I was on a Taiwanese website about imperial Ba-Gua Chuan. It mentions that this particular style passed down through Dong Hai-Chuan, Yin-Fu, to Gong Bao-Tien among the imperial bodyguards is somewhat different and purer than other Ba-Gua styles that were taught publicly. It also claims that Dong "Held back" some aspects of his Ba-Gua to the outside students because he did not want the potential enemies or assasins to use it against him and the emperor. I find this argument to be somewhat prejudiced. Any thoughts on that???

I think the relevent question would be: are the people practicing "Imperial" Ba Gua today 'deadlier' than practitioners of other styles of Ba Gua? My next question would be: if Dong Hai Chaun suspected a student of being a potential enemy or an assassin, why would he teach them at all?

Dong: "So why do you want to study with me?"

Student: "I plan to learn Ba Gua from you, then kick your ass with it. And if I have any free time after that, I'm planning to assassinate the emperor."

Dong: "In that case, I'll teach you Ba Gua, but not the techniques that will work against me or the emperor. But at least you'll have enough Ba Gua to make a living as a teacher, OK?"

One other interesting fact. Dong Hai Chuan didn't run a strip mall dojo. He didn't teach anyone 'publicly,' he only accepted students that were already established experts in other styles (read: men of high reputation).

lol .

1. Some teachers would always hold something back so as to always be the teacher and better than the student. Often though, the teaching was not direct and the student was expected to discover some things for himself.

2. Civilians and 'warriors' were often taught different versions of the same thing as they would have different uses of it.

3. Many teachers may have taught dozens or hundreds but only very few or even only one person received the full teaching.(others didn't necessarily know that they didn't have it all)

4. Yin Fu spent much longer with Dong than any other of Dongs students, it might be presumed that his version is more like Dongs. Remember supposedly Dong taught only a few techniques, rather he taught training methods, concepts/principals which would be applied to what the student already knew, so everybody ended up with a different, but original version.

5. Occasionally political realities forced a teacher to accept as a student someone that he didn't want to teach. They would then get a modified version.

6. More likely, is that it's just advertising hype.

"Purer"
What a load of crap. Don't you guys ever get it?
Oh, here's another logical conclusion, maybe Yin Fu had to spend a lot of time with Dong because he was a dumbass and didn't get the concepts. Let's face it, the guy had some issues, just look at him. He wouldn't be on the cover of GQ, look at that Joe Stalin mustache he had.


"Remember, there's only one handsome Betty, Big Balled Betty!"

That's exactly what I thought when I saw the website. I think the guy is conceited and obsessed with the "my-style-is-better-than-yours" attitude.

Because Ba-Gua Chuan =Ba-Gua Zhang.we must not to spend the time on this

Just a weird note.
I wonder if the art of bagua I learned
in the MARINES is any different than the (I GUESS)
regular stuff? After all it was for actual combat
and not for play.Hmm?!?

P.S. watch those elbows out there.

HUH? You learned Bagua in the Marines? Strange. From who?

I am sorry to say that I cannot recall his name,
but that we called him "yes Instructor".
The mtions were very concise and possbly altered
for the equipement we had to wear.I remeber there
were lots of throwing and jointbreaking involved.
This was in the 1970's at camp pendleton,ca.
It was then that I learned the use of level
-rotational torque to cause severe damage.
Perhaps this helped me to better understand
(my) applications for the form that hal showed me.
We did no forms just 2-man fighting sets (I guess
you would call them that).Bagua was not all we were taught during my time in the Marines.
But that's not the subject here. It is not strange
or uncommon to learn asian arts/parts there-of
in the military.Thankyou for your reply and
subsequent interest. Have an nice day

Ba Gua was used in the Boxer Rebelion to kill the Jarheads, and then some how in the 70's some Chinese guy made the choice to teach the same military force?! Thats sounds like some serious selling out. Didnt Cheng Ting Hua die fighting them? I think they were Germans and not Marines, but no matter, US Marines were there too assisting all the acting imperialist nations. Dont take offence as my own father was a marine, even though it ruined his life and his relationship with all his family. But thats him and not you. Excuse my rantings. . . but wow. Personally I would not show a marine a single Judo throw!

Don't you think your dads general personality (for which you could blame his parents and earliest influences) had more to do with his ruined familial relationship rather than the marines?

There are plenty of Marines with fine, stable family lives... why your dad f*ed his up probably
had little to do with the years he gave to serve
his country.

Hi old spirit;
sorry you hold so much hate in your heart.
I can't walk in your shoes but I can say
not all MARINES are jerks as you think.
Perhaps we will meet sometime and you can see for yourself.And as far as learning in the MARINES goes you need not worry,we do your fighting for you.Be glad someone stands on that wall as you
sleep.I am.

I would much rather see my tax dollors go to education and the rest of the infrastructure than some hick in a US military uniform raping children in Japan or massacring 10,000 civilians in Panama, or Mylai, or dropping bombs on Iraq every 4 days (still happening by the way), Quatemala, Arming the Colombian military to continue the 50 year old civil war, giving Israel 80 percent of their arms to demolish Palestinians, giving Indonesia 90% of the weapons used to kill 600,000 civilians, giving war helicopters to Mexico to kill Zapatistas, killing 30,000 civilians in Laos before the Vietnam War even started, Hiroshima, Nagasaki (The death count tripled 5 years after the bombs because of the radiation), dropping over 300 nuclear bombs in the Pacific for testing, funding Bin Laden, Suddam Huessein, Norreiga (All by the same Bush mutha •••••••!), breaking the world record for having the most humans in prison in the planet (2million people in 2000), U.S. MARINES KILL 300 MEXICAN PEASANTS A YEAR WHO ILLEGALLY CROSS THE BORDER, bombing Viequez, having over 30 military bases in Puerto Rico creating the most pollution than anyone else in the island, destroying their water, air, and land, toppling every single government in South America (except for Cuba and now Venezuela), destabalizing the middle east for Bush and his Oil and Bombs cult, the destruction of Afghanastan people to run a pipe line through their land, and the military control of our TV and radio ways, Mcdonaldlizing American culture in general, ignoring the world court, etc (I could go on and on and on and on).

