Baguazhang: Theory And Applications Review

Baguazhang Theory and Application Review – Beginner To Advanced

An honest and unbiased review on Baguazhang: Theory and Applications Review of Yang Jwing-Ming and Liang Shou-Yu’s book on the theoretical foundations and the actual techniques of Baguazhang and Baguazhang Qigong.

Baguazhang Theory and Applications Review

Click here to see the book of ‘Yang Jwing-Ming and Liang Shou-Yu’s Baguazhang: Theory and Applications’.

Baguazhang – 8 Trigrams Palm (YMAA) – DVD

Baguazhang – 8 Trigrams Palm

I have reviewed several books on this niche as I have an interest in it myself. My son is a student and instructor of baguazhang and tai chi chuan and has been for 10 years now. I have watched him progress over the years and develop his external strength as well as the internal work or Qigong that is part of that particular style.

Although my son already had an instructor for several years, the book Baguazhang Theory and Application made an excellent source that complimented his already existing knowledge and experience concerning this martial art nicely.

Be aware this is a review site and I will be giving an honest review that will also cover some bad points as well as good points that I have thought of as a user of the book both for practical and theoretical applications. If this is not what you are looking for, then don’t feel obligated to stay on this site.

If this is something you may be looking for, another honest opinion of the use of Baguazhang: Theory and Applications, then feel free to read.

Some bad points of the book:

Be warned that this volume is very much a reference text. It is not the type of book that you sit down in one night and read cover-to-cover. Instead, it works best when ingested in small servings – read a bit, consider the words, practice the concept, come back to the book for a little bit more.

In almost all martial arts it is usually necessary or preferable at least to have an instructor. I know some personalities that just cannot learn from a book or just from video. Whether you know Baguazhang or want to study it and cannot get to an instructor this book is worth while.

Baguazhang, or at least good Baguazhang instructors are difficult to find. That being the case the only substitute is to learn from this book and/or a video.

Some good points of the book:

This is a extraordinarily detailed work on Baguazhang with over 500 pages and 900 photographs to give the reader a wealth of information.

The authors have assembled a book that can take a martial artist from beginner to advanced Baguazhang skills.

If you are more interested in developing Qi(chi) skills this book is very complete. For the more serious martial artist it would be nearly impossible to separate the internal from the external in this style, but is still worth the read.

The authors also provide a great background through the history of the style and an excellent section explaining how Baguazhang fits into the continuum of Chinese martial arts.

The pictures do a great job to show the postures and movement that might be difficult to understand by text alone.

This books depth at explaining the art is a little daunting at first, however, it was very worth while.

From a more practical martial arts standpoint there are a many valuable martial skills and concepts to pursue, however, the depth of this study leads one to choose a form and stay with that one until satisfied you are comfortable enough to move on and learn another. It is noteworthy to consider that it is better to be a master of a few skills than a jack of all trades and master of none.

Click here to see the book of ‘Yang Jwing-Ming and Liang Shou-Yu’s Baguazhang: Theory and Applications’.

I make one recommendation for anyone interested in Baguazhang. Buy this book, you will want it in your library to look back on it for reference.

Also, buy the Baguazhang video associated with this art. The book does a great job of giving you the lecture on the art but in order to see it modelled really well get the video to go with the book. This will allow you to attack the material from a couple of different angles allowing for a much better level of understanding.

Finally, the authors do an excellent job of showing the correlation of the applications for self defence to the movements in Baguazhang. Very practical and real world.

Reading this text has me shown me why my son is so passionate about qigong exercises.

Without a doubt, studying Baguazhang is definitely a long term program and a life style.

I recommend that if you are interested in the art of baguazhang and tia chi then this is the book you should start with. Go ahead and click the link below and get started today. This very well could be the first day of your life in the world of Baguazhang: Theory and Applications.

If you are familiar with the martial arts in another form, then it is my recommendation that Baguazhang: Theory and Applications by Yang Jwing-Ming and Liang Shou-Yu be your next level of achievement.

