Baguazhang

[Cat Pillar]

Thanks for all the replies, everyone! Lots of great information! I probably won't be able to delve into a lot of it until after this month...lots of insane things going on in my life right now.

 

But it's great to have so much input!

 

I think it'd be fun to come play bagua with you some day, zero.

[Gerard]

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Edited January 29, 2014 by Gerard

[zerostao]

"I think it'd be fun to come play bagua with you some day, zero. "

yeppers

 

 

"Cool, you are more than welcome to visit me in Brisbane, Australia, I will show you my magic circle where devas and foxes come and visit me regularly. We will climb Mt Warning as well, an Aboriginal sacred site and one of Australia's power spots. "

 

Cool !!!!!!!!

[JessOBrien]

First you learn the routines and conditioning.

The freestyle part is when you apply Ba Gua to sparring. Then you can create some of the most amazing and beautiful techniques that you never even knew possible.

You need two people to do Ba Gua, just like you need two trigrams to make a hexagram.

Ba Gua applications are done spontaneously, you take some "energy" that's coming at you, and transform it into something new.

When you let go and allow the movements to do themselves in freestyle sparring it's like hanggliding or something, you are free, flowing and awake like never before.

You get punched in the face sometimes along the way, but that's the price you pay to experience a very sublime and timeless state.

[mjjbecker]

There is nothing wrong with the way Madam Ge practices. Cheng style has its own manner of practice and movement. Observe Grandmaster Sun Zhijun moving and you will see it is the same:

 

 

I believe this is Grandmaster Sun teaching at a workshop in Singapore organised by Madam Ge:

 

 

If my memory serves me correctly, Grandmaster Sun is the highest ranked bagua master in mainland China, at the 9th duan level. That is, he is recognised as being foremost among his peers, by his peers.

 

There is no one 'correct' way to practice bagua. The different schools have their own ways, and this fits exactly with the manner in which Dong taught his disciples.

 

I personally prefer the more measured stepping of Yin style, or similar, to the sliding stepping practiced by Cheng style. However, it doesn't mean my preference is better. It doesn't mean that I will necessarily get better results than the other person practicing the other method.

[Baguakid]

 

There is no one 'correct' way to practice bagua. The different schools have their own ways, and this fits exactly with the manner in which Dong taught his disciples.

 

I personally prefer the more measured stepping of Yin style, or similar, to the sliding stepping practiced by Cheng style. However, it doesn't mean my preference is better. It doesn't mean that I will necessarily get better results than the other person practicing the other method.

 

Hey mjjbecker, I always thought Yin style used a sliding step rather than a measured step (if we're talking about the same thing). I, personally, am not a fan of the back weighted sliding style of walking.

 

Anyway, you are right. Each sees what they see in the art they've been attracted to.

[Gerard]

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Edited January 29, 2014 by Gerard

[mjjbecker]

Hey mjjbecker, I always thought Yin style used a sliding step rather than a measured step (if we're talking about the same thing). I, personally, am not a fan of the back weighted sliding style of walking.

 

Anyway, you are right. Each sees what they see in the art they've been attracted to.

 

By measured I was thinking a more 'natural' step, rather than the Cheng style sliding step that can be seen demonstrated by Grandmaster Sun.

 

http://www.yinstylebaguazhang.com/introduction_yinstyle.html

 

A natural stepping method is used.

 

 

I was thinking in particular of how Zhu Baozhen steps when I made my comments. Of course there are variations among Yin practitioners in how they perform.

 

 

Variation should be no surprise, given every source indicates that the founder taught each of his students in a different manner, depending on their previous training.

[zerostao]

stay with your baguazhang until it is alive and kicking

if i had written this song i woulda been singing it to baguazhang

 

:wub: :wub:

the spiritual path

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tC-v-dG7rDc

[JessOBrien]

One thing I came to realize after learning multiple stepping patterns in multiple Ba Gua systems is that all of them lead to the same goal: awakening your legs and connecting them to your torso.