Maybe I would feel better about the military if they just sold one stealth fighter which would make the public colleges of NYC free forever. But ofcourse they would never do that because it is so important to have a military budget that is bigger than all of the military budgets of the world combined!

So no I dont sleep feeling safe because we have an army of uneducated pawns who violently impose the cold will of the richest leeches on Earth. I don't just believe, I know that when you sign your life and body away to their control you have surrendered all of America and all the world to their God damn "interests".

I know not all Marines are dumb machines. I know many people in the service and they are alright. Many of them are doing "Urban warfare training". When they entered they believed they were defending us but after hanging out with me for a bit they began to put two and two together and feel the same grief and shame that I share. Dont be proud, be ashamed and begin to heal yourself and others. Peace.

"... His enemies are not demons,
but humans like himself.
He doesn't wish them personal harm.
Nor does he rejoice in victory
and delight in the slaughter of men?

He enters a battle gravely,
with sorrow and with great compassion
as if he were attending a funeral."

Dont you ever, ever fight for me, because you would be killing my brother and my sister.

Old Spirit/Internal Struggle;
I am on the verge of banning you. This is your first and only warning. State your idea or rebuttal that pertains to the topic of the original thread. You did not read the rules of the board: No profanity. I had to edit your post.. Or, Take it to the Flame Room.

I studied some Imperial Palace BaGua under David Chan from www.chan-internal-martial-arts.com for about a few months. Not at all enough time to get his system, but I noticed his version was much more advanced than other BaGua school methods in the sence that it was much healthier on the body. For example his whole style is in the lower basin but without harming the knees. His Xing Yi is also different, everything is different with this guy even his Fa Cheng! I noticed most of the changes would be adaptations as to not ruin the body or to increase proper tension with out harming the body. His 64 around the circle in lower basin was also done differently than I had learned it as to not damage the knees.

I do not know if this concern for the body is inherit in all Imperial Palace BaGua schools because on the other hand Chan had developed his own system where the internals had been combined to a new system called E-Chuan. This process of developing E-Chuan could have lead him to modify the three internals.

Is his school good?

Well most of his students are casual practioners of the Manhattan yuppie type, but they can still fight. He does have some really high level back door students who are in great shape and have no yuppie characteristics, but real martial spirit. So as in most cases, it is up to the student if he/she wants to advance or not. He wont scream at you at all or force you. If you need a teacher to really push you so that you can do your own work, then this school is not for you. I reccomend those who practice every day on their own to go to him.

He was actually the best teacher I had ever met. I heard BP Chan was better, but he just passed away recently so I never got to meet him to contrast.

I would study with him, but money is hard to come by.

P.S. Just to clarrify things, I am Internal Struggle, who had used the alias of "Old Spirit" to politically represent my inner native blood still fighting like my ancestors did for the last 500 years. It was my political alias. I apologise for that one curse and being off the topic. Please dont ban me from this board as I appreciate the work of many individuals here.

Some people here actually would now know my true identity by putting two and two together thanks to the sysop diligently doing his job with the upmost dedication. To those, please dont look for me or call me, I will seek you out in 6months to 10 months after I finish my training program. I am back. I know its been a real long time.

Someone needs to inform the esteemed Mr. Chan that the name E(yi) Chuan is already taken. I'm assuming he mean 'mind' or 'intent' by 'E'.

I am a student of Mr. David Chan. I just want to correct one thing...He does not do his Bagua only in the lower basin. He uses both the lower and upper for fighting and the middle for training.

Internal Struggle, when did you train with Teacher? I've been there for about a year and a half. Perhaps I met you before...

Elliot Hall, the E(Yi) he uses is not "Intent" It's the E(Yi) from I-Ching.

Ah. ok, Yi as in Change and not Yi as in Intention.

Yiquan 'yi':
http://www.chinalanguage.com/cgi-bin/view.cgi?table=ccdict&codepoint=610F&mode=internal&lang=en&beijing=pinyin&canton=jyutpin&hakka=default&sound=0&fields=pinyin,english

E-Chuan 'yi':
http://www.chinalanguage.com/cgi-bin/view.cgi?table=ccdict&codepoint=6613&mode=internal&lang=en&beijing=pinyin&canton=jyutpin&hakka=default&sound=0&fields=pinyin,english


They're pronounced identically in Mandarin, though mercifully differently in Cantonese.
Confusing in English, but not in Chinese.

It was a few years back and he was teaching us a linear form that was in the lower basin but upper basin for those who couldnt. I felt like he was experimenting his creation as to he wasnt being very clear as to what style he was teaching for the day. But regardless it was high level stuff.

I didnt stay long enough to get deep into bagua training. I know that what he had shown me on walking the circle was completely different from what I had learned from two different very good teachers and many instructional bagua videos. I would have had to relearn the whole circle walking method! Now im relearning everything which was taught to me.