The Way through Baguazhang - 八卦掌道

The hardest parts to grasp regarding jingong 勁功 is: 1. It is for most martial artists uncharted waters. While it appears to be the external side of the internal workings of qigong, it is not the same thing as training in a hard or externally focused martial art. And; 2. Depending on your style of martial art, your path towards understanding jingong 勁功 will be completely different to somebody s...

Honestly, I don’t know how the Taichi guys came up with the idea that Jingong 勁功 is a spiralling type of energy. I, personally, have never experienced it spiralling anything. It just sort of is there, coming and going depending on the size of my proverbial cup. Most of you by now should be familiar with the proverbial cup: If you want to learn anything, you must first empty your cup. But did Bru...

When a person decides to learn the internal martial art of Taichi, they will eventually come across the term: Jingong 勁功. Much of what is written about it almost doesn’t exist. I think, at last count there were in English about three or four books on the subject, with nearly all of them written by one person. While in China, as a martial concept, it is a vague topic that they like to keep as a s...

These days, if you search the term ‘bagua master’, you will most likely be shown a long list of definitions and websites all referring to a bagua master being a type of martial arts master of the Chinese internal kind. And more specifically the term is short for the Taoist martial art of baguazhang 八卦掌. And sometimes baguaquan 八卦拳 will come up. This was a recent development. Up until about f...

My first baguazhang book ‘The Baguazhang Art of War’ has for all its concise simplicity, turned out to be a rather hard book for most martial artists to understand. The hardness doesn’t lie in some academic drivel, but in the very fact that through some basic science and logic around baguazhang theory, I have “kept things real”. The thing is, though, the people screaming the most about what is rea...

Well, my fellow listeners, I have done it. I have published the fifth book in ‘The Baguazhang Art of War’ series. The title of this new volume is ‘The Baguazhang Living Tao 八卦掌活道’. And it is the deepest one yet. It contains the Living Tao podcasts plus stuff about my baguazhang life that I have never mentioned before; except to people who know me personally. This book is about life and death....

After listening to some of my “Living Tao” (活道) podcasts recently, somebody asked me the question of being a Living Tao is a form of mindfulness? My answer, of all things, was that I did not know. While I still consciously practice mindfulness through Chazen (茶禪) and a slow sword form I have developed using a katana, mindfulness in Australia has over the last few years degenerated into the los...

So what is Tai-chi as in Taiqiquan 太極拳? Well, if you are listening to this, then you would know. It is an internal system of martial art characterised by slow steady movements that most people who seek the internal path follow. And it is usually seen being done by old people in public parks as a way to keep their qi flowing smoothly around their body. If done with dedication, consistently and f...

So it’s a Sunday morning and I am staring out an open window. The leaves on the trees across the road are swaying gently, and I can’t see a single cloud in the sky from my limited viewpoint. I can hear some birds and the occasional train going past. And you’d be forgiven in thinking that I am spending lockdown in Sydney in some remote hideaway like a hermit. But I am not. I am at home in Meadowban...

When a person becomes a “Living Tao” (活道), the way in which a person sees things begins to change. We gain this uncanny ability to pierce through the thicket, thereby gaining a new understanding about the world around us. Unfortunately, sometimes what we perceive goes against what the people around us wish us to see. It’s a bit like fighting a war and halfway realising that your enemy is in the...

Every now and then, I like to read up on the baguazhang masters and learn about their adventures and exploits. It still amazes me just how far removed we are now from those days of yore, in terms of place and time moving on. But even so, some things never change like those who live by the sword still die by the sword. Martial artists who strictly adhere to the principle that martial arts is solely...

By now if you have been following the series On Being a “Living Tao” (活道), you would now be listening to episode 7. Episode 7? How can there be an episode 7 when the last episode is marked as ‘Part 5’?

On Monday the 18th of September 2017, I woke up and wrote down in a journal the dream I had, and like most things in life I promptly forgot about it as I moved on with my life. Then today, as I am searching for something else, I came across the dream I had back then.

Like with anything really, in the beginning there is nothing. And in baguazhang there is no circle, no ring, no girth to begin with. Everything is still virgin and it is here where a person will experience the emptiness of not being. I am a “Living Tao” (活道).

Some of you baguazhang practitioners would have noticed that for these particular group of podcasts on being a “Living Tao” (活道), I have not bothered to include the transcription...

You won’t find the term “Living Tao” (活道) on the internet or any other pervious publications prior to me mentioning it. And this is because I created it to describe a unique set of happenings that culminated into this idea.

Somebody recently asked me: How do I know that I am a “Living Tao” (活道) for myself and others along the martial arts journey?

The year that is known as 2020 has proven to be a watershed moment for the martial arts world. The arguments and bravado that raged on social media in the years before 2020, had in the chaos of the coronavirus disappeared. The reason for this is that many so-called martial artists discovered that the standards they hold others to, they weren’t able to measure up to those same standards themselves....

Recently, because my thoughts took me there, I found myself flicking through a Chinese book containing illustrations of Chinese southern style boxing or Nan Quan. To be more accurate, I was more interested in the different hand shapes contained within because we have baguazhang 八卦掌 which utilises mainly palm strikes and bagua quan 八卦拳 which employs fist strikes. Two historically related grou...

☳ Last night I dreamt that I was pouring tea for Masters Bruce Lee 李振藩 and Ip Man 葉問 at an Eastwood, Sydney yum cha restaurant, while Guan Yu 關羽 looked from his alter next to the spirits cabinet that usually is behind the bar. ☵ Which is interesting because the late great Bruce Lee will very soon become one of the first American Shen worshipped formally as a god of martial arts. ☶ Like a...

These days, when I wake up in the morning I find myself pondering a lot on the nature of my personal Tao and where it is leading me. Because when a person decides to study the Tao, there happens to be a lot of stuff available. But most of it feels like wading in a shallow pool when there is a whole ocean just over the sea wall waiting to be explored. It is vast and deep and mysterious. And like al...

By now, some of you would have realised that I am spending a lot of time playing Go with an opponent in the United States (of America) and posting the results online. And you have probably been wondering: What happened to my baguazhang? The baguazhang is still here and I still practice everyday. There is not a single day I go without. It is my life. And that’s the good part. The not so good part i...

Most people, despite what I have repeatedly said, will not believe me when I say that the internal martial art of baguazhang is not for the average person on the street. Unless, of course, you happen to make your way to Wudangshan and hobnob’it with them in China. There will be a very good chance that walking the circle will be a very, very, lonely existence. Sure, in the beginning it will be exci...

I thought that today, I would send shockwaves throughout the martial arts community and dabble in the occult. So now that I have done it, how do you feel? Most people won’t feel anything because physically nothing has actually been done, except making an intention through the podcast. But you know what? Even though I haven’t done anything apart from these words, there will still be a select small...

To understand the essence of what makes the House of Baguazhang ‘baguazhang’, it cannot be found in just on style of baguazhang. No matter how much we want to believe that the style or form we have signed up to, is the right one. And our martial ancestor Master Dong Hai Chuan knew this. So rather than instruct his disciples in the one true way, he instead taught them the Pre- and Post-Heaven Chang...