as if I was truly studying the art.

Too often, we believe that quantity of techniques is the goal. The more techniques we learn, the better.

That isn't necessarily true. Sometimes, you must take one technique--one movement--and unlock its secrets. Study the body mechanics, the shifting of the weight, the turning of the waist, the storing and releasing of power along the ground path, the use of peng and silk-reeling. A hand movement isn't just a block and strike, it's also a joint lock--an arm break.

If you really want to study the internal arts, you have to approach it like a college class. You have to spend time in class, but the real learning comes when you're studying on your own--thinking, analyzing, breaking it down, and comparing it to things you've learned before. Using your creativity to see beneath the surface.

I unlocked some secrets of this movement today that I hadn't realized until now. But it took an hour of quiet time, in a building by myself, to reflect, ponder, and analyze as I practiced.

Are you spending quality time with your art? During the next couple of days, try to find one hour and take one movement from one of your forms and really practice it in depth. You might be surprised at how the secrets of one movement can teach you a lot about every technique in your art.

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Ken Gullette's Internal Fighting Arts

One Bagua Technique -- One Hour

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