Bruce Frantzis Bagua Mastery Program

[Mal]

[Gerard]

What BKF is trying to accomplish is just a materialistic venture, a pure financial gain of which he should be ashamed of as his main teacher was a highly accomplished internal martial artist and a Daoist & Buddhist who lived poorly and in obscurity immersed in serious spiritual practice. BKF went through a lot of searching and travelling back and forth US-Taiwan-China before he was accepted as one of the three students of Liu Hung Chieh and inheritor of his Bagua system.

 

http://www.spiritualwarriorstoday.com/Biography/biography-279_liu-hung-chieh-1905-1981

 

The only thing that courses like this promote is the availability and spread of a watered down version with little or no gong fu skill.

[Sloppy Zhang]

What BKF is trying to accomplish is just a materialistic venture, a pure financial gain of which he should be ashamed of as his main teacher was a highly accomplished internal martial artist and a Daoist & Buddhist who lived poorly and in obscurity immersed in serious spiritual practice. BKF went through a lot of searching and travelling back and forth US-Taiwan-China before he was accepted as one of the three students of Liu Hung Chieh and inheritor of his Bagua system.

 

http://www.spiritualwarriorstoday.com/Biography/biography-279_liu-hung-chieh-1905-1981

 

The only thing that courses like this promote is the availability and spread of a watered down version with little or no gong fu skill.

 

Perhaps you should look more closely at what he actually puts out there, because his strategy is, in fact, the opposite: introduce a few techniques that have the highest benefit, and get people to train those few techniques until they have really gotten a hang of the underlying concepts and principles.

 

I agree that Frantzis' stuff is a bit overpriced. However, it'd be much more expensive, and much more time consuming to go gallivanting across Asia and heavily populated Asian areas in non-Asian countries trying to find a bagua teacher, with absolutely no way of knowing what you are going to get. Frantzis gives an accessible, yet still quality teachings, to people who otherwise would never be exposed to it.

 

Frantzis, I think, is still very conscious about keeping the quality of what he teaches.

Edited November 3, 2010 by Sloppy Zhang

[Gerard]

Gerard:

Where do you usually practice? Are you able to do movements inside your house?

 

Always outdoors around trees. I couldn't practice BZ indoors. I need to get the energy of the natural order.

 

Btw, love your Amazon-related avatar, perhaps Gaia is teaching us we need more of that.

 

Here for you:

 

 

Edited November 4, 2010 by Gerard

[Gerard]

Thanks, same to you.

[Sloppy Zhang]

I'm gonna say the same thing I've said all along about practice, especially those of the taoist variety that BKF has given out to the public: they are, ultimately, practices that get you inside and get you to feel things for yourself. This is a natural process, and this is emphasized a lot in Frantzis' writings, and is repeated by many masters in the taoist tradition (Taomeow's story of Wang Liping moving organs around comes to mind).

 

I find that a lot of teachers saying, "oh you need a teacher to really learn the truth of this" is... well, kind of advertising. Maybe it's a product of modern society, in which you need to have to be a licensed medical professional in order to diagnose problems, and any non-licensed people need to put disclaimers. Maybe it's a message to prevent people from screwing themselves up. I don't know.

 

What I CAN say is that I've seen more than a few people follow up the phrase, "you need a master to learn this" with "it's all inside yourself, it's all about feeling, it's natural but you forgot". Well if it's all natural, why do you need a teacher? If you are trying to be natural, and trying to move in ways to optimally feel energy and be healthy, well, a teacher can't "teach", so much as show you how to do stuff, and put you in an optimal position for getting to that place yourself- but you have to do it.

 

I find this especially so with the stuff BKF has put out. His emphasis is on you increasing feeling and being natural. If you've REALLY got that down, then you don't have to have a teacher to tell you when you are doing something wrong- your BODY will be telling you when you are doing something wrong. The energy won't circulate. Things won't flow. I think what BKF puts out puts people in the best possible position to reach that state. But at the same time, he's gotta deal with the modern world, and peoples' inability to get to that point.

 

Look at the video he put out recently:

 

 

 

The emphasis is on the fundamentals. He really pushes in his writings an emphasis on the single palm change, how someone should get to know all the mechanics and see how everything is connected and related, and then once you've got that, applying the other changes is just a matter of being where you need to be.

 

But reaching that point in and of itself is quite a challenge!

[simply puzzled]

Always outdoors around trees. I couldn't practice BZ indoors. I need to get the energy of the natural order

 

I'm sad that soon it will be too cold to practice my Taiji outdoors barefoot. There is nothing like feeling the ground beneath your feet as your practice.

