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You are here: Home / Archives for Baguazhang

Control any fight with this simple secret.

September 15, 2015 by Jared Voelker 2 Comments

There’s a branch of study of human behavior called proxemics.

Proxemics basically has to do with how much space people prefer to keep between each other.

Talking about how people choose the space between each other may not seem all that interesting, but consider the following examples.

  1. You ask a stranger if they have the time and they take one step away from you before they answer.
  2. While in a relationship, your significant other periodically does not respond to text or calls for a several days at a time.
  3. You walk into your boss’ office. The chair you are supposed to sit in is intentionally placed far away from his desk. You decide to pick up the chair, put it right in front of his desk, and sit down.

One of the most fascinating properties of proxemics (where people situate themselves compared to the people around them) is that the person who controls the space controls the entire situation.

Think about the three examples.

  1. The stranger stepping away controlled the distance and gained control of the situation.
  2. The significant other, by controlling distance through avoiding communication, controls the relationship.
  3. Finally, your boss attempted to control the distance by putting your chair far from his desk. You countered by moving the chair closer to him. Now you are asserting your control of the situation.

The point is that whoever controls distance the most consistently and effectively controls the situation.

This same principle applies to martial arts and is one fundamental secret that any great martial artist understands:

If you control the distance, you control the fight.

How does it work?

The Bagua player controls…

when you are close…

when you are far away…

and to what degree.

When an attacker throws a punch, the Bagua player is out of reach (until he decides to close distance at the most advantageous time to completely destroy the attacker).

Not many arts invest as much time as Bagua does in controlling the space. This training gives the appearance of being untouchable in live self-defense situations, which is a hallmark of a serious Bagua practitioner.

Trouble is, most Bagua players don’t understand how to train this skill so it can be done against multiple opponents, on the fly, in a bad situation. There are a couple of reasons for this.

First, serious combat Bagua instructors are rare.

Second… It’s tough to get a bunch of people who all want to train Bagua at the same place and time (no players, no multiple attacker buddies to work this stuff out on).

Clear Silat is holding it’s annual Bagua intensive workshop October 22-25.

At this seminar, our first two issues will be taken care of:

-There will be a serious combat Bagua instructor (Master Clear).

-There will be a bunch of people who all want to train Bagua at the same place and time.

Go to

https://www.clearsilat.com/workshops#bagua

for more info on the event.

Stay safe,
Jared Voelker

Filed Under: Baguazhang

Buyer Beware! Test Drive that Art.

July 29, 2015 by Ben Sterling Leave a Comment

There’s a common myth that it should take months or years to see results from their internal arts training.

…but you wouldn’t buy a car without seeing if you like the way it drives would you?

When it comes to martial arts you should see if you can learn something before you invest lots of time and money.

After all just because a teacher makes good demos doesn’t mean they have skill,

…Just because they have skill doesn’t mean they will teach it…

…just because they are willing to teach doesn’t mean they’re any good at teaching or that their teaching style will fit your learning style.

So, give it a test run.

For example, try the Free Fundamentals of Bagua course.

It contains over 30 lessons (not demos) that teach principles, drills and techniques of Baguazhang.

This isn’t a series of demos showing what WE can do..

This is a test drive that lets you find out exactly what YOU can learn at home.

We even provide forums to help you find training partners, ask questions & get feedback. (many teachers don’t even provide Q&A on videos you’ve paid for)

It’s not as flashy as a demo. …and you’ll have to put in a little work.

If you learn something useful, If you see tangible benefits from the free course, then you’ll be able to get much more out of our paid courses.

They are much more extensive & in depth.

If you don’t get something out of it, that’s ok too. You’re probably better off finding a teacher who fits your learning style better.

…of course we’d like to try and troubleshoot any issues you have in the forums. We are always working on become better teachers.

Either way, you’ll have a pretty good idea of whether our Bagua is for you or not.

Now, there are skills that take years of work and development to get to.

…but even Bagua, as big and complicated as it is, should deliver significant tangible results quickly.

Functional self defense skill is attainable within a year. (If you work hard and do a multiple opponent drills frequently.)

If you’ve been enjoying the free Bagua course then you should check out the Baguazhang intensive. It teaches a whole lot more with much more depth and detail.

For a big list of what’s in this course go here:

https://www.clearmartialarts.com/bagua-online/

…but hurry enrollment closes on Friday.

Filed Under: Baguazhang

All Bagua is good Bagua (even when it’s not so good.)

July 27, 2015 by Ben Sterling 1 Comment

All Bagua is good. (even when it’s not so good.)

Here’s the thing:

Any art is a pyramid of skill.

Bagua, Yoga, knitting. It’s all the same.

At the bottom you have a large group of hobbyists with low skill. In the middle there’s a smaller group of people who are decent.

…and you have a small group at the top who are world class.

As an art grows, the number of hobbyists grows faster and larger than those who are highly skilled.

This is essential to increasing the amount of quality stuff at the high end.

Baguazhang students having fun with circle walking drills at the 2014 Baguazhang workshop.
Baguazhang students having fun with circle walking drills at the 2014 Baguazhang workshop.

To help Bagua flourish we need to do 2 things:

1. Support & encourage the low level hobbyists. Even if they never try to expand their own skill, they are excellent training partners and can help others begin training the art.

2. Provide a clear path to intermediate and advanced skill. All too often this can get clouded in petty politics between systems and all that bickering damages that base of hobbyists who will quit and go somewhere more pleasant.

Fortunately, in the internet age it’s easier than ever before to provide information and find information. We just need to make good info available.

Finding training partners and connecting with other practitioners is easier than ever as well.

The free Fighting Fundamentals Course is designed to do just this.

