Benefit Ba Gua Zhang

Ba Gua's energy is both complex and simple, in my experience.

When I touch your arm, whatever you give me I suck into my system, move my feet and send it spinning, and spiraling back out. I think of Ba Gua as ricochet, deflecting, careening, zinging and zipping off of one surface, deflecting and ripping into my opponent from any angle.

If my opponents strength is coming into me, my arm circles to suck it in and change the angle into an arc. As I step that arc circles back and cuts into my opponent

It's like a sabre, slicing and dicing in arcs and curves, if it misses going out, you cut on the way back in. Add the walking and those arcs and curves become orbits that hit at unexpected and unpredictable angles.

If my opponent is soft, my arm bites into his space and arcs inward toward him. Hopefully he will resist, which causes my arc to change yet again, going from high to low and then to high again. The stepping is the key, because it makes the angle totally unexpected, both to me and my opponent.

When we touch, I step. This is the primary philosophy.

When I get hit I step, when I strike I step. Always taking a new angle, no matter how small. Even if I stand in place, my feet pick up and set down. Tai Chi has a much more rooted way of moving.

I'm never quite balanced as I fight, stumbling this way and that I stagger into the right position and my arm carelessly crashes down on my opponents neck. This momentum continues as my other arm smashes his spine, then the first arm comes back up into his face. Always at an off angle, always with unaimed, unplanned, responsive strikes.

In Ba Gua I never do anything myself, my opponent contributes half. Without your force I cannot spin as a sphere does, I need your input in order to respond. And your input will form my response.

Walking the circle can create a sense of a vortex, rising from your feet, spinning through your body and up to the top of your head. When I touch my opponent I plug into this vortex and let their force get caught in the whirlwind. The key is to never use my own decision making or determination take the lead. Hsing-I teaches you how to impose your will on the world. In Ba Gua I literally don't care, the minute I start giving a damn, that's when my ability to manifest this whirlpool feeling ends.

I think of Ba Gua energy as a ball covered with fish hooks. Everything I touch is pierced by the hooks and pulled by my spinning trajectory. I don't jab like boxing, when I touch I try to stick. When you withdraw my energy is pulled into you on an wild and long arc, creating an elipse where my power grows on the return of the trajectory.

Someone who knows physics like Lee Burkins could speak on the actual terms for all of this, all I know is that when I put out my arms, they do all the work for me. I forget everything and just start up the old spiraling and next think you know stuff starts happening.

Ba Gua is nice because you never need to remember any techniques or think about what to do in a sparring match. Just touch and it does it for you. I'm not too good at memorizing angles or strategies, I'm more tactile and intuitive, so this is my way of doing it. There are other ways to do Ba Gua though, much more precise and focused.

Well, Ba Gua's energy is both complex and simple, in my experience. When I touch your arm, whatever you give me I suck into my system, move my feet and send it spinning, and spiraling back out. I think of Ba Gua as ricochet, deflecting, careening, zinging and zipping off of one surface, deflecting and ripping into my opponent from any angle.

If my opponents strength is coming into me, my arm circles to suck it in and change the angle into an arc. As I step that arc circles back and cuts into my opponent 

It's like a sabre, slicing and dicing in arcs and curves, if it misses going out, you cut on the way back in. Add the walking and those arcs and curves become orbits that hit at unexpected and unpredictable angles.

If my opponent is soft, my arm bites into his space and arcs inward toward him. Hopefully he will resist, which causes my arc to change yet again, going from high to low and then to high again. The stepping is the key, because it makes the angle totally unexpected, both to me and my opponent.

When we touch, I step. This is the primary philosophy.

When I get hit I step, when I strike I step. Always taking a new angle, no matter how small. Even if I stand in place, my feet pick up and set down. Tai Chi has a much more rooted way of moving.

I'm never quite balanced as I fight, stumbling this way and that I stagger into the right position and my arm carelessly crashes down on my opponents neck. This momentum continues as my other arm smashes his spine, then the first arm comes back up into his face. Always at an off angle, always with unaimed, unplanned, responsive strikes.

In Ba Gua I never do anything myself, my opponent contributes half. Without your force I cannot spin as a sphere does, I need your input in order to respond. And your input will form my response.

Walking the circle can create a sense of a vortex, rising from your feet, spinning through your body and up to the top of your head. When I touch my opponent I plug into this vortex and let their force get caught in the whirlwind. The key is to never use my own decision making or determination take the lead. Hsing-I teaches you how to impose your will on the world. In Ba Gua I literally don't care, the minute I start giving a damn, that's when my ability to manifest this whirlpool feeling ends.

I think of Ba Gua energy as a ball covered with fish hooks. Everything I touch is pierced by the hooks and pulled by my spinning trajectory. I don't jab like boxing, when I touch I try to stick. When you withdraw my energy is pulled into you on an wild and long arc, creating an elipse where my power grows on the return of the trajectory.

Someone who knows physics like Lee Burkins could speak on the actual terms for all of this, all I know is that when I put out my arms, they do all the work for me. I forget everything and just start up the old spiraling and next think you know stuff starts happening.

Ba Gua is nice because you never need to remember any techniques or think about what to do in a sparring match. Just touch and it does it for you. I'm not too good at memorizing angles or strategies, I'm more tactile and intuitive, so this is my way of doing it. There are other ways to do Ba Gua though, much more precise and focused.