Xingyibagua Online Video Course Beta - 3 Slots Open

[GreytoWhite]

Right now I'm working on some of the beginner's videos for our style. These are information rich and we expect you to practice certain things for a minimum amount of time before moving on to the next thing. Already Aetherous and spiraltao have had a chance to look at and practice some of the material. Most of this beta material is assuming that you have some martial or qigong familiarity. I'm willing to open it up to the first three people familiar with Google Drive who PM me here. You will get early access to material that will be publicly available in the next few months on our YouTube channel for people interested in starting a martial xingyibagua practice.

 

What you'll get from this:

 

Preparatory exercises for stepping and arm twisting

Turning Exercise rib opening neigong from the xingyi

Bear Standing and its accompanying movement exercises from the xingyi

Lion Plays with Ball exercise from our bagua

Crushing/Wood fist from our xingyi

Splitting/Metal fist from our xingyi

Dragon standing from our bagua

Natural step circle walking basics in Dragon stance

180 degree reversals for both fists and in circle walking

 

I still have to film the bagua portions of the beta. I will expect weekly feedback and please feel free to hit me with any questions. This material is equal to what we normally introduce new in-person students to within the first two or three lessons and usually expect someone to work almost strictly on this material for a minimum of three months.

I will be teaching this material but all further material will include other long term students of my sifu, his son, and sifu himself. Anything after this that is not publicly available on YouTube will only be available for subscription students. For those unable to afford training we will announce scholarship slots but we have not yet finalized the qualifications for such.

[GreytoWhite]

Vajra Fist, Uroboros, and tyu40 are the three beta testers for this. I will be PMing you all shortly.

[Aetherous]

I've played around with a couple of the exercises now...the arm twisting preparatory and the turning exercise. Good stuff!

I was personally really impressed with the way that the arm twisting exercise is "designed" - that precise angle hitting the scapula just-so.

[Gerard]

I've played around with a couple of the exercises now...the arm twisting preparatory and the turning exercise. Good stuff!

 

 

Please....circle walking. Forget about the arms and turning. Legs, legs, legs until they start looking thick and wide.

 

Rigorous training and a conservative approach to teaching (thumbs up!!)

 

Ma Gui advocated a rigorous approach to training with a heavy emphasis on developing extraordinary lower leg strength. According to current Ma Gui Style Baguazhang teacher Li Baohua, "The Baguazhang passed on by Ma Gui emphasizes the lower basin walking, so his lower legs were extremely thick. Lower basin walking means that the strength of the whole body is concentrated on the lower legs and feet, using the hidden strength of the bones and tendons. Ma Gui's lower legs were so developed that the shin bone was completely protected by tissue. He often had Liu Wanchuan (Li Baohua's grandmaster) look at his shins, and would occasionally allow people to hit them with wooden or iron staffs ( )

 

2. The majority of Ma Gui's leg training was not done through walking at such an extremely low level, but rather was cultivated by countless hours of his system's "bear walking:" slow concentrated circle-walking in a horse stance that dramatically transforms the large tendon lines from neck to feet and strengthens the entire body.

 

3. He refused to modify his teachings to make them easier and felt that "anyone who felt the skill was too difficult to learn SHOULD NOT BE TAUGHT IN THE FIRST PLACE." (This is pure gold!!)

 

We need more teachers like Ma Gui and less pyjamas (Tai Chi suit) and fancy moves that honestly turn practitioners into 'pimps.' (please take no offence).

 

Ma Gui

 

The Wheel of Pain

 

Walk like the following video, slowly and mindfully for one hour or so 6 days a week for two years minimum. One Palm only. After two years pick up another Palm and start all over again. Watch the mind and after training how what changes are you experiencing and underlying negative patterns that are deeply rooted in the Mind. These cause negative karma, Bagua will slowly remove them. But it takes time, patience and consistent practice.

 

Tree circle walking

 

 

He Jinghan a real, conservative and excellent Bagua teacher. I highly recommend him.

 

1. Low stance Baiko walking

2. Low stance circle walking

 

Especially now in our modern world where Descending the Qi (too much thinking, computer activity, poor sitting habits, eating too fast, eating and doing other things, not enough moving) has become a major cause of disease.

 

This conservative and rough approach is what delivers the goods.

 

The simpler and less fancy the training...THE BETTER!!!!

 

Happy training.

Edited November 17, 2016 by Gerard

[GreytoWhite]

Gerard... :/ Why must you make these long, distracting posts in my threads? This is NOT a general discussion of bagua and I feel that your post is dismissive even if you don't intend it to be. We work hard and have very specific methods. While I have great respect for Li Baohua he does something different.

 

We are a xingyibagua style and xingyi is the primary engine. The bagua is a modified version of Jiang Rong Qiao's Old Frame so it is different from most Jiang style on video and requires some familiarity with the various jins of xingyi. Each palm combines the five elements in various ways. We only have the 8 Mother Palms xing zhuang stances, the 8 Turning Palms, a few stepping methods, and some select neigong from the bagua curriculum.

 

The xingyi is also a heavily modified Hebei style that has some unique neigong. Much of the xingyi was modified so that the bagua and xingyi feedback into each other. Body changing is extremely important to us and there is an explicit and systematic method to first build structure, train the jin, then bones, breath, mind, and spirit.

 

Advanced practitioners eventually practice the 12 Animals whilst circle walking. Something that's rather unique in our system is the Double Butterfly neigong that is described as the encyclopedia of power. It requires one to already have a considerable neigong development as it involves spiraling individual fingers in minute manner to activate multiple dantians.