[Sloppy Zhang]

Sloppy, I really like you.

 

Thank you

 

You have teachers at the present moment, yes? Just not IMA teachers. But you ARE learning from in person teachings in a college setting, yes? I assume you value these teachings/ers so much that you are willing to spend tens of thousands (or willing to spend your parents' tens of thousands) of dollars on a high quality higher education, yes?

 

The more I study, the more I realize that I could have learned it all on my own. When taking into account all of the external factors involved, such as how I don't have enough time to devote full study to everything equally, that I have to cut corners because it's just not feasible to get everything done the way it's "supposed" to be done, and that some professors just plain suck at teaching, and are only here for research, there are only a handful of professors and only a handful of situations that I would say that one would actually need a teacher to teach you for you to learn.

 

But in those situations, meeting someone in an interest group, such as, say, an internet forum, could clear up most of the problems.

 

Is that modern society advertising to you?

 

Yes, it is. Having a degree from a credible institution that is known to produce a certain level of performance is how people judge you on what you can do. Sure, someone who learned on their own could probably do a LOT better than someone else (I have a friend who does programming as a hobby, and he can do things that are being taught at graduate level classes). But when you go get a job, they ask, "well if you're so good, why didn't you major in it?" If you don't have the tag, then there's no standard to appraise you.

 

So as stupid as it is, and even if you don't learn anything, the education system is part of how society replicates itself. It gives you varying labels which say much more about you than your level of education- it says that you have the ability to stay in an institute and jump through X number of hoops for Y amounts of time. It means that on a certain level, you can get along with your fellow human being, so accepting this person into your company/organization/whatever isn't going to be introducing unnecessary risk.

 

I think it is stupid. But it's one of the goals of my parents to get me through college and, well, I gotta go along with it.

 

And, you know, BKF does the same advertising. He talks about his teachers. Talks about where he got some stuff. Sure, every time you get in front of a new practice, you run into the risk that it's not for you, that it doesn't work, that it could hurt you, that you could get it wrong, that the guy is just making stuff up. Sometimes a person who doesn't have all the teachers has an equally as valid learning system. But we refer to lineages and teachers even here to judge how credible someone is likely (though not guaranteed) to be.

 

'Cause you might be able to save a bundle if you simply download some vids from **www.onlineuniversity.edu**!

 

I'd gain in some areas, lose in others.

 

From someone who has spent many hours with IMA teachers, I cannot imagine making the progress that I have made if I had only utilized a book or a video. But that's just me. I value my IMA teachings and the teachers that spent time with me, personally attending to my unique concerns.

 

I'm sure you do but I do not have that teacher experience, and I've made great progress on my own, working through things on my own, and getting the occasional outside tip from like minded experienced people

Edited November 4, 2010 by Sloppy Zhang

[Mal]

A common question I have heard is can you learn bagua from a book or DVD. My answer is simple - No way! But here's the thing, with this program you will have access to inner components and techniques that historically have been kept behind closed doors. In your hands you'll be holding the most comprehensive system ever created for learning bagua, a link to an authentic lineage.”

 

And that does agree with what I recently learned from the Jingwu book re: the use of instructional books for martial arts.

 

Once you have the basics, applying info from books or DVD’s is possible. Sure it’s much easier with a teachers help, but you have to have a teacher that knows the techniques and is willing and able to share them.

 

Bagua isn’t my thing but I’m intrigued as to what may be in the course relating to Tai Chi, and how it "will significantly upgrade your practice."

[Gerard]

...The more I study, the more I realize that I could have learned it all on my own...

 

Really? depends on what level. McDonald's style Bagua certainly yes...but the subtle skill, gong fu...No way on earth you'd be able to learn that alone unless you live like a hermit in China and dedicate your life to the Way in solitude and as a result of spiritual realisation, which is the way Bagua evolved anyway. I could give more away but I am not allowed to.

 

Watch this:

 

 

Real Bagua in the parks of Beijing not from a DVD.

[joeblast]

Gerard, while I agree with you on a lot of it, e.g. that you will not get the same deep level - on the flip side things like this can be very valuable for those whom the context is appropriate. I dont think anyone is suggesting that these vids are going to get you that super deep level that you say you're not going to get from a DVD - the chances of that happening are extremely thin unless you possess some interesting clairvoyant properties of your own IMHO this is good to bring a person to a certain fundamental level, after which one will likely make some super progress in the presence of a good teacher. I find that happens often, when one has a certain baseline experiential knowledge (for lack of a better term) then learning in the presence of mastery is much more streamlined and efficient - provided of course the learner has been diligent enough not to ingrain a bunch of bad habits for prior lack of attention

[Sloppy Zhang]

No way on earth you'd be able to learn that alone unless you live like a hermit in China and dedicate your life to the Way in solitude and as a result of spiritual realisation, which is the way Bagua evolved anyway.

