Baji?

[sanchezero]

MMMkay, I know enough ABOUT taiji, pakua and hsingi to relate to people in conversation, but what is baji?

And for some reason, I feel that there is a bunch of stomping in it. Am I severely retarded?

:confused:

Thanks.

:)

[RAF]

From Guo Laoshi and Allen Chen's website. This is the best explanation of baji (you will also find pigua on their website too).


Introduction

Bajiquan originated in the southeastern villages of Cang County, in the HeBei province of China. The original name of this style seems to be "Baziquan", meaning "rake fist", possibly due to the typical shape of the fist formed when practicing this style (see right). Around the KangXi period in the Qing Dynasty, it was changed to "bajiquan", which sounded very much the same in northern Chinese dialects. This was probably due to the unsophisticated nature of the original name. There are a few interpretations of the name "bajiquan". One is to remind the practitioners of this style that the eight primary locations of the body (head, shoulders, elbows, hands, buttock, kua, knees, and feet) should have their functions trained to their extreme perfection. The other is to denote the unique characteristics of bajiquan's "internal strength", or jing, where the jings generated are always extended to the eight extreme directions.

Bajiquan is a very practical and powerful style. Its external appearance is rather simplistic while the usage of the internal body mechanics is quite sophisticated. Its notorious power is derived from the long, harsh, and often unbearable training in the basic body usage. When fighting using this style, the practitioner would approach the opponent from a long range distance to body-to-body contact distance. During the time of the closing of the distance, the eight locations of the body are continuously employed in all the directions, and every technique becomes faster and more powerful than the previous. It's a very fierce and ruthless style.

Below illustrates the application of a typical bajiquan technique "Beng", demonstrated by James Guo (in black). After the interception of the opponent's right punch, Mr. Guo shortens the range while executing a punch, setting the opponent up for the primary technique. He then enters the opponent's "outer gate", breaks the opponent's root, and executes the downward-scissoring force with the same attacking hand. This is a typical bajiquan strategy: the power from the body is released in a way that does not require one to retract the attacking hand in order to issue the follow-up strike, thus enabling the same hand to issue multiple power releases in sucession. The first punch could be used as a major strike as well as a set-up for the next.





History and Lineage

The first person that can be reliably linked to the lineage of bajiquan style is Wu Zhong. He was borned sometime in the late ShunZhi period in the early Qing Dynasty, active during the KangXi period, and died some time before the YungZheng period. According to the Cang County Historical Record (CCHR), he was a Chinese Muslim from the Mong Village in the southeastern part of the Cang County, and have been transmitted the bajiquan style and the art of lance fighting by two Daoist monks named Lai and Pi. The origins of these two monks were not clear, but it is suspected that they might have been anti-Manchurian rebels in disguise. In the early period of the Qing dynasty, many pro-Ming rebels disguised themselves as Buddhist or Daoist monks for the purpose of hiding their true identity and planning and executing underground anti-Manchurian activities. According to Baji Secret Transmission Records passed down within the lineage (destroyed during the nationalist-communist civil war), Wu Zhong was jailed for most part of his later life for anti-Manchurian activies. This seems to suggest the true identities of his two teachers.

In Wu Zhong's generation, it seemed that bajiquan and piguazhang were taught together as one integrated system. Starting from the generation after Wu Zhong, it was splitted into two separate systems, with the LuoTong Village and the surrounding area specializing in piguazhang, and the Mong Village and the surrounding area specializing in bajiquan. Wu Rong, the eldest daughter of Wu Zhong, was married into the LuoTong Village after the death of Wu Zhong. For some reason, she only teached piguazhang there and whoever was teaching around the Mong village only teached bajiquan, and it caused the split in the styles.

According to CCHR, after Wu Rong, the third generation representative in LuoTong was Zhang KeMing and Li DaZhong, who were supposed to be Wu Rong's students. However, after some calculation based on the available historical records, there was at least one generation gap between Zhang and Wu Rong, and Zhang and Li should have been the fourth generation after Wu Zhong. The fifth generation representative were Zhang JingXing (KeMing's son) and Huang SiHai, both studied under Zhang KeMing. The sixth generation representatives were Zhang YuHeng (JingXing's son) and Han HuaChen, both studied under Zhang JingXing.

Because at the time the CCHR was revised (around 1933) Grandmaster Li ShuWen and Grandmaster Liu YunCiao were traveling in the ShangDong Province, the information in the Record was probably obtained from Han HuaChen, a bajiquan teacher in the LuoTong Village. Most of the information recorded were about people in the LuoTong Village, and there was very little information on those teaching around the Mong or other villages in the Cang County. Therefore, it was not clear who were the second generation bajiquan practitioners other than Wu Rong.

Grandmaster Liu's teacher, Li ShuWen, learned his bajiquan and lance skills from Jin DianSheng of Mong Village's Jin family. The CCHR said Grandmaster Li studied under Huang SiHai in LuoTong. It may have been referring to the study of piguazhang, and not bajiquan. According to the Jin family descendents, the first person to have been famous in the style was Jin MingQi, who was borned around 1785, about 30 years earlier than Zhang KeMing's generation. It is possible that Jin MingQi might have learned the style from one of Wu Zhong's students in the Mong Village.

Grandmaster Li ShuWen (1864 - 1934), a.k.a. "God of Spear", was borned in the ZhangSha Village (the CCHR made a mistake in stating that he was from the NanLiang Village) of Cang County. Because of his fame in his incredible power and the fact that he was never defeated, he had quite a number of students. Many of them were already skilled in other styles of martial arts. For example, many piguazhang practitioners from the LuoTong Village came to him to study bajiquan, like Han HuaChen, Ma YingTu, Ma FongTu, Zhou ShuDe and so on. These four people were responsible for introducing a condensed bajiquan style in the Central Martial-Art Academy in Nanjing during the early Republic period. Some of Li's disciples were also then-famous warlord generals, such as Li JingLin, Ren GuoDong, Zhang XiangWu, Na YuKuen, Liu HuChen, and Liu XuDong. Grandmaster Li's first disciple, Huo DianGe, later became the bodyguard and the teacher of China's Last Emperor, FuYi. In Li's later years, he lived in Grandmaster Liu's home for more than 10 years at the family's request as a live-in guest and martial art teacher for the young Liu YunQiao. Grandmaster Liu became the last, and closed-door disciple of Li ShuWen for more than 10 years until Li's death in 1934.


Copyright © 2001 by JiFeng Martial Art Club

[sanchezero]

You mean pigua isn't just another spelling of pakua? :mad: :( :)

Oy vey.

[RAF]

No Pigua Zhang is its own system and nothing like bagua.

http://www.bajimen.com/

Here is a clip of the baji/pigua combination form performed by Tony Yang:

http://www.wutangcenter.com/videos.htm

[GeneChing]

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KfNmWXhks2M

Baji (http://www.kungfumagazine.com/forum/showthread.php?10287-Baji) @ KUNG FU TAI CHI 25TH ANNIVERSARY FESTIVAL (http://www.kungfumagazine.com/forum/showthread.php?69762-KUNG-FU-TAI-CHI-25TH-ANNIVERSARY-FESTIVAL-May-19-21-2017-San-Jose-CA)