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I see a lot of beginners struggling with the details of twisting the legs. I’m hoping this post will spark some dialog with the senior students on this forum particularly the ones who have been teaching for a long time. There are thousands of ways to approach Bruce’s system. There isn’t only one, correct way to approach this material. I’d encourage students to find their own way without violating the core principles that Bruce teaches. I’ve never been taught this or discussed it with Bruce so you’ll have to read and decide for yourself whether it has any value or relevance to your practice. I found it useful particularly when I was just starting circle walking without an instructor and before Bruce offered the BaGua Mastery Program.
Circle walking is brilliant. The more I practice it the more apparent this becomes. The way I learned it is very different than the way Bruce teaches it in the Bagua Mastery Program. My approach to walking was based on trying to solve a particular problem that I’d had over many years of attempting to learn BaGua: my knees weren’t strong enough to take the twisting of circle walking. Bruce has spoken to this on occasion and in seminars and I recall the same comment somewhere in the BaGau Mastery Program. He said basically that most westerners can’t take the twisting because the tendons in their knees aren’t strong enough. Based on this I followed his advice to learn Tai Chi before learning BaGua in order to strengthen my knees over time.
I attempted to practice BaGau circle walking time and time again, but couldn’t sustain the practice even after studying Tai Chi and neigung for years. Also, after studying with Bruce for many years, I realized that the approach of trying to mentally juggle all of the myriad things we are supposed to be doing at once, is not only nearly impossible it is ultimately self-defeating and the antithesis of what Bruce is trying to teach: It makes you tense, mentally, emotionally, energeticly, and physically. The problem is that in the beginning you really can’t do what your supposed to do. It’s a catch-22. So, how do you learn it in a relaxed manner?
Drawing on everything I knew about how NOT to do it, I came up with a simple approach. I walked in a circle in a comfortable position with only a slight turn toward the center of the circle and just did one technical detail — I turned the outside foot in. This implies that the inside foot always goes straight, but that is natural. The only thing I was doing was walking in a circle with a curving outside step.
If you pay close attention, you’ll notice that the this turns the thigh muscles more than straight line walking and actually produces a nice twist, untwist of the thigh muscles. This was my basic practice for almost a year. I held me arms in the basic single palm posture, very comfortably, with almost no turn of the waist toward the center of the circle while maintaining the most basic body alignments. Remember you can’t violate any core principles.
Slowly over time, the turning of the thighs progresses to twisting. Reread Module 1:Bagua Skills: Twisting, page 7. How long it takes you to progress from turning to twisting is impossible to say, but I’d suggest you practice this for as long as it takes you to start linking the body. I used this practice to link my entire body from the finger tips to the toes and top of my head. The turning should start linking the thighs to the big muscles in particular to the psoas and large butt muscles. If you maintain good alignments, relax, and let the turning naturally occur, it will start turning and eventually twisting the largest muscles in the body. This will naturally open the body, release the nerves, muscle tension, pump lymph and blood, etc. In short, it will give you most of the major health benefits that BaGua offers without straining the kneess and sacrum or pulling out you insertion points.
Be patient with your body. It takes time to integrate what the body is learning. Ironically, I found that doing less and slowing down made the learning process more effective and ultimately I seemed to progress faster.
Jim, this is a fantastic post and there is so much I’d like to say! But most of all thanks for these posts and please keep writing, very thought provoking and totally right on as far as I’m concerned. Great to know you are working on this stuff, please keep up the great work.
I don’t think we’ve met (tai chi IT in 1999?), but Eric Peters is a friend of mine and Isaac Kamins is my teaching partner/bro, and they both speak highly of you.Jess O
Oakland, CA
Very helpful post. I enjoyed reading it as a newbie it makes sense.
Very helpful post. I enjoyed reading it as a newbie it makes sense. Double post Laggy computer
This was one of my first posts to this forum. I wanted to reply directly to it so the new group would see it and the original group would be reminded that this is the fundamental way the Bagua trains the body.
Neigung, Tai Chi, Hsing-i, and I Chuan have different methods. Each has their advantages and disadvantages. This post describes (at the most basic level) Bagua’s approach.
This post describes at a very high level how Bagua approaches finding and developing chi. I don’t like the term chi because it is too vague and IMO was used by both masters and charlatans. Masters new that the way internal energy is developed and that it changes as you get better and probably were protecting their intellectual property. It becomes a pilot but truthful way to blow off the inquisitive without explaining anything. The charlatans use it to mask that they don’t know. They will spew all of the phrases of the masters like they understand, but they don’t. Sorting out who is who can be very tricky. Remember someone can know but be unwilling to or incapable of articulating how they do what they do. The body learns and it forgets. It learns (in some cases re-learns) what it needs to do and then just gets good at it so you do it automatically. You can literally forget how you acquired the skill.
Look for a post on How each of the internal arts approaches the most basic internal development. I’ll start to explain how I think it all works and is approached by neigung, Tai Chi, Hsing-i, I Chuan and Bagua.
If you want to hear Bruce summarize the same material in a different way, watch Module 2 video lesson 4.
Bruce covers a lot of ground in this video, but keep listening for the very very simple main point. He explains how you quickly go from the physical tissue to chi to nerve flow in the central nervous system. If you change the word resistance to inertia, you can see a similarity to my post on bien hua as a study of inertia.
This is an archived forum (read only). Go to our active forum where you can post and discuss in real time.