The goal is to have lively, swift steps, precise and automatic that put you in the right position during the chaos of sparring.

To make your toes and feet become as sensitive and aware as your fingers and palms.

To bring your legs to LIFE not just the dead wooden stumps that we often have below our waist.

Excruciatingly slow stepping, faster and faster circle walking until you are practically running are both required to help your legs wake up.

Ba Gua demands an absolute OBSESSION with the legs. All of Chinese martial arts do actually, but Ba Gua is even more extreme.

Each time around the circle needs to keep bringing the nerves, fluids and energy of the legs to greater unity and awareness.

Otherwise no matter which step you do, you are missing one of the things that makes Ba Gua so great.

Jess O

[Andrei]

That is awesome doing taichi 24 forms in bagua circles:

 

[Baguakid]

Edited June 17, 2012 by Baguakid

[Andrei]

Edited June 18, 2012 by steam

[Andrei]

This is real deal!

 

[spiraltao]

Do Scotty and Ricky have a web site?

 

In the works for a ScottHarrisBranch site.

[Ulises]

baguazhang is great fun each step one takes along the path is a step well taken.

empowering great fun it is.

some of us forest dwelling baguazhangers here in kentucky are always willing to play and share.

it gives us great joy to do so. do drop in sometime.

 

baguazhang is?

a. martial art

b. medical qigong

c. healing art

d. spiritual art

e. taoist alchemy

f. shamanistic

g. other worldly

h. humbling yet empowering

 

http://dragongatesanctuary.com/gallery/baguazhang/

 

i am lucky to have baguazhang friends from 5 different schools. baguazhang is always baguazhang

all of it is useful

 

 

 

"Its said that if the mastery of vortexes are not accomplished, false reality comes in the form of prophetic speech, strange visions, convulsions, speaking in tongues, quaking, shaking, spinning, jumping, emotional fits..."

 

I'm sorry but this is not correct, to put it mildly...if you go to the Kalahari, you'll meet "full cooked" medicine people that quake, shake...once a qi gong teacher went to meet them..they were so happy to meet a fellow practitioner...when in the n/om, this guy flew back to the ground, because of the intensity of Qi of the Bushmen...

 

There's a big prejudice against the spontaneous expression of Qi in the West...and in the East... ; )

Edited June 22, 2012 by Ulises

[zerostao]

"Its said that if the mastery of vortexes are not accomplished, false reality comes in the form of prophetic speech, strange visions, convulsions, speaking in tongues, quaking, shaking, spinning, jumping, emotional fits..."

 

I'm sorry but this is not correct, to put it mildly...if you go to the Kalahari, you'll meet "full cooked" medicine people that quake, shake...once a qi gong teacher went to meet them..they were so happy to meet a fellow practitioner...when in the n/om, this guy flew back to the ground, because of the intensity of Qi of the Bushmen...

 

There's a big prejudice against the spontaneous expression of Qi in the West...and in the East... ; )

 

 

imo it is about having the proper wiring to handle the current.

i am all for spontaneous expression but i dont want to be like a fish flopping around out of the water either.

[Ulises]

imo it is about having the proper wiring to handle the current.

i am all for spontaneous expression but i dont want to be like a fish flopping around out of the water either.

 

this is dualistic bullshit:

"it's said that if the mastery of vortexes are not accomplished, false reality comes in the form of prophetic speech, strange visions, convulsions, speaking in tongues, quaking, shaking, spinning, jumping, emotional fits."

it's unfair and/or dishonest to play "let's go primordial", but ONLY THIS way...

 

if we are going to play the soul retrieval game "let's dig the primordial, shamanic roots", one of the first things to do is to throw to the dustbin of History the "inquisidor mindset this is the right-one-and-only way"

 

I've been lucky to learn QiGong and initiated into "Shaking" lineages and now both ways co-exist in my practice, cross-pollinating, interweaving from the subtle taichi-like to the raw very earhty shamanic like..the kinetic/energetic/emotional/spiritual ecology is diverse, like wise its physical counterpart...

