Tuesday, September 7, 2010

Combining Taiji, Xingyi and Bagua



Well, the guys over at "The Rum-Soaked Fist" sure have a good eye for picking out exceptional masters of the internal arts. This one is on a thread highlighted above.
The guy is a Japanese Master practicing Chinese Internal Arts, which is a curiosity.
A clip at the forum linked above shows his form movement, clearly exhibiting elements of Taiji, Xingyi and Bagua. This clip is of principles in application. Sure, it's a fairly static attack for this demo, but the Master is good at showing how some movement in the form is actually done in a different way in application.
For instance, in bagua we walk in a circle performing a posture or movement. Now, in application you do not attempt to walk around your attacker, it is not possible. Instead, you use the principle in the form that turns the opponent's body. Also note that when he uses the slapping strikes, he is hitting vital or pressure point areas. Downward into the bowels and bladder in front, and coming up into the occipital protuberance or gallbladder 20 on the back of the head. These strikes don't look like a power punch, but they would overload the attackers central nervous system and that last shot to the head would be a knockout.
People who practice Chinese Internal Arts will recognize Slant Flying, White Crane Spreads Wings, High Pat On Horse, The Bagua circling or Xingyi angle-stepping as in Pao Chuan.
Good stuff! The guys on the RSF forum suggest the Japanese call this "Taikiken".

9 comments:

Unknown said...

Actually, taikiken is just yiquan, as taught by Kenichi Sawai, the Japanese student of Wang Xiangzhai.

jc said...

good clip.

Dojo Rat said...

Ah.
They made references to YiQuan but I don't know much about the style yet.
Lots of standing meditation as I understand it. But if you go to the link and watch his form work, you will see movements from all the big three arts.

Unknown said...

Yeah, the yiquan/taikiken association was a mistake by the first poster, he doesn't seem to do that at all. What he does however, is pretty impressive :-)
If you want some reading material on yiquan, Andrzei Kalisz has a lot of interesting material on his site at http://www.yiquan-academy.eu

Anonymous said...

Okay. Newbie question: If a person is just starting out in the martial arts and has the option, which one should he start with: Taiji, Xingyi or Bagua? (The intent is to gain focus and inner stillness while still learning ways to defend himself.)

Dojo Rat said...

I would say if you already had some hard-style self-defense experiance, you could try Tai Chi Chuan (Taiji) to soften up and get the meditative and yielding benifits.
If not, Xingyi will give the best results while remaining in the framework of internal arts. I am addicted to it now. The Xingyi I am learning from my instructor is softer and Taiji-like in form practice, but pretty powerful in application.
Bagua is perhaps the most complex, and I would have experiance with one of the other two before jumping into Bagua. I consider it "Graduate level", and though I Know the movements in a couple of systems, I can't say I completely understand them yet.

Zacky Chan said...

Actually it is one of the first movements that really caught my attention with his Xingyi shaving movement and using the smallest angle. That punching part where he absorbed it with his body was pretty interesting, I'd like to get a closer look at that though sometime, looks a little iffy. However, if you're looking to learn self-defense, a good point would be to learn how to take a hit, because it'll probably happen. Also, after practicing Aikido, all of his techniques look just like it! Kind of.

Dojo Rat said...

Roll with the punches, eh?

eoejmvp said...

This video is of Mr. Kawamura, a student of Master Su Dong Chen. I don't believe they have a direct teacher-student relationship these days. If I remember correctly, Mr. Kawamura has a background in Kyokushinkai Karate and has ring fighting experience. I recall Master Su speaking of when they prepared him for a match against a certain "Ogyu" who was the Hokkaido champion. Mr. Kawamura won. Mr. Kawamura can also be seen in some of the Japanese-language videos Master Su offers.