Above all else, remember this is a life style you are undertaking that will enhance your life and longevity as it has for the masters on old.

Click here to see the book of ‘Yang Jwing-Ming and Liang Shou-Yu’s Baguazhang: Theory and Applications’.

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Helen Liang’s Triumph over Tragedy, Battling Lymphoma with Qigong, Tai Chi and Chinese Medicine
by Martha Burr

Miracles are in short supply these days, though we seek them daily. Sometimes we find them, or possibly they find us. Seven years ago a beautiful young girl lay dying in a Vancouver hospital bed, victim of a rare and aggressive form of lymphoma. After a devastating course of chemotherapy failed to eradicate the disease, doctors told her that she had only two weeks to live. Her only hope was an extremely painful bone marrow transplant with a success rate of five per cent. Faced with death, many people would desperately cling to any offer of hope, but with courage rare in one so young, Helen Liang resolved to spend her final days out of the hospital, at home, trying to find a kind of peace with her family. Her father, the famous martial arts master Liang Shou-yu, refused to let her give up hope and embarked with her on a course of qigong, tai chi, meditation and alternative Chinese and Western medicine. Two weeks passed. She was still alive. Another two weeks, and then another. Week after week became five years. Whether to attribute the miracle to Kuan Yin, the goddess of mercy, to qigong, to bitter Chinese herbs, to a family?s unwavering love, or Helen?s own will to heal her cancer, the answer is still a mystery. But seeing Helen today, performing her favorite martial art form, Liu He Ba Fa (Water Style), is poetry of the soul in motion, a miracle in action, and a dancing light beaming steadily out of the darkness that nearly extinguished her life nearly seven years ago.

Today, seven years later, Helen still practices wushu every day, and teaches at her father’s school in Vancouver. “Wushu remains an inseparable part of my life,” she says. “I’ve been doing it since I was a little child. When I needed it so much it helped me. Before I loved it as an art, a very complete art. If you love something you find it always completes your life. When youre younger external styles seem more exciting, and they’re beautiful, they have strength, require stamina, they train your will. I still love that, but now I do more internal martial arts.

Outwardly there remains no sign of the ravaging illness that nearly extinguished Helen Liang’s life. Her delicate beauty is deepened by the experience in her eyes, and by a calm that emanates from her person. And yet, between moments of calm and reflection internal energy also fuels a power you can see in her martial arts and her quiet passion for living.

Helen teaches wushu forms and taiji, but not Water Style yet, though her video has introduced the form to many practitioners. But she hopes to use Water Style as an instrument that can contribute to contemporary culture and bring a profound understanding to more people.

It is Helens Grand-father Liang Shou-Yu who wrote the book Baguazhang: Theory and Applications with Yang Jwing-Ming.

Click here to see the book of ‘Yang Jwing-Ming and Liang Shou-Yu’s Baguazhang: Theory and Applications’.

Baguazhang Theory and Applications Review -Testimonial

Testimonial of Dr. John Painter, wrote forward for the book Baguazhang: Theory and Applications

Dr. John Painter

A serious medical condition almost ended my life. Medical doctors told my family that they could expect me to be frail and sickly, and that I might not live past eighteen with the hand nature had dealt me. By the time I entered grade school, my immune system was failing. Constant headaches, colds, flu, and chronic infections became the rule instead of the exception. I was weak, frail, and unhappy. But I had a dream. A dream to be healthy, strong, and happy like other boys. I wanted that dream badly; I just didn’t know how to go about making it come true.

Shortly before my eleventh birthday, I was introduced to and began studying Nine Dragon Baguazhang and Qigong with Dr. Frank Li. A cousin of Master Li, Ching-Yuan, the famous Daoist scholar and martial arts master reputed to have lived over 200 years, Li, Ching-Yuan claimed that his remarkable longevity and strength were due to his special diet and daily practice of the internal martial art and Qigong style that he devised while studying in the Emei Mountains of Sichuan. He named his style, which he passed on to Dr. Li, Jiulong Baguazhang (Nine Dragon Eight Trigram Palm). Dr. Li was a Chinese Physician, martial artist and herbalist of the old school before immigrating to America in 1945. The Li family had been respected bodyguards and Chinese traditional healers from the Emei Mountain region in China.