 

"...the trembling, shaking, and quaking associated with the experience of ecstatic bliss. This major transformative experience is an entry into the numinous – the mysterium tremendum et fascinans. Arguably all religions and pre-religions initially felt this ecstasy and regarded it as an awakening of the original mysteries, the most extraordinary experiences possible for a human being.

 

The emergence of social institutions to house ecstatic rapture - whether as temples, ashrams, churches, synagogues, medicine societies, shaman guilds, or pagan societies - resulted in the quieting of the originating experience in exchange for uniform narrative understanding and maintenance of social hierarchy. The ecstatic experience was sacrificed for normalized belief and group conformity. This was true for shamanism as well as the major world religions.

 

In the sociology of religion this social process is called the “routinization” of the founding charismatic experience. Wild ecstatic experience is replaced by standardized ritual that overturns spontaneous play and improvisation. Guided imagery, clichéd patter, and loyalty oaths overtake raw unadulterated creativity, free expression, and heightened emotions.

 

The shaking traditions propose that we most deeply thirst and hunger for an ongoing immersion in ecstatic experience. The source of this shaking bliss is what the Ju/'hoan Bushmen call n/om. They wisely never give a totalizing definition of n/om, but respectfully allude to it being a mystery responsible for bringing forth life’s vitality and acknowledge that its root is open-ended limitless love. When you have n/om, it makes you shake with ecstatic delight. For members of textually constrained cultures, it is often difficult to loosen the cognitive habits and tightly constructed belief systems that inhibit fully awakened feelings.

 

We rarely are encouraged to stand under the sky with raw and naked presence, available to be hit by ecstatic lightning. Even most shamanic cultures, old and new, became “tamed” and conducted in a calm routinized manner. The shamans of old were wild, unpredictable, and appeared out of control. No one, including the shaman, knew what would happen in a ceremony. The so-called “spirits” took over. The same is true of early religious ceremonies. Then Buddhism chased out the Bon shamans, Christians went after their ecstatics, and shamans became reduced to hereditary entitlement or homogenized, standardized training.

 

Ecstatic shaking radically encourages the practice of wild shamanism, wild religion, wild spirituality, and wild transformative performance. This does not refer to trivial, irresponsible, or unethical behavior. The deep wild involves hyper-complexity, the greater mind of nature that holds our psyche as a small part of a more encompassing interdependent though always-changing network of relations.

We can choose to move toward the unpredictable, unknowable, and untamable wild. The sacred lives in the wild. The sacred constitutes the wild. The problem began when someone said that words and meanings must explain, domesticate, and cover up wild experience. Within this hegemony of words, we demystified whatever was mysterious and walked away from the wild in order to become semantically tamed. We sacrificed our link-to-the-universe-heart for a delusional body-less-head-trip that has imprisoned us far too long.

 

Consider a re-entry into the wild. Become a wild shaman, a wild pagan, a wild Christian, a wild Buddhist, a wild Jew, a wild agnostic, a wild artist, a wild performer, a wild whatever you want to call it because the name is less important than the experience of being wild in this natural though always uncommon way of giving priority to mystery over mastery..."

Edited June 22, 2012 by Ulises

[zerostao]

[Ulises]

be wilder but please do not be bewildered.

i never said there is only one way of anything.

do you play baguazhang?

the name of this thread is baguazhang

 

so what do you call this "orthodox mastery" versus "false reality" (baguazhang is amazing, these words are plain stupid):

"it's said that if the mastery of vortexes are not accomplished, false reality comes in the form of prophetic speech, strange visions, convulsions, speaking in tongues, quaking, shaking, spinning, jumping, emotional fits."

 

bewildered...? yeah, I guess the "heretics" burning in each age for holding to "false reality" were "bewildered"...that is the result of this kind of stupid, irresponsible dualistic game...I grew up in a land where many people died horribly because of this..."bewildered"...?