 

Perfect example of what I'm talking about!

 

"You can't do it alone" and "you can do it alone" all in the same breath!

[Brian L. Kennedy]

As Mal pointed out, and as I discussed in my book on the Jingwu Association; well known and respected Chinese martial arts teachers of the late Qing and Republican Period agreed that people could and should learn Chinese martial arts out of books. The idea that martial arts, including bagua, is so "deep and mysterious" that its practice can not be captured in a book is very much a modern western idea. Chinese and Taiwanese are quite up front about the idea that one can learn martial arts (or qigong for that matter) right out of a book. That view was shared by such bagua teachers as Sun Lu Tang,Jiang Rong Qiao, Hwang Bo Nien and others.

 

How skilled one will become depends on a number of factors; one's basic intelligence, how diligent one is in practice, how honestly one reflects on one's progress and one's prior experience with martial arts. Of course a teacher (and good fellow students) helps a lot. But in the end, as Shiek Kin famously put it, "you become your own teacher".

 

On a personal note, I have always really enjoyed bagua and find that it really helps my judo practice. This is me having some fun with my bagua practice back in Taiwan

 

 

 

take care,

Brian

[VCraigP]

Perfect example of what I'm talking about!

 

"You can't do it alone" and "you can do it alone" all in the same breath!

 

All too often this type of conversation goes to the extreme.

 

The view point presented seems to be that you cant learn anything of value without a teacher so don't even try. those who do produce videos are just lining their pockets and not benefiting anyone.

 

I go back to my new favorite concept from Chunyi Lin's interview.

 

good, better, best.

 

It is best to have a master guide you every step of the way and work with you daily in a retreat or even monastic setting.

but it would still be good to try any practice. better would be to have some background with a real master who has taught you core principles which might enable you to integrate information from books, videos.

 

I have met a Taoist monk in China who practices many hours daily. He had an attitude towards us western visitors which was somewhat humbling. He was somewhat confused by our adoption of Taoist practice. If you aren't practicing many many hours daily what is the point? This too is extreme. Perhaps he is right in a way. But then he is talking about the ultimate best situation. Should we westerners therefore abandon all hope of progress or benefit? I think not!

 

Craig

[johndoe2012]

For those who want to learn Bagua remote distance there is another option which is probably better IMHO

 

Gaobagua.net and Emptyflower

 

you videotape yourself and send it to the teacher. Also meetings with the teacher and other students are possible.

 

Regarding learning Tai Chi from a DVD, Stephen Hwa of Classical Tai Chi thinks it is possible, so why not Bagua?

 

I would say it is be better to learn from a DVD done by a good teacher than learning it live from a bad one.

Edited November 4, 2010 by wtm

[SiddhaSan]

[Friend]

Edited November 16, 2011 by Friend

[Gerard]

Perfect example of what I'm talking about!

 

"You can't do it alone" and "you can do it alone" all in the same breath!

 

Yes, but obviously you are not a hermit, therefore...

[RiverSnake]

 

Traditional methods make everything in your life put your attention on your goals. This is truly powerful. As humans, our unique power is that of free will, which is to say where we choose to put our attention.

 

Acknowledging that there are good, better, and best ways of learning will keep you honest with yourself. Living in isolation or with a teacher accomplishes a total commitment of your attention in life. Reading a book for an hour before bed is far less, but perhaps your studies will grow if you hold that in your intent in what you want out of life. Modern life DOES distract and diminish your attention. It requires creativity (and questioning your habits) to live within the modern world and retain ownership of your attention.

 

We must keep an open mind to find our way, and if all we have space for in our lives is a book, then read it. Then, see where it takes you. Was it enough?

 

If I may, a folk recipe for progress:

 

1) Accept where you are (this is THE TRUTH, since, well, here you are). Find a way to give thanks.

2) Define your intent every day, what you want. The feeling of Passion will show up as your guide.

 

It almost laughed when i read this. I'm in class and my teacher is giving a lecture on the urinary system and i'm reading this thread.

 

-Shows where my attention is!

[Sloppy Zhang]

Yes, but obviously you are not a hermit, therefore...

 

People in the old days used to think that priests in the church had some kind of secret power that let you get into heaven, and to know what God wanted you to do. What was their real secret? They could read. They could read what was in the Bible. They could read what other mystics and academics, both contemporary and ancient, were writing. The "secret" was that they were simply educated. But back then, being educated was a big deal. Not just "anyone" could do it.