From 1957 to 1969, I worked mornings and evenings on a daily schedule with Dr. Li to learn this system. In the first year, my illness diminished, and my immune system grew stronger. Within three years, I found the physical health and stamina of which I had so often dreamed. Today, at the age of 47, my physical health has never been better. Baguazhang has, for me, accomplished what Western science and medicine could not. I am convinced that through dedicated practice of Baguazhang, one can enrich every aspect of daily life, cure many chronic ailments and alleviate the stress that so often short- ens life span and fosters the spread of many diseases.

To profit from an internal martial art one has to emphasize and focus upon both the external forms (the bio-mechanics), as well as the internal work or Qigong that is part of that particular style. True Baguazhang skill cannot be had by copying only external forms from a teacher, video or book. Not delving deeply into the philosophy and practicing the Qigong is like having a field of dirt, some water, and a hoe and believing that this is enough to grow crops. Without planting seeds, no fruit will be forth coming.

There are many styles and interpretations of Baguazhang. My style of Emei Nine Dragon Baguazhang is not precisely the same as that presented in this book. This really makes no difference, as all styles share a core truth which serves as the base for all Baguazhang practice. Every teacher has a different way of expressing his understanding of the art. While this diversity imparts the art with a unique favour to the beginner, it is often confusing. Beginners are usually looking for some type of external stability to cling to in a Daoist art that is comprised of the ever changing principles of the Yi Jing.

At the root of all Baguazhang practice lies the changing nature of the Universe, a concept centered in Daoist philosophy. The Baguazhang student will soon learn that life and all existence is in a state of constant flux. He learns to become one with the ever changing moment, to give up all attachment, static thought patterns and rigid postures and just go with the flow of the moment.

The Baguazhang master can express physically with his body what the mind and heart feel to be eternal truth. To do this, he must eventually go beyond external form and find his own inner freedom and power. This is the primary goal of the Baguazhang master, to be one with the Dao.

Over the years, my Emei Nine Dragon Baguazhang techniques have brought me radiant health and many friends. As a martial art, Baguazhang has also stood me in good stead in my career as a tactical trainer for police and government agents, and as a former professional bodyguard. I quickly learned the hard way what really works and what doesn’t on the streets. That is why I say that Baguazhang as a health system and a martial art, when properly learned and practiced, is a shining jewel among the stones.

I thank Master Liang, Shou-Yu and Dr. Yang for their many years of true friendship and support of my efforts to introduce Baguazhang to the West, but most of all for their unselfish desire to promote this wonderful art to all people–through their fine book on Emei Baguazhang–without holding anything back.

Click here to see the book of ‘Yang Jwing-Ming and Liang Shou-Yu’s Baguazhang: Theory and Applications’.

John Painter, Ph.D.

April 9, 199

Arlington, Texas

Baguazhang: Theory and Applications Review – Related Martial Arts

Studying the art of Baguazhang Theories and Applications review has definitely opened my eyes to the realization that I know very little about the martial arts applications and all the many variations there is. As a reviewer of many subjects over the years this has been the most challenging review I have done to date.

I acknowledge and am so very grateful that my son, Adrian Dorsey, a student and instructor of Baguazhang and tai chi chuan, has given me insight into all the differences between the Asian martial arts and the Chinese martial arts of self-defence along with all the internal, mental, and spiritual aspects of the movements and forms.

Here are some points about the names and what there true meanings are:

Baguazhang:

Is often misinterpreted using the word Bagua instead of the complete expression of the complete art of Baguazhang. Baguazhang uses the eight trigram palm, or the eight trigrams sixty-four palms of the Bagua and is therefore both internal and outward in it’s practise.

Baguazhang Styles:

According to Baguazhang: Theory and Applications, the origin of Chinese Wushu is far and long and it’s contents are as numerous as flowers resulting in hundreds of schools and styles. However, no matter how numerous or elaborate their variations, none can be separated from their theoretical origins.