 

Oh, sorry I tresspassed the baguazhang fence.

I play whatever spontaneous complexity wants to be played (including spontaneous baguazhang), I don't need to put a name on it, and most of all, I try not to denigrate what I don't understand and at the same time vindicate "Bon shamanic roots" in the website...

good day

Edited June 22, 2012 by Ulises

[Gerard]

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Edited January 29, 2014 by Gerard

[zerostao]

good stuff gerard. i kinda favor the medium and lower.

[zerostao]

so what do you call this "orthodox mastery" versus "false reality" (baguazhang is amazing, these words are plain stupid):

"it's said that if the mastery of vortexes are not accomplished, false reality comes in the form of prophetic speech, strange visions, convulsions, speaking in tongues, quaking, shaking, spinning, jumping, emotional fits."

 

bewildered...? yeah, I guess the "heretics" burning in each age for holding to "false reality" were "bewildered"...that is the result of this kind of stupid, irresponsible dualistic game...I grew up in a land where many people died horribly because of this..."bewildered"...?

 

Oh, sorry I tresspassed the baguazhang fence.

I play whatever spontaneous complexity wants to be played (including spontaneous baguazhang), I don't need to put a name on it, and most of all, I try not to denigrate what I don't understand and at the same time vindicate "Bon shamanic roots" in the website...

good day

 

Ulises,

the words/actions you bolded are expressions of energy, no?

imo the message there is that bgz has a way to refine these energies for a different expression.

 

i think in every land people have met with terrible fates and still do.

what can i do about that? i am just a poor guy that plays some bgz and wanders the forests in search of useful herbs.

 

there are no no tresspassing signs up here, only welcome signs.

you are welcome to come play energy with us and it would be wonderful if you sent me or any of my local pals flying to the ground with your wild raw intense bushman qi. that would be an interesting experience.

i have always enjoyed your posts on this forum, i consider you a friend, and after you come honestly express your qi energy and send me flying, i will still consider you a friend and then we can sip some tea.

i am always looking for further understanding and kind heartedly welcome such things.

[Harmonious Emptiness]

Though I can appreciate the rejection of close-minded orthodoxy, I think the quote from DGS is being somewhat taken out of context. It ended saying:

 

Although catharsis of angst is always appreciated, in a higher prospective, the person cannot handle the energy going through because their understanding and tempering is not there. When the mastery of vortexes is accomplished with the oldest traditional practice, it becomes a beautiful dance of vortexes called Baguazhang, coiling and uncoiling with the Tao originating from Wu Chi.

 

Seems this is speaking about a beginner with no experience of qi work. I think if you know how to ground qi after a practice, to move with it in sort of a friendly way (versus controlling way or ignoring it), and give proper respects for any spiritual assistance that may have been involved (I think generally a thank you to 3 realms of heaven, earth, and humanity/ancestors), then you are not so likely to experience this "kundalini illness" like effect.

 

So if you have been taught shaking traditions of the Kalahari Bushmen then you would have a very different relationship to this energy than someone who has not developed any relationship or familiarity with their internal energies. Seems to me that this was more what the author had in mind, but I can't speak for them, of course.

 

Nonetheless, I'm sure the training from that lineage would be, by far, the most efficacious and advantageous way to practice a "beautiful dance of vortexes" .

Edited June 23, 2012 by Harmonious Emptiness

[sean]

i am all for spontaneous expression but i dont want to be like a fish flopping around out of the water either.

 

this is dualistic bullshit:

 

...

 

Ecstatic shaking radically encourages the practice of wild shamanism, wild religion, wild spirituality, and wild transformative performance. This does not refer to trivial, irresponsible, or unethical behavior.

 

the final sentence (bolded by me) might be called out as a kind of dualism by another (e.g., someone "wilder"), no? in fact this last caveat might be more or less synonymous with what zerostao meant. particularly with its inclusion of the word "trivial".

 

sean