From: thorick@sybase.com (Thorick Chow)
Newsgroups: rec.martial-arts
Subject: Re: Internal Arts...
Date: 29 Sep 92 01:25:03 GMT
Organization: Sybase, Inc.

In article <1992Sep24.172919.14927@ucsu.Colorado.EDU> fcrary@ucsu.Colorado.EDU (Frank Crary) writes:
>In article <23666@sybase.sybase.com> thorick@sybase.com (Thorick Chow) writes:
>>.................  not surprising I guess since the founder Tung
>>was said to have taught each of his students a little differently...
>
>Tung did this for a reason: Most (all?) of his students were already
>very skilled in other styles before they started learning Ba Gua.
>Tung adapted his art to fit whatever the individual student already
>knew. So, Cheng style Ba Gua often looks like "doing Hsing'I in a
>circle", while the Yin Fu style resembles Lohan Sholin, because Yin
>Fu had studied this before Ba Gua.
>

yes, this makes a lot of sense.

>>(as an example, while both teachers taught 'walking the circle'
>>while facing the inside of the circle, my first teacher once told
>>us that Ying Fu (?) was taught to practice facing OUTSIDE of the circle (!))
>
>I've never seen Yin Fu practiced, but the descriptions I'v heard 
>didn't mention this. Perhaps it's the palm changes: In most styles
>they include turning to the outside, doing something and then turning
>back to the center. Yin palm changes might involve spending more time
>facing outwards. 

well..  what he showed us was DEFINITELY walking the circle, with
the basic fixed hand position (one hand 'out and an eye level' other
hand at the 'lower gate')  but facing OUTWARDS of the circle (!) .
>

>>teacher #1's Ba Gua had the circle walking and the basic 'turning around'
>>footwork, but his 'forms' looked like explicit attacks and counter-attacks.
>>there were probably 20 or so of these, which were done in any order...
>
>That's a little hard to place: Almost all Ba Gua does things is sets of
>eight (in fact, the name _means_ "eight trigrams", from daoism and the
>book of changes. Although the "eightness" of Ba Gua didn't exist when
>the name was invented...)
>
>You might have been learning the Beijing Sports Institute's style,
>with 24 palm changes (a high, middle and low basin of the eight
>"animals")
>

nope..  he learned in Peking, but it was in the 1920's, way before
the commie pinko 'for the good of the people' stuff...  instead it
was the running-dog-capitalist 'for the good of the people' stuff... :-)
BUt yes,  it was notable that what he taught didn't seem to adhere to
the "eightness" idea...

>>teacher #2's Ba Gua also had the circle walking and the basic 'turning around'
>>footwork, but his 'forms' didn't really look like standard 'fighting',
>>instead they resembled some kind of a snake-like routine..  there were
>>only the 8 'mother forms', which were done in any order...
>
>This, however, doesn't limit it too much: Almost _all_ Ba Gua looks
>snake-like (to some extent) and has eight palm changes. Were the
>changes ambi-dexterous? (E.g. did you learn a left- and a right-handed
>version at the same time? All styles eventaully have both, but some 
>do all eight changes with one hand, then teach the other hand.) Also,
>how did the teacher refer to the changes? (One, Two Three...; Single Change
>Palm, Double Change Palm, Behind the Body Palm...; Lion, Bear, Pheonix...)
>

THe changes were done "left-side", "right-side", he just called them
out by number (it was easier that way)..  after we'd become familiar
with them, practice consisted largely of one number after another
being called out...
there's one book out on this particular style that I'm aware of
it's "the True Passing Down of Ba-Gua CHuan" by SUn SI-KUn (the
book is written in CHinese)..  as there's pictures of CHeng Ting-Hua
in the book, I guess it's come down from him (there's a lineage chart,
but I can't recall it off the top of my head).....

t.c.



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--
"We must be careful not to discourage our 12-year-olds by making them   
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 we do not stifle their interest in science, one of them has a chance to
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