Ba gua:

In relating to Ba qua, seperate from Baguazhang, Ba gua, sometimes spelt Bagua, is simply the practise of the eight trigrams, or eight symbols or eight diagrams used in Taoist cosmology to represent the fundamental principles of reality. Due to their tripartite structure, they are often referred to as “trigram” in English

Baguazhang Qigong:

Another concept of the Baguazhang is the Qigong, which is the cultivation of energy within the body through consistent hard work. In my son’s favorite words on preforming his Qigong, “One never realized the difference between being still and doing nothing”. Not the same thing at all. I have seen him holding a stance and being still for 10 minutes and the sweat pouring off his forehead. I have seen him preforming movement at such a slow rate that one can actually visualize the energy he is moving with his hands.

The internal energy existing within the movement of Qigong is from within. The definition of Qigong according to Wikipedia is the philosophy and practise if aligning breath, physical activity and awareness for mental, spiritual and corporeal health, as well as the development of human potential.

Therefore, Qigong, using the Qigong exercises, is the cultivation of energy (chi, qi, ki) within the body through consistent hard work.

Nei gung:

When the energy of the Qigong is used to benefit the organs, musculature, fascia tissue and bones of the body, it is identified as the internal work known as Nei gung.
According to Wikipedia dictionary, nei gong practise is normally associated with the so called “soft style” or “internal” Chinese martial arts, as opposed to the so called “hard style” or “external” of the Chinese martial arts.

The direct English translation for nei gung is “internal power”.

Feng shui:

Sometimes mis-spelt as fengshui, is another ancient art revealing how to balance the energies of any given space to assure the health and good fortune for people inhabiting it. Feng shui is based on the Taoist vision and understanding of nature, particularly on the idea that the land is alive and filled with Chi, or energy. Feng shui literally translates as “wind-water” in English.

The theories of Yin and Yang, as well as the five feng shui elements are some of the basic aspects of a feng shui analysis that comes from Taoism.

The five feng shui elements are: metal, earth, fire, water, and wood. A complete study of bagua feng shui is too extensive  to include here.

Yin baguazhang:

Yin style Bagua was created be second generation Gabua mastyer Yin fu (1840-1909). Yin studied Shaolin Luohan Quan when he was young in his home village. Finally, he was lucky
enough to meet Dong Haichuan and began his Bagua training around the late 1850′s. Yin practiced very hard and his gongfu (kung fu) advanced very rapidly after he began his training with Dong. The king took a liking to him and allowed him to join his security guards. When Dong retired from his post, Yin took over as supervisor of the security guards. Later, he worked for the emperor in the Forbidden City. The Empress Dowager liked his skill so much that she even wanted to study with him. Yin also taught some others who worked in the Forbidden City, so Yin style Bagua is sometimes referred to as Gong Ting (i.e., Palace) Bagua.

Pa kua:

The PaKua is another common tool (this time Chinese) which is used to find the 8 influences. It is very similar to the BaGua, and we find that people often get confused between them.

The most popular and commonly know part of Pakua is the Martial Art called Pakua Chuan. Pakua Chuan is also known as Pakua boxing, Pakua hand movements, Pakua circular dance, etc. and is sometimes written as Pakua Chang, Bagua Chang and in various other spellings.

What I think:

Although there a many hundreds of styles and schools around the world, the one thing in common agreement is to find a style that you like and master that one. It is no good to try to master too many at one time as this only proves to confuse the student. To be a true student of baguazhang or any of the other styles, become a master of one discipline before attempting to learn a different style.

This is what “Baguazhang Theory and Applications” by Yang Jwing-Ming and Liang Shou-Yu is all about. It is to introduce the serious student to a complete and thorough style of baguazhang to master.

I highly recommend this book for any one searching to study and practise the art of Baguazhang.

I hope this review is helpful. If you have any more questions, please don’t hesitate to contact me at rcdorsey@telus.net.

Robert Dorsey