 

Kenny Gong's style is unique and very "high level." My sifu sacrificed a career and devoted over two decades to understand this style. Studying in New York initially with Master Gong for two years he then moved here to Phoenix and devoted himself to training with a certified instructor of the style here. He then traveled across the United States to train with Master Gong's senior students. He also regularly took sabbaticals from society to practice in nature. Sifu's son is a perfect example of this system's powerful effects. At 21 years old he often is a match or stronger in internal power than many gong fu artists with as many years experience as his father.

 

Advice from outside styles, while interesting, is largely a distraction and will only slow progress for those who truly wish to develop.

[Gerard]

Hi dear friend,

 

Because Bagua belongs to the world!!

 

I am not trying to hijack or troll anything not even in a film or a smartphone discussion forum. I live by a strong moral and ethical code.

 

But when I see students talking about the branches instead of developing a strong foundation, then I like to step in and help them realise about their mistake so later on they don't have to undo their errors and start all over again.

 

Why?

 

Because I did the same thing!! I wasted precious years learning silly forms.

 

Bagua is Bagua regardless of style. Advice from outside styles is actually good! The entire Chinese civilisation is a blend of good things: Buddhism, Taoism, Confucianism, Shamanism...

 

What GM Dong Haichuan passed on to his students was based on basic circle walking while holding static palms added to the students' background:

 

Yin Fu...Luohan Quan (Shaolin style)

Cheng Tinghua...Shuai Jiao (Chinese wrestling)

Shi Shidong...Tan Tui (Springing Legs)

 

Foundation training is the most important aspect of Xingyi, Bagua or Tai Chi.

 

Another reminder of two excellent articles:

 

Developing the ‘Basics’; And the Before Basic Basics

The Five Basic Shaolin Stances – In no particular order

Foundation training

 

 

Best

Edited November 18, 2016 by Gerard

[Gerard]

This is NOT a general discussion of bagua...xingyi is the primary engine.

My bad. Sometimes my fire horse nature gets in the way and I might come across as being too patronising, which is not the case.

 

Santi Shi then should be the foundation exercise as clearly discussed and emphasised in the following link:

 

http://www.ycgf.org/Articles/XY_SanTiShi/XY_SanTiShi.html

 

My teacher once told me: when I first got started training with my uncle I did Santi and nothing else. I rode my bicycle for nearly an hour to attend class, stand in Santi in the park that was facing the Indian Ocean for as long as I could remember, until I forgot who I was and that I was standing, then back again to reality and the fact that I was there rooted to the ground like a tree. This was in Perth, Western Australia.

 

He told me this story when I was asking him all the time to teach me Long Xing Zhang aka Dragon Form Bagua. He then said: Form training won't give you gongfu, deep skill.

 

I should have engraved those words on my bedroom wall as a reminder!

 

Edited November 18, 2016 by Gerard

[joeblast]

My bad. 

 

He then said: Form training won't give you gongfu, deep skill.

 

I should have engraved those words on my bedroom wall as a reminder!

 

no bad when gems like this come out of clarifying conversation

 

I dont feel bad that I have continually forgotten the sequence of palms and the more downstream palm changes...why?  because the yin style bagua that lin showed me starts out with its first form  with a veritable zhan zhuang stance for the upper body, just turned a la the circle... and the next two palms cement the center of the circle, then downward sinking.  I found such a wealth of work to be done with the first nevermind the second and third.....what's the 4th again?  I dont remember, I'm still walking and enjoying the first ones - maybe I'd have progressed further if bagua was a main thing of mine, but then again it doesnt necessarily logically follow that since one has memorized more palm changes then he has necessarily "made more progress."  

Edited November 18, 2016 by joeblast

[GreytoWhite]

Aye, santi (Cantonese - saam choy) is extremely important in our style but one will not understand it without the complementary neigong exercises and the rest of the system. It truly is holistic and telling someone to focus on something without familiarity with a specific style is silly. We focus a lot on rib power for beginners. Opening the rib cage allows power from the center to travel to the hands. In our society a lot of people are very tense in the shoulders and clavicular girdle from overuse of technology and bad posture. I'm a stroke survivor and find the Turning Exercise to be more and more helpful the more I practice.

 

The first few exercises we teach are designed to open the ribs, relax the shoulders and clavicular girdle, and sink the energy through the Conception Vessel down to lower dantian. One cannot help but ground energy with the first neigong exercise we teach. It's often not a good idea to teach santi too early as many of our beginners are very tight and cannot feel the energy flow. Our santi shi is also a slightly different posture and different focus than most Hebei styles.

 

Beng quan is more martially applicable right away and it is also one of the best options to setup another strike or throw. We want people to be able to use at least some of it from the very beginning. In training a few months back I literally picked up my younger gong fu brother a good 2 feet off the ground and sent him flying. He had asked about something sifu showed me and I told him it's not something he could really get much from until he practiced it more but he insisted on feeling it and flew away.

Our Bear Standing (tree holding) and its accompanying exercises is what we use to develop structure and articulation in the torso. The santi and Pi quan are simultaneously basic and advanced but other qualities also need to be developed alongside them. The back descending hand in Pi quan really makes much more sense after some time put in Bear. Our training methodology is very specific and becomes very advanced. Since we can't constantly provide someone with in-person kinesthetic feedback we also have to provide basics that are functional from the get go and easier to understand visually.

 

By no means am I a master or even qualified to be an assistant instructor. Sifu usually has the students with over a year in teach the beginners and then focuses on working with certain corrections and giving the more experienced students insight. He would be the one posting here if not for internal lineage politics and his occasional lack of patience. We very much depend on synesthesia at the higher levels of the art and most martial artists will dismiss this.