Bagua Palm 八卦掌

The origin of Bagua Palm

 

Bagua Palm, also known as Youshen Bagua Palm or Bagua Lianghuang Palm, is a fist form style emphasizing on the variety of palm techniques and movements. As the movements of the fist form style can be divided in to 8 directions which is similar to the Eight Trigrams of Zhou Yi, hence the name.

 

Bagua palm was created by Dong Haichuan, who lived in Wen An County of Hebei Province, in Qing Dynasty (1797-1882AD). With inspiration form the “Yi” theory, Dong Haichuan integrated a series of movements creatively, and created the Bagua Palm. He used to be the fist master in Su Wangfu, and the fist style was firstly spread in Beijing. And hundreds of years later, it has spread in both in China and abroad.

 

Characteristic of Bagua Palm:

 

The two main elements in Bagua are the interaction between the palm and feet movements. It combines the internal and concentration of breath with the external form of movements.

 

It is also named Bamu Palm, or Lao Ba Palm. The palm patterns are: facing upward palm, fingers downward palm, erecting palm, penetrating palm, chopping palm, pushing upward. The pattern may different from places. Some places use Lion, Deer, Snack, Snipe, Dragon, Bear, Phoenix and monkey representing the eight palm patterns; some used double-hit palm, shake body palm and other palms as the context of the Bagua Palm.

Basic Shapes of Palm:

Penetrating palm, pushing upward palm, pushing down palm, revolving palm, turning around palm, swaying palm, single-changing palm, double-changing palm, double-hitting palm

 
Basic Patterns of Palm:

Facing upward palm, fingers downward palm, erecting palm, penetrating palm, chopping palm, pushing upward

 

Basic Stances:

Bai Bu, Kou Bu, Pu Bu (Squatting Stance), Gong Ma Bu (half-horse-riding stance)

 

Equipments of Bagua Palm:

Except form palm fist, it is also has combat practice and San Da. The equipments for Bagua Palm are sword, broadsword, stick, Mandarin duck tomahawk and on. The stances are as same as Bagua Palm.

 

Bagua blade, also called “Eight Pan Blade” is 1.4m long and 2 kg heavy. The length and weigh are different from normal blade. Other main equipment for Bagua Palm are: Mandarin duck tomahawk, Bagua stick, Bagua spear, Spring and Autumn Blade, Lianhuang Sword, Lianghuang Chunyang Sword, Lianghuang Fanlong Stick, Five elements Stick, Kunlun Shovel and so on.

Bagua Palm’s techniques are very useful in actual combat. Practicing the fist is also good for health and it has unique effect on prolong life.