Ba Duan

[EARTH DRAGON]

Have you used this in your training? Also what do you think of it?

[Tainan Mantis]

When my teacher was invited to teach kung fu at the Tainan police station he taught this.
I think he chose this because he thought the cops there were too fat and out of shape.
At first I thought wow, I finally get to learn this, but then I thought what is the point?

!8 Lohan of 7* is 100 times better for me. Maybe some old people who are out of shape could use this.
But then again it is very famous. Maybe there is something special about it that I missed?

But even in our yoga we have continuous jumping, kicking and shouting that should make your heart race and sweat run.

So in conclusion it seems like a stretch to do when you are sick and can't do anything else.

Other opinions?

[EARTH DRAGON]

I have always wondered about the effectivness of ba duan. It seems that not many people know what it is. I was showed by my shr fu that in mantis once you are locked up with your opponent and you have no other way to attack you turn your body into a weapon, utilizing head butts, shoulder checks and various body attacks. We do have 8 body contacts and even dip into iron body conditioning to aid in ba duan but I was just wondering who else has used this or that practicies it in their styles.........Fat cops would probably just knock you down as opposed to knock you out!!!!!

[Tainan Mantis]

Oops,I thought you were talking about something totally different.

[Mantis9]

Could you please explain Ba Duan to us? Perhaps, I know it, but haven't retain the chinese for it. Stranger things have been know to happen.

[EARTH DRAGON]

Ba duan is the term for praying mantis when all other techniques have failed and you are locked up with your opponent, you turn your body into a weapon using ba duan strikes like using your hip to knock your opponent over or use your shoulder or knee to make the root unstable. it is not really taught to the general and not ever mentioned in applications but it does exsist, and I was hoping to discuss it with you guys but I am finding it diffacult to find others knowledge on it.....

[Tainan Mantis]

This is the complete name for what you are talking about. Sorry about the mix-up.

Here is the list
1. head elbow (they are all called...elbow)
2. mouth
3. neck
4. shoulder
5. flank -rib to armpit
6. buttocks
7. knee
8. back

So how do you use the neck elbow as an offensive weapon? Don't forget, you can't use the head or it will be called the head elbow.

[Hua Lin Laoshi]

The mouth can bite but the neck and buttocks don't exactly instill fear. Well, maybe the buttocks. Passing gas seems to come up quite often in the old Kung Fu flicks. ;)

[EARTH DRAGON]

I would think using the buttocks would be for knocking your opponet off balance. I do not know how the neck is used but I have done some excersises where we used to the knee shoulder and head. I was also curious about the effeicentcy of such techniques as hua lin said how fierce can you be using your back or butt?????

[Oso]

I have learned this kind of stuff but not with the name "ba duan".
It was taught at medium levels (4-5 years) and the trick i've
developed is a 'butt bump' that has sent people backwards for a
couple of feet (sorry, no 30' projections :rolleyes: ) enough to give
me some breathing room.

In the tai tzu I've been taught there is a whole set of techniques
using knees, hips, shoulder and head to attack and off balance
the opponent. The head is referred to as the 3rd fist.

so...with the link to Chao Kuan Yin in the PM poem, first line I think
could ba duan have been influenced from tai tzu???

Matt

[Oso]

oh, we also do a defense against a rear bear hug by sharply
arching the back to strike the attacker ( a hugger of course:D )
this is done BEFORE the arms have completely encircled you.

and come to think of it, almost every time we enter tightly the
knees are striking their legs...................

hmmm, I guess we lost the 'set' of ba duan but have certainly trained with the concepts it presents.

[mantis108]

Of course the neck, the buttocks and the thighs can be used. Not necessarily as striking tools but in grappling situations they are pretty effective. They (your opponents tools) can also be your tickets out too.

In case you wonder, yes we do have these tools in TJPM Sau Fa.

Mantis108

[Tainan Mantis]

So how do you use the neck?

[mantis108]

Well, the neck is like a linesman of American football. He will most likely never touches the ball; however, without a strong linesman the team's chance of winning will be very low too. The neck actually works together either with the shoulders (trapping) or the head (striking). Either case a strong neck is important.

Mantis108

[EARTH DRAGON]

Tainan what does fen shen mean ?

oso have you found ba duan to be effective?
mantis 108 so your talking about using ba duan on your opponets body, interesting

[Oso]

Earth Dragon,
Yes, I feel they are effective. As I've been thinking of this over
the last day or so I think I can readily come up with techniques
for every item listed by Tainan Mantis: mostly striking to
off-balance or aid other techniques although I will say that I had
the chance to push hands with one of Sifu Funk's students, now
a sifu himself, and he did a nice and very subtle shoulder roll that
struck me in the jaw. At a higher level of contact it would have
certainly dazed me more than enough for neil to have followed up
with whatever he wanted.

in most tai chi forms doesn't the 'slant flying' move strike with
the 'flank' or ribs ??

in quite a lot of our throws, we enter their base with a deep
horse where the angle of our thigh cuts accross the back of their
leg to take out their base.


like i said, most of these concepts were taught to me within
other techniques as aids or set ups and I'm now looking back
to see what sort of rhyme or reason their might be........

gotta go to work, 6am here

Matt

[mantis108]

Earth Dragon,

The weakness of Baat Duen is quite obvious. Let's play with the list provided by Tainan Mantis. :)

Here is the list

1. head elbow (they are all called...elbow)
The body must go where the head goes. There's nothing to do about that. :D So there are lot of ways to control the head not just strike at. At least, there are 4-5 "face mask" available for controling.

2. mouth
Fish hook is obvious. To me the mouth would include the chin and jaws (displacement) as well. For this, check out Jet Li's Fist of Legend. ;) Also not to forget the acupoint right under the base of the nose.

