Robert Smiths bagua book

[northstar]

What is your opinion on Robert Smiths "Pa-Kua, Eight Trigram Boxing"? Is it worth buying?

[dwid]

If you already study Bagua, try to find the original edition of Smith's book, as it contains some useful information. It's been out of print for years, though, and I ended up paying almost 50 bucks for it on e-bay.

The current edition,
http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/0804816182/qid=1017066633/sr=1-19/ref=sr_1_19/002-6866269-9798423
that he co-wrote with Pittman, I believe, is none too great.

[guohuen]

Not to highjack this thread, but I also have a Bagua question. I'm not a practitioner, but I purchaced Paul Crompton's book, Walking Meditation about four years ago to see if I could pick up some Chi Gong from it. It's been helpfull. Any opinions on this book from practitioners?

[dwid]

I think Crompton has some very interesting ideas, but I'm not advanced enough in my training to validate or invalidate those. I found his ideas about Bagua working like sacral massage particularly interesting, but it's hard to empirically test this. I'm not sure I'd recommend his book as a resource for learning the mechanics of Bagua, however. Actually, no book is particularly good for this.

[Rockwood]

The first RW Smith bagua book was real good, it was all about Gao style straight line forms that he learned from Hong Yi Sheng. Also had some Sun Lu Tang Bagua circle forms at the end, as well as a bunch of good practice advise. Too bad its out of print.

Have you all seen "The Great Stillness" by BK Frantizis? That has a breakdown of Bagua Circle walking mechanics step by step that is the most thorough that I've seen.

-Jess O'Brien

[Chris McKinley]

The Smith/Pittman book is the most offensive waste of paper on the art of Baguazhang that I know of. Explanation of the art, its theory, and its strategy and tactics is almost completely absent. Instead, you get a tiny thin paperback that's more of a glorified brochure than a book with lots of pictures of Pittman doing Beijingified wushu Bagua. There's not a single hint of application to be found in it. Unfortunately, we've grown accustomed to that with all of the really crappy books on Bagua out there. But with the wushu-ish way Pittman is doing the changes, it's not even possible for the interested uninitiate to the art to even guess as to what the applications might be.

Totally pathetic, given the combined knowledge the two authors could bring to bear if they ever set their mind on writing a REAL book on Baguazhang.

[guohuen]

Thanks dwid. I haven't attempted any of the palm changes. Pretty much just walk the circle with muddy stepping and reverse direction a lot as a chi gong exercise. I also do the arm swinging, but I learned that elsewere. Found his idea about sacral massage interesting also.