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View Full Version : Comparative views on Bagua instructional tapes?



Stranger
04-04-2001, 03:27 PM
Has anybody viewed Adam Hsu and/or Michael Patterson and/or Plum Flower Press's bagua videos? Opinions?

"Luminous beings are we."

TaoBoxer
04-05-2001, 03:50 AM
Adam Hsu's tapes are pretty straight forward and unimaginative. I am not saying they aren't good....they are. As near as I can tell from them, Mr. Hsu's take on ba gua is very quick, direct and to the point (Can anyone say BaJi??). It makes his ba gua look pretty linear and head-on. Not a criticism....just an observation. My only criticism is that the guy TALKS FOREVER!!!!!!

Mike Pattersons Ba Gua tapes are GREAT. I loved them. His instruction is clear and unambigious and his applications are quite advanceds and VERY good. He demonstrates some pole exerscises to teach you sticking.... I taught them to myself off of the tape and I love to do them as a solo exerscise.

I haven't seen Ted Mancuso's tapes from plumflower.

Jin
04-05-2001, 04:28 AM
Yeah He kinda talks 2 much at the beginning.!(Adam Hsu).

Take care

Jin


:D

wujidude
04-05-2001, 01:07 PM
Ted Mancuso's one tape on bagua primarily demonstrates the 8 palm changes of Jiang Rongqiao's form. As an overview, the tape is pretty good. Mancuso is Plum Publications, not Plumflower Press.

Plumflower Press has a number of different bagua tapes. The one by Sun on Cheng style bagua is nice if you speak Mandarin . . . which fortunately I had someone with me when watching and practicing from the tape who did. Again, it's mostly form and basics, not really applications, but it talks about the different bagua energies and how they manifest in the palm changes.

Xie Peiqi's series of tapes are pretty thorough and seem really good to me, although I don't practice Yin style. Seems to me the applications shown are pretty straightforward.

I agree with TaoBoxer's assessment of Adam Hsu's bagua tapes. I don't think bagua is Hsu's primary or favorite art (he knows and teaches a wide range of martial arts), and TB is right on in seeing a baji flavor in Hsu's rendering of bagua. Kind of interesting, actually . . . you hear about how Dong Haichuan adapted his teaching of bagua to the martial art backgrounds of his students . . . you can see baji come through in the way Hsu moves in bagua.

Plumflower Press also has Park Bok Nam's 2 videotapes, which for me remain one of the best presentations of bagua basics on the market.

Chris at Plumflower Press has trained with both Park's and Xie Peiqi's groups, although I'm not sure how much, so he may have something specific to recommend if you catch him on the phone.

wujidude
04-05-2001, 01:14 PM
**** didn't mean to skip over Patterson's bagua tapes. I like them . . . he repeats a fair amount of material between the two tapes, but they are still worth studying to me. It's kinda strange, but I actually prefer Patterson's bagua tapes to his xingyi tapes (which are fine). Patterson is obviously known more for his xingyi than his bagua (or taiji or liuhebafa), but I like the way he moves in demonstrating bagua applications. He explains things pretty clearly.

He also is the only one I've seen demonstrate those pole exercises. When I think of pole training in bagua, I guess I think more of fixed posts in the ground. The pole training that Patterson demonstrates is an interesting way to practice sensitivity while moving, sort of rou shou with an inanimate object. It also can be interesting training for using a staff (the only tape I've seen specifically demonstrating bagua staff form and applications is Jerry Alan Johnson's).

RAF
04-05-2001, 07:47 PM
Regarding Adam Hsu, I think his tapes are best used in conjunction with a seminar. I wrote to Marie Anthony and told her that I wished the entire forms were demonstrated so you could see the flavor of the forms and that the overdubbing was annoying. I hope some of you might send her an e-mail and provide some feedback for future tapes. I am told that Adam Hsu is a wealth of knowledge and he is very straightforward. I also heard that his longfist and pi gua were his primary specialities and you can learn a great deal from his seminars.

On the opposite end of the spectrum, my own teacher, Tony Yang, prepared a teachng video of xiao kai men, for our seminars. The drawback is that there is very little talking and we did not use a professional studio or dubbing. However we demonstrated each move from 4 angles, then put the form together both back shot and front shot, show some training exercises (little explanation) and then show the applications. You could pick up the xiao kai men. We teach it linear and then show how to do it piece by piece in the circle, so you can see how the linear is later tranformed into the circle. Please note that this is a very elementary but critical form.

I have watched Mike Patterson's clips and think that his stuff is A+. Although I have never seen the pole exercise, it makes great sense.

How about Yang Jwing Ming and Liang shou Yu? I have other tapes by Yang Jwing Ming and I bet they have a bagua tape out. Although I can't follow their lineage, the stuff they show in the book matches up closely to some things that I have learned.

Su Yu Chang is supposed to have some bagua tapes out but I haven't seen them. I have seen clips when he was in his late 20s early 30s doing 8 mother palms and he is really good.

I am very interested in the Xie Pie tapes. I recently saw a couple of his American students doing the noncircular (linear, almost) and they really looked good