A friend of mine found this place called Pa Kua Studio in North Hollywood. There's another in Orange County, one in Argentina, and I think others.
So we went to the one in North Hollywood and had the free 30 minute class.

It may not be entirely fair, since we only had the short intro. It may not be all bad. But I'm writing mainly to say "don't bother", not to say you should check it out. I'm not going to bother. About the only good thing I can say is that the prices seem reasonable.

They teach something called Sintonia that they also claim is Chinese yoga; reflexology; something they call tai chi (I didn't see it; might be anything, including not tai chi for all I know), and they teach a mishmash of karate and sword stuff--one thing looked like perhaps a Chinese sword form done with a Japanese sword, and they had shinai and boken there. When my buddy, who's a longtime aikido guy, asked why they had Japanese shinai and boken in a Chinese school, the guy said "The Chinese invented this sword!". Also, when I asked what lineage of bagua they taught, he said "all lineages, all styles". Turned out he didn't actually know what a lineage is.

Much of the 30 minute class we had was reasonable-looking stuff that was consistent with bagua (hand techniques, circle walking), but the guy talked too much stuff all mixed together that he clearly didn't know much about. The guy we had the class with was really not an impressive teacher, and the whole thing just didn't fit together. I didn't think it had gong fu.

And they had gray belts with yellow piping and all this kind of thing. It was really like a generic karate school, except it was supposed to be bagua. It was like a peek into an alternate reality where bagua came to the US before karate, where the Pat Morita movie was called the Pakua Kid.

that's funny!
it was the only thread i had nothing to say,
but i liked the joke!
and i wanted to say HI.

RE: "it was the only thread i had nothing to say"

Once three young buddhist monks decided to spend the night meditating in silence. They sat around one candle in the training hall but around midnight a sudden breeze blew out their sole light.

After a few moments, one monk suddenly blurted "now we have to sit in the dark!"

A few moments later, another said "You shouldn't have spoken!"

A few more minutes went by and the last monk said with more than a hint of self-satisfaction "I'm the only one who hasn't spoken!"

i'm the first monk and your the last monk!
thank you for being so full of wisdom!

...then the real monk giggled and went bed.

you giggled because you were the second monk,
and you imagined youself in beetween the 2 others?
and then you went to bed!!!
love your boobs!
danm,i meant ;love you bob!

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I always liked th particular Japanese Zen Buddhist story that I posted and as with many of the better ones in that genre you can enjoy or ignore it on many levels.

Being a monk must be very hard work, I find it difficult enough to be a decent human being.

being a monk is like being a dog!
they feed you!then you do a few tricks!(work)
and then you meditate and sleep!
man who could handle that?
it's just a way to escape society!
ps.they are pretty smart,i should do the same!!!!