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Baguazhang (Pakua Chang)
The Earth palm is characterized by a rising, twisting palm that splits the horizon in two (a broken line). When aggressed leading the opponent to raise their elbow up in order to create an imbalance in their central equilibrium may help to neutralize their aggression or end any altercation before it gets started. If not, the defender has the possibility of an opening to shoot into the opponent's torso, legs, or ankles, or allow for a duck (if the arm raise is limited) for a go-behind. In this particular case the opponent's elbow is trapped because the opponent didn't relax or change the position of their elbow and this allowed for a joint lock to later be combined with a cross-forearm choke.
The practice of Baguazhang (or, Eight Diagrams Palm) is organized as a collection of Eight "Palms." Bagua begins with standing to emulate a single solid line (Heaven) and walking to represent a broken line (Earth). When another line is added Fire and Water are identified along with Heaven and Earth and a square is formed in stepping (box walking). When a third line is added, the other four palms of Lake, Thunder, Wind, and Mountain progressively form an octogan and a circle is developed from this shape. Additionally, Eight Palm shapes are formed with the hands representating the eight trigrams that are created from the possible combinations of the three lines. These simple, yet specific shapes form the foundational set known as the Mother Palms (Mu Zhang).
Philosophically, when in the Tao Te Ching it says, "One begot two, two begot three, and three begot the 10,000 things..." there can be little doubt that this a direct reference to the trigrams of Bagua. Baguazhang is not only an art with endless possibilities in and of itself, but Bagua's trigrams also share fundamental aspects with its sibling arts of T'ai Chi Ch'uan ("Ba Men, Wu Bu") and the "Five Elements" of Hsing I Chuan.
This set of application examples comes from the Jiang Rong Qiao style of Baguazhang.
Introduction to Baguazhang
Overview of Pa Kua Chang
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Nei Jia (Internal) kung fu |
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Earth Palm Application
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About Nei Jia kung fu
The approach of Taijiquan, Xingyiquan and Baguazhang is to engage the opponent's aggression, maintain contact and exploit the weaknesses in the opponent's situation.
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