Liu Yun Qiao Baguazhang part 1

*Traducción al inglés, con autor desconocido, de un texto que habla del Baguazhang de la línea del gran maestro Liu Yun Qiao.

The Baguazhang System of Gong Bao Tian of Taiwan

The following is a rough translation of an article that appeared in the June 15, 2001 issue of “Taiwan Wushu” magazine. There is no specific author mentioned other than “the editors” and then there are two books sited at the end as the apparent major sources for the material:

Before Liu Yun Qiao started his study of baguazhang, he had already trained wushu, starting from a young age. Before placing himself under the tutelage of Gong Bao Tian he could have been considered already accomplished. Therefore, Gong Bao Tian’s teaching methodology had to be a bit different from usual. Master Liu’s unparalleled achievement later in life was the melding together (rong ru, to melt, to flow between 2 places.) of the essence of baguazhang yin and yang, smooth and difficult (shun / ni ) , opening and closing ( kai / guan ), emptiness and substantiality, His body of knowledge is shown in the phrase:

Yin and yang body

Knowledge of motion and stillness

Awareness of smooth a nd difficult Understanding of emptiness and substantiality, Should be according to natural laws.

This is the entrance to dao!

These lines show, “lu wu yi”, ( ? )

Afterwards, whenever he showed his baji, pigua, mizong, or taiji, they always showed the subtle reflection of baguazhang. You can see how truly profound it’s influence was.

The Reason for Master Liu Yun Qiao’s Karma with Bagua

Grandmaster Liu Yun Qiao, also named “Smiling Deer”, was from the Cangzhou region of Hebei province. Born 2 years before modern China was established, he lived 81 years into the modern era until his passing at 84 years of age.

When Liu Laoshi was born in Shu Xiang Shi Jia. ... .....

Liu Yun Qiao was an only child. Because of a major illness [? ? ] at the age of three, he was treated by someone in the family, Zhang Yao Ting. Through massage and tui-na he was cured. He then started to study Mizongquan with Zhang Yao Ting. Tai Zu was his entrance into wushu.

When he was seven, some one in his family was able to arrange for “God of Spear”, Li Shu Wen, at a later date to come and teach him baji, pigua and 6 harmonies spear. Because of this, he latter attained truly excellent basics. Afterwards, he was then introduced to General Zhang Xiang Wu to learn taijiquan, sword and kunwu sword. Because of Zhang Xiang Wu’s introduction he also studied under ‘Ding Zi’ and learned 6 Harmonies Praying Mantis. By this time,his skills were already ‘a broken tool after the fire’ [po ju huo hou]. From very young he had some achievement.

In the 22nd year of the new Republic of China, under the guidance of Zhang

Xiang Wu, he went to Gong Bao Tian to disciple. [bai shi] He entered his tutelage. Like before, he accompanied him to Yan Tai Mountain to train for 2 years. Every morning before dawn Gong Bao Tian would take him to Yan Tai Shan [mountain] to practice baguazhang. Gong Bao Tian told him:

Cichu,xuewu,jinbu,shensu! [? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ]

-In this place your progress studying martial arts is paranormally fast!

It was later that Liu Yun Qiao finally realized Yan Tai Shan was facing Bohai (a small sea within China), a place where the energy of the sky meets the earth and the sun meets the moon. Because of the location he was realizing things daily. All of the other things he learned before seemed to flow together. He reached the place where “water seeps in to everything” [shui ru rou zhe jing di, ? ? ? ? ? ? ]

Theoretically we can know that before Liu Yun Qiao Laoshi studied under Gong Bao Tian, all of his teachers were famous names of the time. Furthermore, at the time he started with Gong Bao Tian, he was already 25 years old, so Gong Bao Tian could not start training him in baguazhang from the very basics, nor was that necessary. Based on his observations, very specialized style of application [‘gong fa’] , all of these factors together, he used a more pliable internal method.

[page 25, last sentence, second paragraph- ‘nei xi de xin fa’. ‘xi’ looks like character fro inhaling but I haven’t been able to find the exact character in my dictionary yet. ‘xin fa’ is ‘heart’ method. So the phrase reads, “Internal ‘?’ heart method. I’ll try and clear it up when I get a chance to consult with a native speaker.]