3. neck
Again quite a few points and nerves here. When use properly, it would make the job very effortlessly.

4. shoulder
4 to 5 places and acupoints to play with. The results are quite "amazing" (at least to the first timers) :D

5. flank -rib to armpit
I can tell you that the first time I learned the TJPM Bung Bo I felt odd about a move that is protecting or rather literally covering the armpits. But as we go on, I am very aware what could happen to an exposed armpit. LOL...

6. buttocks
To stop a hip throw, control the buttocks. It sounds kind of "you know what" ;) but it is most simple and effective.

7. knee
I don't thinK I need to explain this.

8. back
Now, this is obvious to seasoned Mantis stylists.

So Baat Duen like the sword is double edged. They can hurt others and they can hurt you too.

Mantis108

[Hua Lin Laoshi]

It's obvious that all those areas are good attack points but I believe the intent of the thread was whether they can be used effectively to attack. Does anyone have any insight into how these areas can be used for attack? How about defensively?

[Old Mantis]

Hua Lin Laoshi,

"Ba duan" (8 short body parts) are primarily used as offensive techniques in Plum Blossom Praying Mantis. However, the "neck elbow" (bo zhou) can be also used defensively.

That is as far as I will go in publicly explaining the applications of the "Ba duan" (8 short body parts/elbows).

Some of these techniques are relatively straight-forward, others are nearly impossible to glean from their names. All of these are only transmitted orally and are kept in secret within the Plum Blossom Praying Mantis Boxing tradition.

Therefore, there are very few people who can accurately explain, teach and use these techniques (even in China).

[EARTH DRAGON]

old mantis
that is what I am talking about my shrfu taught them to us , and I was wondering who else had this knowledge for most higher level applications he says keep for ourselves and not share for they are also secrets.

[Tainan Mantis]

Earth Dragon,
Fen Shen directly translates to "divide-body."

Mantis108,
Your explanation of ba duan is the exact opposite of mine if I understood you correctly.
You define these 8 points as places to attack? It seems that you have defined it in two completely different ways in your different posts.
That is a new paradigm.

But your last post doesn't follow the meaning of zhou as I understand it which, loosely translated, is pointy edge. This would be a technical term for MA only and not known to non PM people.
Oso said they use the term fist instead of elbow. Must be the same idea.

These techniques can be found in the basic 2 man exercises of PM as well as many other styles.

Hua Lin Laoshr,
I'm also not sure about the neck.
For the buttocks:
-a short distance strike that carries the mass of the entire body against the opponents butt or thighs. Like Earth Dragon and Oso said can be used for knocking your opponent off balance.

Earth Dragon,
Back:
You probably have some throws that use the back as a lever instead of the butt. As well as falling on your opponent with yuor back.
-To use the back as a weapon we have a basic hitting exercise.

A:Outside in kick(bai lien jiao or bai lien tuei) to opponents back
B: As back is hit fill it with air and hunch. So B learns to have the same power in his back strike as A does in his kick.
- This strike with the back can be used against someones chest or abdomen when they try to hug you from behind like Oso said. It won't kill them, but allows better follow ups.

Oso,
What about the neck?

Old Mantis,
You are so secretive. How about some little hint for using the neck? Pretty please?

On the Panther tape with my teacher and Yang Feng Shr they show part of a basic 2 man form for what we have been talking about. No neck though.

[EARTH DRAGON]

Mantis108, I am in agrence with tainanmantis in that ba duan is what you hit with not where you hit. it basically goes when you are tied up which happens many times in praying mantis, you resort to using the body to attack. It is akward at first but if you limit you arsenal to only the limbs then you are missing all the weapons of the trunk, which ca work well for getting out of a tight situation

[mantis108]

Hi Tainan Mantis and Earth Dragon,

Well, the key word to my post was "play" . I borrowed the list from Tainan Mantis and work with it. It was not meant to be a classical PM lesson in anyway. My point was only to think outside of the box sometimes. I thought that experienced PM stylists (there are quite a few of you here) have already work with these stuff before so looking at them at a different angle would be fun too. Seems like I am off topic there. Well sorry for the confusion, my friends. :D

Mantis108

[EARTH DRAGON]

No problem brother mantis 108, sometimes us old guys have spent so much time in the box we dont think theres life beyond it.... but it's nice to get reminded that there is many sides to learning and understanding for when you close off your insight you close off your mind........

[Oso]

I can't figure out how to use the neck as an offensive striking
weapon...I've been unconscious now for 2 days (ba dum dum:D )

sorry, tired.

if, at close quarters, someone has tied up with my shoulder or
upper arm or even my head or face, I will use the muscles in my
neck to power my head to trap the arm or hand and have even
been able to inflict a little bit of pain by hitting nerves in the wrist
and hand with my chin. But, nothing of a striking nature really
comes to mind.

Tianan, just to clarify, I looked back and I don't think it was me
that said the bit about the fist.

You guys fall on people too? Cool. I've seen, and felt, some
people that can get that strike with the back into someones
chest pretty dang good. It's not my forte. I think it works best
for medium sized people vs. larger (me) or smaller people. I
can't seem to get the right energy into it. Could be I just don't
train it enough :eek:

Here's a question, though off topic for this thread. I might post it
as a seperate thread: I heard someone say once that no matter
how long a student trained with a teacher and no matter how
hard that teacher tried to teach the student everything he knew,
the teacher would only be able to transmit 80% of what he had
learned from his teacher. How do you guys feel about that
statement??

Matt

[EARTH DRAGON]

Good question, I feel as though it is up to the method in which the teacher conveys his knowledge to the student. If this is done in a way that the student can comprehend and understand I feel like with proper tutaledge the student should actually surpass the teacher. That is of coarse if the teacher is willing.......