What style of Bagua do you practice?

[Eight_Triagram_Boxer]

I'd like to know what style of Bagua the people of this forum practice... Just want a general census.
Sorry if I forgot any names...
(If other, please list)

[Daniel Madar]

I practiced ba xing bagua, which is from Liu Feng Chun, who according to Tung's tombstone, Tung Hai Chuan's last student.

[Eight_Triagram_Boxer]

I was going to put Liu but I don't know many practitioners so I figured it'd be ok. Figures someone studies that lineage...
What are some characteristics of Liu's style that differ from other lineages?

[count]

Actually my style is count style. What my teacher teaches me he learned from his teacher, Liu Yun Chaio. Grandmaster Liu learned bagua from Gong Bao Tien. Gong Bao Tien learned bagua fron Yin Fu who learned from Dong directly. But you already knew this.;)

[Scarletmantis]

What about Sun style? Zhang Zhang Kuei? I met someone at a tourny who claimed to study Dong style. Too bad I didn't think to question his lineage. It would've been interesting to know who that cat had learned from.

[Daniel Madar]

Characteristics of Liu...

Well, lets see. I am far from the bagua encyclopedia, but...

Liu Feng Chun was already a high-level hsing-i practitioner (so I am told) when he began bagua.

This has a few effects.

1. When walking the circle, the guard hand is held down, so it looks almost like San Ti. Every other style of Bagua I have seen has it held up guarding the chest.

2. There are 8 separate forms, hence the name ba (8) xing (forms). They are not palm changes, each form contains completely unique techniques, and represents a different method. These are: Dragon, Lion, Tiger, Bear, (oh my), monkey, hawk, unicorn/horse, and **** (the fightitng kind). The basic form is dragon, and it contains the 8 palms, though not overtly, and in very different format than most commonly played. The first palm looks similar, but after that its no wheres close.

3. Our kicks are done high, to the point of hitting ourselves in the forehead. As a result it is frequently mistaken for contemporary wushu.

4. Our stepping methods seem significantly different as well, but its a big hard to describe.

Uh, I guess thats it for now. I started to get into it, but could not overcome some mental blocks, so I dropped it to lend time to my main style.

[cherrypraxis]

1) Why are your "kicks done high"?

2) also, from what little xing yi i have seen, it seems that the walking is a lot different from ba gua walking (i say this also considering that ba gua walking from lineage to lineage might be different from each other as xing yi walking might be different from lineage to lineage); my question is, how different is your walk compared to ba gua styles that you've seen? if you could describe the kind of walking other ba gua styles have, that would also be great.

[Daniel Madar]

I actually cant describe how the method of walking is different. I do know that it is, but I never payed detailed attention to other peoples walking to compare. Once I realized they were not analogous, I figured I would just concentrate on my own.

Kicks down high. The kicks are done high for three reasons. Because if you can kick high, you can always kick low, it promotes the necessary level of flexibility, and it prevents the development of short jing. For the last one, look at it as the follow through in hitting a baseball. When you practice batting, you dont stop the bat at the point of impact, you swing it all the way through to give it extra power.

In combat terms, the kicks are targetted low, but in practice we kick high.

[Eight_Triagram_Boxer]

Jiang is still most popular. In the US the growing trend is towards Yin Style. Lately everyone is teaching some sort of Yin or Gong Baotien style...

[Daniel]

Hello,
I have studied and still practice Jiang & Cheng Bagua, I am currently beging to work on the Jiulong Basic Principles.

Daniel