 

That there are people achieving things on their own tells me that it is possible. But there are people around this board saying that not just "anyone" can do it. Now the questions that then arise are: do they have something that others do not have, and is it exclusive to hermits, or is it, like literacy in old Europe, rare, but not because the talent itself was rare, but because of various social situations?

 

So again (for me, anyway), that there are people doing it alone means that it can be done alone, whether you are a hermit or not. There may be some factor that happens concurrently with the hermit lifestyle, but is not specific to the hermit lifestyle. Of course, everyone can believe what they want, hm?

Edited November 6, 2010 by Sloppy Zhang

[Pietro]

I met Bruce recently, when he came to Rome. He spoke about the bagua program, and showed us some material.

 

My sensation was that his attitude about it was, "we'll see if it works". He is also testing the new tools and possibilities. We are not speaking about a book, or a video, but the combination of all of it. The hope is that explaining the material, and showing how it should be done, and showing how it is done at various levels of accomplishments might let people learn. People who cannot otherwise learn.

 

But there is a more important effort behind this.

 

In the west there are a lot of people who teach tai ji (and bagua) without being really good at it. Often those people don't know themselves what the art can reach. Or they only heard about it. It is a bit the difference between being a Tai Ji master in Beijing or being a Tai Ji master in Worthing (no offense to whoever is teaching in worthing, I just took a random english town).

 

There was a time when any white person going to Africa was a "doctor". Maybe you never studied medicine. But you were white, thus people would think you were a doctor. Similarly there was a time where every white face in Japan was an english teacher. Maybe you were spanish, and spoke only bad English. You still could pass as a english teacher in Japan. You would get a position at the university, serious stuff! Well the situation about Tai Ji in the west is similar. You have people who are "instructors" in Beijing, after having done a 1 month course, coming to the west and open a school, calling themselves Sifu. Someone who stayed 1 year in the chen village might claim that he is a master. They would not be accepted as masters in Beijing. But they are called masters in Europe. Sometimes their teacher who knew the material did not explain it to them. Either there was a linguistic barrier, or a cultural one, or any of the many reasons why a teacher might keep some material for himself.

 

Now Bruce is recognized as a master in Beijing. So, by starting to put down real material the hope is that other teachers will start putting out real material themselves. And he wasn't just speaking of bagua, but also of taji. Because most of the principles are the same (his words). So that the combined effect might be that bagua and tai ji in the west does a big jump. Not just through his school. If he only wanted to progress his school he probably would not have taught so openly.

 

Think what Mantak did about the sexual practices. When Mantak came out no one knew about sexual practices and practices about storing the energy in the bone marrow. Now many qi gung classes teach it, even if they do not derive directly from Mantak school.

 

Somehow once a teacher starts to put out a level of material, the others will tend to open up. I think this is what Bruce is really aiming for.

 

Also when in Rome, Bruce asked to meet with local tai ji martial artists. As the person organizing the meeting (I am his only instructor from Rome) I was present. What was really touching was the way in which he explained us how we need to work together through the different schools. How there is only one tai ji. How if we see that maybe we know something that the other school is not doing, we should comunicate, and try to help each other. And how if we do not comunicate and each school of tai ji remains inside its own tradition the next generation, and the generation after, are the ones that are going to be really screwed. We are ok, but our sons and grandsons will not be.

 

He also stressed out how time is running short. How our generation (in Europe) is really when the change should happen. As the next generation will be harder. And how in the US because you guys are 1 generation ahead, things are harder for you. Tai Ji is more stable, more known, and it is harder to change the imprint there.

 

Having been with Bruce in Rome. Having helped him to organise this meeting. Having seen the material. I don't think it is honest to say that it is just a promotion. Or it is useless. It might work in indirect ways though.

[Mal]

[Sloppy Zhang]

[UTI]

I recently started learning bagua from my teacher, so i signed up for the bk frantzis course. I think he says some good stuff, even if his form isnt close to as amazing as my (60 yo) teacher. But i feel it is fuel for my fire.

 

And there's a full refund guarantee if dissatisfied. 何乐而不为?

 

If you're doing it let me know, we can discuss the contents and progress. I'm gonna suckle my teacher for feedback as well

 

Safe travels!

 

-j

[SFJane]

so i signed up for the bk frantzis course. even if his form isnt close to as amazing as my (60 yo) teacher.

 

All I can say is that I knew what ba gua I wanted to learn, who I wanted to learn it from and how I wanted my body and mind to move, after watching Bruce walk the circle one time. I thought to myself. "There it is."