Thanks for Clearing that up Elliot Hall...

Internal Struggle, could you tell me how the walking was different? Actually if you want, contact me via e-mail. baguaboxer@aol.com

Old Spirit,

Put on your headphones.

http://www.webconspiracy.com/

Does the chuan represent a fist as is typical?
Then is it Bagua at all?, and not just some
other art? Just trying to return to the reason
we come here to begin with.

What's the question? Chuan can mean fist but can also mean style.

Oh,so chuan can mean style also? Interesting.
I also found it can mean the whole body.
It's very difficult to translate into propper
english I am sure.

He is say in chinese ^^

I am an unregistered reader of this board. I would like to clarify the meaning of "chuan" and "zhang". "Chuan" means fist and "Zhang" means palm. However, in Chinese martial art terminologies, these two words are the short names of "Chuan Fa" and "Zhang Fa". "Fa" means method. So "Bagua Zhang" really means Bagua palm method. Some people in China like to generalize the meaning of "chuan" and apply it to any kind of martial art that involves using hands. That's why they say Bagua Chuan instead of Bagua Zhang. Actually "chuan" as a name for martial art is more traditional and appeared before "zhang" because people first fought with fist not palm.

I thought cave men first slap fought then wrestled. Of course the bigger guy won. Then some genius cave man figured he could use the thigh bone of some animal to bash the other bigger caveman's skull thus making things more even. Then another cave man tired of getting bashed in the head thought that he'd better figure out how take the club away from the other cave man. etc, etc, etc... you get the picture.

Im an anthropology major. It is believed that we were forest creatures evolving to live in the ground and then evolving to live out the forest into the savanah and plains of Africa by the tree lines for protection. By the time we lived in caves we must have been really advanced.

Our primate species in paticular had been in existance for a good 400,000 years!!! The famous "Ice Man" found in the Otztal Alps had mysterious tatoos resembling triagrams around his entire body. Later they found that these tatoos are all exactly on the Kidney Meridian of Chinese Science!!!!!!!!!! Then they attached a tiny camera to a device that traveled through the "Ice Man" corpse and found that yes indeed he had kidney problems.

Now I cant exactly remember if it was the kidney meridian and kidney organ but it definatly was the same meridian with the same organ. This corpse is about 14,000 yeas older than when Chinese meridians were said to be discovered in China. Ancient China always credited the "ancients" as did the Mayans.

This leads me to believe that our biological knowledge, Chi understanding/development and martial arts were to a degree that we can't even imagine hundreds of thousands of years ago. We can only date martial arts back to 6,000 years which is nothing in the entire 400,000 years of our existance.

By the time we evolved into homo sapien sapien we were most likely already masters of our bodies, mind and spirit, as the previous hominids had used tools and had obvious social structures. Basically we didnt just pop into this planet as is. As a matter of fact when we first started agriculture 12,000 to 15,000 years ago disease from birds and insects and labor lowered our life span to 40 years!!! Anthroplogical data shows that we have lost much and gained little turning into very destructive and poisonous creatures.

HiddenPalm

Hidden Palm,

Your post contains much to consider, yet I'm wondering about the accuracy of what you say, specifically, regarding the "Ice Man." According to everything I've read about him, he is thought to have died 5,000 years ago.

Best wishes in your studies,
Gerry

The book I have "The Man In The Ice" by Konrad Spindler agrees with you that he is 5,000 years old. This book was published in 1994 though. It shows the pictures of his tatoos but at the time they had not discovered the significance of them yet. Recently on the Discovery Channel they have learned so much more about him. And they were claiming that the ice man is over 10,000 years old or something like that. But it was no longer just 5,000 years, that I remember. I also remember that it was way older than 6,000 years ago when "civilization" is said to have started. Sorry I dont have the exact facts about him, but I will look into it more as this is a real breakthrough in the Internal world!

Those tatoos are a forgotton Acupunture technique. They had found small pouches that contained dust believed to be derived from antlers. They gave this whole elaborate story on his venture to heal himself it was truelly an amazing story to watch.

It goes to show that we really dont have a clue on our history and potential.

HiddenPalm

I recommend everyone read "Fingerprints of the Gods" by Graham Hancock. It has some great insights on 'civilization'.

In an attempt to get this discussion back to BaGua but still connecting the current flow of thought here I ask this question to Shane.

I had read "Finger Prints of the Gods" a long time ago and was surprised as to how much it was based on actual evidence and not some cooky alien illuminati end of the world NSA disinformation craziness. Its actually a very well organized "global field work" thesis on how we need to completely revaluate what we think we know about human history all over again with a different more open mind. In this book Hancock explores the posiblity of how sounds may have been used as a means to transport objects and manipulate water flow and other things. This was actually his most shaky hypothesis. (I love how explains how to pay off the gaurds to sneak inside the pyramid!)

Yet, I cant help to think how this may relate to the 6 sounds discussed by Shi in his book. The 6 healing sounds are for the human body obviously, and what Hancock was talking about had nothing to do with the body. But even he admits, what the hell does he know of a long forgotton science. Maybe using sounds to heal the body is only the begining.

What do you think?

just when you thought . . . a,
HiddenPalm

I'm completely unfamiliar with Shi's book and the 6 sounds he discussed. Certainly certain frequencies effect the body. Good or bad, everything has it's extreme.

I study Jiulong Bagauzhang, we learn that Zhang while it may mean palm actually refers to the entire body posture.

In an issue of kungfu magazine I have they did an article that gave brief descriptions of 100 different CMA styles. In it they listed an art called Bagua Quan which was unrelated to Bagua Zhang. Just thought it was interesting.

I study Baguaquan and I have always been told that the quan part does not mean fist but it means system, as in complete system. As I am sure most of you know that Bagua was very popular in Dong Hai Chuan's time. Everyone wanted to learn so that they could have a marketable skill and be able to defend themselves. That being the case many people learned as quickly as they could to get minimal skill, (just fighting skill). These skills were later passed on and added to because of lack of material. Baguaquan refers to the style that was kept inside the Imperial Palace and kept all of the complete teachings, not just the fighting. I hope that this explains it a little.

Lincoln

Right...

Another claim for "we have the complete teaching" and everybody doesn't unless they're of imperial bagua lineage.

I'm so tired of these claims.

Consider as well that Gong Baozhai, Michael Guen's teacher, didn't teaching fighting or applications of baguazhang (per interview with another long-time student of Gong's, He Jinhan). He was engrossed with the congruencies between the bagua forms and the Yi Jing. And now Michael Guen is teaching bagua for the New Age (www.ayba.org).

You say baguaquan, I say baguazhang . . . la dee da.

Meynard,

I was just reiterating what I have been told. I am not trying to say it is any better or worse than what anyones else does. Maybe if more systems were taught completely and people had enough patience to learn they would not feel the need to supplement their training with the flavor of the week.


LongGong,

Just like I said in the post above fighting in Bagua is a minimal skill. Training applications and techniques until they are ingrained is not Bagua. That is why they are not stressed but the priciples are.

Lincoln