Category: 文章/Article

A posture is like a battle formation

Postures are an important part of Chinese martial arts. They are an indispensable part of the training in every school. In particular every school’s ‘basic form’ will contain the basic postures which are the ‘mother posture’ (also known as ‘original posture’) followed by several ‘son postures’ (also known as ‘variation postures’). As regards Bagua Quan every posture has the dual connotation of internally nourishing the body and externally dealing with the opponent. Here I will only touch upon the aspect of ‘dealing with the opponent’.

BAGUA QUAN The 8 trigram martial art

He Jing-han started to study Yang Taiji Quan at the age of 15. However after 6 or 7 years of studying he started to stagnate and he did not know how to proceed. At the age of 23 he was introduced to master Gong Bao Zhai and started to specialize in Bagua Quan.

My article “Essentials of Horse Stance” (further only Mabu Article) was published in 2001 in the [journal] Taiwan Wulin, No. 6. and during four years it passed through many hands, giving rise to [arousing] certain attention and discussions. Some practitioners responded [reacted]: “This article’s emphasis is on the connection of tendon pathways of dang in the lower body, so what about upper body?” In reality, the system of tendon pathways of the upper body compared to lower body is much more complicated, it is difficult to explain it clearly, but since some people were modest enough to ask people below [like me] [or: did not feel ashamed to ask people below – an expression of modesty], I just want offer my hat [out of respect – another form of modesty] and shortly bring up a little of what I have learned, on one side to make an explanation for those who seek knowledge, on another side it can also be a supplement and enlargement of Mabu Article.