Back to Basics : Twisting

Hi,

Twisting or Spiraling (depending on the practitioner’s level) seems to be so basic to Bagua it’s absolutely everywhere.
To the point that I’m wondering whether thefollowing statement is true or not :
“Ultimately, all movements in Bagua should be powered solely by twisting/spiraling and not at all by linear muscle force.”

Am I correct?
Is this a good goal to aim for when trying to improve one’s movements in Bagua (and also in daily life for that matter) ?

To illustrate the point, let’s consider a very simple movement, which can be considered the archetypal linear movement : holding something in your upturned fist and raising it, the way a body-builder classically raises a barbell to train his biceps. The way it’s classically done (and how they tell you to do it in a gym if you want to beef up your arm the quickest) is to contract the biceps in muscular isolation, blocking the rest of the structure while the elbow bends and you raise the barbell. That’s linear movement.
Then I get the feeling that even that über-linear movement could also be done in a twisting/spiraling mode. When I try it out, I feel it necessitates twisting the muscles of the arm inwardly in the first half of the move and outwardly in the second part. Feeling into the rest of my body while trying this, I get the feeling that in order to really be effective, the movement also has to recruit twisting from the forearm and the shoulders, up to some kind of connection with the back muscles, and even down to the buttocks and leg muscles… (In the end, even though only the elbows seem to be moving, I end up doing something that internally feels similar to the upward part of the second movement of Heaven and Earth…).

If the observations I’m making here are correct, then linear movement produces musculo-skeletal isolation and can be done with little or no internal awareness. On the other side, fully twisting/spiraling movements involve the whole body structure, they require and promote softness and integration, as well as a vastly greater degree of internal awareness. Whole body Twisting movements feel like they allow much more flexibility for adapting the movement in mid-course (=> more adaptable) and they feel much less stressful on the body as the power requirements are distributed throughout the structure (=> healthier).

This train of thought is getting me to the point where I’m beginning to speculate whether Bagua movements haven’t been designed to imperatively require Twisting/spiraling in order to be effective. The result would that the practitioner’s brain is challenged into completely re-wiring the way he moves, uprgading it from linear to twisting/spiraling. In a way, at the basic physical level at least, the practice of Bagua seems to be a form of deep physical rehabilitation for people who spend their lives hurting themselves by moving too linearly…

Have I strayed into total science-fiction territory or is my thinking correct ?
In the end, should a Bagua student aim for movements that are 100% powered by twising/spiraling and always involve the whole body structure?

Erwan

PS :
Of course the same could probably be said of Taichi, and possibly Hsing-I for that matter, although its seems to me a greater challenge to find out how the movements of Hsing-I are to be performed if relying exclusively on twisting/spiraling action…