Best Chi Gung Set to warm up before BaGua practice ?

[Anonymous]

Hi All,

What is the best Chi Gung Set to warm up before BaGua practice ?
Dragon and tiger ?
Energy Gates?
Heaven and Earth ?
Just the Bagua warmups that are descibed in module 1 ?
others?

[Anonymous]

Hi, I’ve got 2 cents on this topic…

I’m sure any warm up would be fine, and the Ba Gua warmups are always good.

From my understanding of Bruce’s system each of the main 3 Nei Gung sets pair with one of the martial arts he teaches:

Energy Gates goes with Tai Chi (sinking, dissolving, relaxing)

Heaven & Earth goes with Hsing-I (open & close, pulsing, pumping)

Gods Playing in the Clouds goes with Ba Gua (twisting, wrapping, spiraling)

But of course all the sets contain everything you need, just in different proportions. Ba Gua still needs all the relaxation of Energy Gates, and Tai Chi utilizes wrapping and spiraling as well. But their primary focus matches as outlined above…

This is part of the genius of the way Bruce constructed and threaded together all of these different materials. They simultaneously support and reinforce each other, while at the same time keeping the specific and unique attributes of each set and martial art.

Much more to be said on this topic! Preferably by people more experienced than myself!!!

Jess O

[Anonymous]

Thanks Jess,
This is extremely interesting.

Energy Gates does have quite a lot of Twisting in it, doesn’t it ?
(Cloud Hands, I’m looking at you !…)
Or is the twisting in this Nei Gung set too basic for BaGua ?

[Anonymous]

For sure, Energy Gates, and Cloud Hands especially, has plenty of twisting. You can see the Ba Gua warm up exercises of Palm, Drill and Cut all use the same exact stance and weight shift and twist of Cloud Hands. Cloud Hands provides the framework for a huge majority of all Hsing-I , Ba Gua and Tai Chi fighting techniques.

My point of the three sets corresponding to the three main Internal Martial Arts is that there are certain aspects that are emphasized in each, making them ideal matches to each other. But any one of the chi gung sets is quite sufficient for learning all 16 of the nei gung principles, so one could use any of them as the warm up for training.

I’d postulate that the twisting of Cloud Hands is a good analogy for the Ba Gua warm ups of Palm, Drill and Cut. Whereas the twisting of Gods Playing in the Clouds is more multi-dimensional and is a closer analogy to the Single Palm Change and other palm changes of Ba Gua.

Further, as Gods is the bridge to Taoist meditation, Ba Gua circle walking IS literally Taoist meditation! Liu Hung Chieh learned both at the same monastery, so perhaps that’s another reason why they are both paired together so closely.

There are many cross connections between all of the parts of Bruce’s system, it’s fun to uncover them. My friend Isaac really opened my eyes to this, he has a good sense of how the whole system fits together.

Take care!
Jess O

[Anonymous]

Thanks Jess. The information you give is really cool! And it ties in with a question that I’ve posted under another topic, about the difference between Cloud Hands and DRILL…

[Anonymous]

Thanks Jess ! Keep it comin’ brother…

[Author]

Posts