It provides an education in how to use the core Bagua principles and it includes a forum to discuss Bagua and find other folks to train with.

The goal is to create as many Bagua enthusiasts as possible. Whether folks dabble with the program or go on to pursue the highest levels of the art (with us or anyone else) they will be a valuable asset to the art and community of Bagua as a whole.

Of course, we hope you’ll like it so much that you’ll join the Bagua Intensive where we go into much more depth on how Bagua fights, body methods, energies and advanced Yi training.

Enrollment in the intensive closes July 31st.

https://www.clearmartialarts.com/bagua-online/

Filed Under: Baguazhang Tagged With: Baguazhang

Bagua Vs Kickboxing (haters be hatin’)

July 24, 2015 by Ben Sterling Leave a Comment

So, a few folks took issue with yesterday’s post: How to recognize a BS Bagua Video

Some were mad that I criticized Kickboxing. I do think Bagua is vastly superior but I never actually said anything bad about Kickboxing so I’m going to ignore them.

Others, had a better argument. They said,

“Hey, wait a minute. When Bagua’s creator Dong Haichuan taught, he mixed Bagua with whatever his students already knew.

…and each student knew different arts. So all Bagua is mixed with other things. This is part of what makes Bagua great and interesting. Who are you to draw a line between which mixtures are and are not Bagua?”

The above statement IS true.

…but it’s still really easy to draw that line.

Here’s how:

All Bagua does Circle Walking and one very big reason for this is because Bagua specializes in dealing with 4 to 8 attackers.

So, if it’s a Bagua Kickboxing hybrid that uses Circle Walking while sparring to effectively handle 4 – 8 opponents then it’s Bagua.

If it doesn’t use circle walking or it falls apart when you start adding more than 2 or 3 opponents then it’s not Bagua.

There are of course, other core principles and body methods that all Bagua shares but those two are a quick and easy way to get a pretty good idea of whether something is Bagua or not.

Sigung Clear demonstrates some of the nuances of tangling up multiple opponents at the 2014 Baguazhang workshop
Sigung Clear demonstrates some of the nuances of tangling up multiple opponents at the 2014 Baguazhang workshop

This functionality against multiple opponents is so integral to Baguazhang that we begin teaching it on day one.

We find that folks who spend a long time doing forms, standing and exercises, often have major holes in skill and bad habits that must be corrected once they learn the functional side of fighting multiple attackers.

When you start with a functional understanding of fighting multiple opponents it’s much easier to train forms and exercises correctly. That way you avoid the bad habits and progress much faster.

The Bagua Intensive features in depth training in fighting multiple opponents with an emphasis on how to apply different Bagua circles, Spins of all sizes (90 degree up to 720) and much more.

Begin training as soon as you sign up:

https://www.clearmartialarts.com/bagua-online/

Filed Under: Baguazhang

How to recognize a BS Bagua video.

July 23, 2015 by Ben Sterling Leave a Comment

Today I just had to get out my soapbox.

There are any number of things that could be slightly off with a Bagua video. Most aren’t worth commenting on but this one is a particular pet peeve.

That is folks trying to pass off kickboxing as Bagua.

There are growing number of Bagua videos out there where the Bagua player squares off against an opponent and proceeds to kickbox with them.

…and this is supposed to somehow show their Bagua skill.

Thing is, Kickboxing ain’t Bagua.

Especially when it’s bad kickboxing with poor movement.

…but even good kickboxing is not Bagua.

Circle Walking is for Fighting!
Circle Walking is for Fighting!

You know all that that circle walking practice Bagua does?

…you’re supposed to fight with that.

When Baguazhang fights it’s either walking or running a circle. Often more than one.

This is essential against multiple opponents. As soon as you square off against one opponent you become a sitting duck for all the others.

Of course there are many different ways to do Bagua but they all walk circles and deal with multiple attackers.

Why Kickboxing?

I don’t know why Bagua folks feel the need to switch to kickboxing when they spar.

Especially after they put in all that time walking in circles.

You can find the error in different Bagua systems from different lineages. So there’s no single source to point to.

My best guess is that because boxing & kickboxing methods are so common they’re much easier for people to understand. Because good Bagua info is much harder to find, and Bagua is so weird and complex, it’s much easier for folks to fall back on what they’re comfortable with instead of pushing themselves to advance their skills.

I’m all for people using good things to make their personal methods better.

…but using a few Bagua techniques to make your kickboxing better doesn’t make it Bagua.

This wouldn’t be a problem except that Bagua is not very well known. So when people go look it up on Youtube and see a bunch of mislabeled Kickboxing videos Bagua becomes known as Kickboxing with a few weird training methods.

We created the Free Fundamentals of Baguazhang course to help combat this by providing a solid introduction to how Bagua fights.

The goal is to put out enough quality information that anyone digging around online for 10 minutes can get a rough idea of what Bagua is really about.

But we can’t do it alone. There are 3 things you can do to help:

  1. Study the program. Practice and build the skills taught in the program so that you can become an example of what Bagua can do.
  2. Share it with others. Bagua needs people. You can’t fully train the proper spatial understandings without several people to practice with. The more people training Bagua (of any kind) the more training partners we have and the better we all get.
  3. The Fighting Fundamentals is a good start but it only scratches the surface. If you find you really enjoy the art of Bagua take it to the next level.

Sign up for the Baguazhang Intensive while it’s still open and get an in depth education in Bagua.

This course is packed with step by step instruction. For long list of what you’ll learn in this course go here:

https://www.clearmartialarts.com/bagua-online/

Enrollment closes on July 31st and won’t re-open for another year. So don’t miss it.

Filed Under: Baguazhang Tagged With: Baguazhang

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