Baguazhang had Liu Laoshi’s attention. Aside from Gong Bao Tian’s superlative guidance, it had it’s own ‘nutritive’ qualities, like dumping fertilizer on wild grass. It was the reason that his body developed into such a soft yet firm frame. It produces ‘self-cultivation’ at a higher level.

Baguazhang Program of Training

In the course of Liu Yun Qiao’s martial arts taining, baguazhang was the last stage do within present day Wudang, many start in Long Fist, Praying Mantis or Baji, slowly make their way into Bagua. Of course, this isn’t a requirement. If you only trained in Baguazhang from the start, you can also learn the entire thing.

This type of training, on the one hand, brought together all of his previous training (this was quite special), it had another side. Baguazhang is definitely an entrance into the study of mysticism. Apart from nurturing the body, skills in attack,increasing efficiency of motion, depth in gong -fu, it can also lead the way into Dao.

All of the baguazhang that Liu Yun Qiao transmitted down to the next generation followed a training method that led from taiji to bagua. The author [of this article] believes that this plan makes sense. Taiji is a relatively abstruse idea b ut complete in its core. It leads from the obscure to the specific. It cracks directly into application. It blended well with Liu Yun Qiao’s previous learning. At the time, he was already mature. His ability to apprehend difficult concepts was also well developed. Add to that his excellent foundation and the way he trained, and you have someone who absorbed the material and was able to use it in a short period of time. This was entirely due to his teacher’s ability to tailor the instruction to the student. [yin cai shi jiao; a Chinese proverb. Lit. ‘because of talent do the teaching’].

Beginning students bust first stand ‘hun yuan zhuang’ (Standing meditation. ‘Hun’ = mixed, foggy, obscure, confused, all over etc. yuan = beginning, zhuang = ‘post’) The body must be stilled and intentioned must be focused on ‘wuji’. From stillness into motion is the taiji. Then the ‘liang yi zhang’ is taught. (liang / two; yi / opinion, idea; zhang / palm). Following is the ‘Xiao Kai Men’. The form of this name is named because is opens (kai) the ming men of the two kidneys. Once this is trained to familiarity, movement is smooth and comfortable and well rooted. When training ‘bagua legs’ the emphasis is on the legs and arms as the 4 extremities or the 4 ‘forms’ (si xiang). In the baguazhang system, the ‘leg methods’ (tui fa) are extremely important. Only those who train the waist and the legs well can train ‘zheng jin’ (whole body power). The bagua legs are also called the ’72 outstanding legs’ (72 jue tui) and contain many hidden techniques.

From the ‘Si Xiang’ (four forms) and on into the ‘Ba Gua’, that is training the ‘Bagua Hard Palms’. The ‘8 Changes Hard Palms’ correspondences can be sorted into 2 groups. There are the external ones, the head, back, waist and stomach and there are the internal ones, the heart, liver, lungs and kidneys. These together are the root of the 8 mother palms. Every ‘palm’ can be used to walk the circle. Practice should be repeated on each side. At the places of connection some force can be used. Single or double palm changes connected too. In training the ‘8 Hard Palms’ the important thing is not to be too stiff.

After training the 8 Mother Palms to a certain level, you can support weights in your hands, like metal spheres or you can hang metal rings from your arms. You can strap weights onto your legs as well. These can all be used as tools to increase your strength in advancing/attacking. But you must me careful not to get sloppy.

With the 8 mother palms as your basics, you can express them through the ’64 linking palm’ set. And this is just an approximation. In the midst of all this there are many, many skills developed and training methodologies such as the low stepping of lower basin training, training equipment, receiving / expressing, solid / insubstantial and opening / closing movements. There is ‘bai bu’, ‘kou bu’, single palm change, double palm change, muddy stepping, 9 palace post standing, special exercises for developing agile ‘body skills’ (shen fa), the methods of turning and stepping. Beyond the 8 palms, there are the ‘72 elbows’ , the Bagua Linking Circles Palm. . . . and so on. All this together makes for a very robust system.

In terms of weapons, Liu Laoshi taught many smaller weapons such as the yuan- yang yue (yuan-yang is the name of some sort of waterfowl like a duck maybe. They are colorful and known for mating for life. In this case I take it to mean that the ‘yue’ and axe-like weapon, is used in pairs.) He also taught the dian-xue needles and the 7 star staff.

... Continue on part 2