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Few people know what Baguazhang has to do with Weiqi (Go/Baduk). They are related in that both employ encirclement and flanking to achieve their aims. And both are more about strategy,
For the Baguazhang practitioner, weiqi helps the mind to see the dualistic nature of the world: hard/soft, round/straight etcetera. It is a hard concept to understand if you have not been inducted into a martial art school, so I will give an even simpler relationship by explaining Baguazhang in more detail...
Baguazhang
Baguazhang is a form of martial arts. It is internal which means that its roots are Taoist (philosophy not religion), homegrown Chinese whereas Shaolin comes from outside of China and its training method involves building the body from the inside out. It is a soft, medium and hard style depending on which school of Baguazhang a practitioner belongs to. It is primarily a Kung-fu art although you will find it in Wu-shu schools.
The people of Wudang and Emei like to claim that they are the founders of Baguazhang, but this is a poor-cousin lie. Wudang/Emei's Taoism lies in the religion, not in the source of Taoism itself which is the I-Ching. The I-Ching is the source of nearly all Chinese thought and I recommend that all Baguazhang practitioners must learn the I-Ching in order to achieve the highest level there is: God's Kung-fu.
Master Dong Hai Chuan is the founder of the art. However there is evidence of Kung-fu styles refering to the trigrams as their source.
Baguazhang uses strategy in its execution and I just don't know how to explain this: When you are doing a baguazhang form, if your mind is open, you are quite literally stepping into the shoes of the master who developed it and you see what he saw: be it something in the past or future?
Once again the answer to that is to learn the I-Ching...
For the Baguazhang practitioner, weiqi helps the mind to see the dualistic nature of the world: hard/soft, round/straight etcetera. It is a hard concept to understand if you have not been inducted into a martial art school, so I will give an even simpler relationship by explaining Baguazhang in more detail...
BaguazhangBaguazhang is a form of martial arts. It is internal which means that its roots are Taoist (philosophy not religion), homegrown Chinese whereas Shaolin comes from outside of China and its training method involves building the body from the inside out. It is a soft, medium and hard style depending on which school of Baguazhang a practitioner belongs to. It is primarily a Kung-fu art although you will find it in Wu-shu schools.
The people of Wudang and Emei like to claim that they are the founders of Baguazhang, but this is a poor-cousin lie. Wudang/Emei's Taoism lies in the religion, not in the source of Taoism itself which is the I-Ching. The I-Ching is the source of nearly all Chinese thought and I recommend that all Baguazhang practitioners must learn the I-Ching in order to achieve the highest level there is: God's Kung-fu.
Master Dong Hai Chuan is the founder of the art. However there is evidence of Kung-fu styles refering to the trigrams as their source.
Baguazhang uses strategy in its execution and I just don't know how to explain this: When you are doing a baguazhang form, if your mind is open, you are quite literally stepping into the shoes of the master who developed it and you see what he saw: be it something in the past or future?
Once again the answer to that is to learn the I-Ching...
A response and answer to what was written above
Please do not be biased on your views by claiming that Taoism is based only on philosophy and not on religion. Note that Taoism is actually an integration of many aspects from I-Ching, shamanistic beliefs, Lao Tzu, Chaung Tzu, etc. The fact that you are admitting that you do not know how to explain baguazhang strategy point out that you may have little knowledge of what you are talking about. Of course, in teaching baguazhang, it may be more helpful to just to analize and use philosophy and not delve into more details of the religion especially for us who are not Taoists.
20 July 2009 10:15 AM
Is it in your nature to pick fights?
Or...
are you saying that you have more than 20 years experience?
20 July 2009 8:07 PM