The eight gates - techniques or principles?

[Martin2]

Hey Tai Chi-friends,

several times I saw here in discussions, that the eight gates (peng, lü, ji, an, cai, lie, zhou and kao) can be used as an techniques or seen as an principle and some mentioned here also, as both at the same time.

I learned it that way too - they are both: technique and principle

So I wrote a little article about it:

http://taichi-philosophy.blogspot.de...niques-or.html

Enjoy reading

Martin

[Matthew]

Hey Tai Chi-friends,

several times I saw here in discussions, that the eight gates (peng, lü, ji, an, cai, lie, zhou and kao) can be used as an techniques or seen as an principle and some mentioned here also, as both at the same time.

I learned it that way too - they are both: technique and principle

So I wrote a little article about it:

http://taichi-philosophy.blogspot.de...niques-or.html

Enjoy reading

Martin

Thanks for sharing, nice website you have and clearly you've spent a great amount of time for the benefit of others writing it.

I've only spent a minuscule amount of time with tai-chi teachers, so forgive me for not knowing very well the context of these terms in tai chi.

It seems like most of these are both techniques, and maybe extrapolatable to strategies, but I don't know how some could be more than a technique/strategy. Perhaps you could elaborate what you mean about them being principles. I could only imagine principle in terms of bodily principles (e.g. postural, concentrative, etc)

It seems to me that many of these can be principles and techniques as well (e.g. peng could be combined and applied as a technique, but might also be a bodily principle), but maybe not a strategy.

Zhou and Kao stand out to me as the oddest in the bunch, as specific techniques (and perhaps strategies), but what do they inform your bodily principle?

[Tainan Mantis]

Hey Tai Chi-friends,

several times I saw here in discussions, that the eight gates (peng, lü, ji, an, cai, lie, zhou and kao)

Thanks for posting the article.
I had a question about your term for gate men.
In the Tai Ji Quan Jue the manuscript that starts off with the phrase, Longfist; like the Yangzi river or great ocean... chang quan zhe, ru chang jiang da hai, in it's mention of peng, lu, ji, an... subsumes them under the eight trigrams, not eight gates. Why did you place peng, lu, ji, an... under eight gates and not under eight trigrams?

[MarathonTmatt]

Discussing the 8 gates IMO is important. This is a principle found not only in Tai Chi, but also Longfist. "The 8 gates of the body must be unified." You are right, it is both a action philosophy and to be applied to the movements, I don't think this is hard to grasp.

Even though I am a student myself I think that all students should train with these principles in mind, without the 8 gates than there really isn't any good kung fu (skill) that will come of it.

[Martin2]

@ Matthew

Great post - "principle" I used, because it is often used in this content. It makes sense with this definition:

"A principle is a law or rule that has to be, or usually is to be followed."

So e.g. zhou can be a certain technique - just a movement

or

zhou is the idea that it is best to use the elbow under certain circumstances.

Also have a look here: http://taichi-philosophy.blogspot.de...bow-power.html

But I have to say the word "strategies" of you I really love and I think it is very good one for it.
THX for that.

All the best



@ Tainan Mantis

The term eight gates (bamen) is the classical Tai Chi term for peng, lü, …
But you are right, in the Classics the eight gates are correlated to the eight trigrams (bagua).

All the best


@ MarathonTmatt

Thx - it is for me the same.

[SPJ]

We may ascribe 8 skills to 8 directions or 8 gates of a city castle.

Peng Lu Ji An ascribed to 4 fronts. North, south, east and west.

Cai Lie Zhou Kao ascribed to 4 corners. South west, north west, south east and north east.

This is a simplification of a general classification.

Ba gua zhang was called ba men first.

That is a total different story.