My Gift to the Bagua Community

I’m just about finished with the Chi phase of Bagua. I’ll be moving onto the Shen phase and more than likely returning to Taoist Meditation as my primary practice. I’m not sure how much longer I’ll be jumping on this forum. It is time for me to start teaching and to give back something to all of the people who have helped me over the years.

I’m going to lay out how the palm changes are a series of upgrades to internal power. This isn’t the end all, but it could be considered a summary of the Chi phase. I hope it helps you to understand what you are trying to accomplish and therefor how to get there much more efficiently than I did.

So in my last post I tried to explain the basic mechanism that distinguishes internal power from external or muscular power. Basically we are learning to use the vascular system to move blood and create hydraulic pressure which is then used for power. So here’s how the palm changes are designed to do to boost the mechanism to an extraordinary level. I hope it is apparent that you can’t progress to the next step (or palm change) until you’ve completed the previous step.

Single palm: find the most basic mechanism for moving blood up to the lower tan tien and then pressurize it so it circulates up the body to the head and fingers. So the movement is up. Up the legs to the lower tantien and then up the rest of the body.

Double palm change: use exactly the same mechanism to bring blood down from the head and finger tips to the throat notch (I don’t mess with the brain until the 7th palm) and then pressurized it down the body and down the legs. This powers all of the heavy downward stuff in Bagua.

Wind palm change: The wind palm is a “smooth” palm change – a mix of the single and double. Here the movement of blood is combining the heaven technique of up the body and the technique of earth, down the body. One side of the body is making the blood flow to the torso and the other side is allowing it to flow from the torso to the limbs. The blood flow is supposed to be completely unimpeded, gentle, smooth, flowing. It flows across the body.

Thunder palm change: The thunder palm is another “smooth” palm change, but it is anything but gentle. Here the upward mechanism and the downward mechanism are done simultaneously but they are directly right at each other like a head on collision. The lower body brings blood up to the lower tantien, the upper body brings blood down, and then you pressurize both right at each other toward the middle. There is enormous pressure and then release.

Fire palm change: Now we go deeper and it isn’t just about the blood. We learn to use spiraling to squeeze/pressurize toward the inside of the bones. There are three definitions of spirals. 1) A circle in a single plane that varies the radius to spiral in or spiral out. 2) Two of those spirals are use to ratchet down on the bones toward the center and the middle of the bones. Not only are you penetrating into the bones, you are simultaneously creating a helical spiral where the planes of the two circles are coming closer or moving apart. 3) The spirals in the second are aggregated along the limbs toward or away from the torso. Eventually it can be toward or away from any point. This mechanism is like one of those mops that twists to squeeze water out. The difference here is that the mop pole is your bone and the bones are porous so the pressure is contained by the skin and tissue and directed inside toward the bone marrow. This palm will give you access to the much deeper flows and make all of the first four palm changes a thousand times easier to do well effortlessly.

Water palm change: now you are playing with the bone marrow, synovial fluid, and nerve flow. The pressure is boosted one hundred fold. It tends to be in the limbs and side channels. You are playing with these pressures in all sorts of ways. The important thing is that you have access. You can feel everything and the pressure is spreading throughout the whole body. This is where the six combinations gets really clear. Pressures in the hands can be coordinated with the feet etc. I don’t work the blood so much as fluids — all of them.

Mountain palm change: the mountain palm change is where I started working with the central channel in a concrete way. It is inside the central nervous system inside the spine. All of the pressures in the limbs, bone marrow, and side channels are brought to bear on the spine, deep inside the spine. Anything you want to do in Bend the Bow is easily accessible. Like BTB, it is very important to create balance. In fact it is essential. At this point you have access to all of the tantiens.

Lake palm change: Without all of the first 7 palms, the lake palm is inaccessible and not worth talking about. It is where the inside and the outside meet — where the you realize even the distinction is somewhat arbitrary. It is important to know that all of the previous material is very physical, concrete and real. You could say that you are simply making the autonomous nervous system accessible while upgrading it.

I don’t know if any of this will make sense or will be helpful. My hope is that it will be. I also don’t know if it is correct, but this is what I practice.