Chaos or Wildness?

Reflecting on the European pastoral traditions expressed by at least Western Europe as well as the cowboys of the Western U.S., the motifs of that cultural economy provide lifestyle texture and give context to the story of Manu and Yemo. The livestock bells, the wolf, the herd calls...

Going way back, from what set of conditions was the Yamnaya culture born? The theory is that the ancestors of the Proto-Indo-European speaking Yamnaya people came from Eastern European Hunter-Gatherers and Caucasus Hunter-Gatherers. And the basic creation myth, that of Manu and Yemo, is essentially that there was chaos and then the twin brothers, Manu and Yemo decided to bring order to the world through Manu's sacrifice of Yemo, whose body parts became the world of order, including the land, mountains, sea, and air. This allowed the people to keep and protect their herds from the forces of chaos. And the ritual sacrifice was held presumably every year to keep chaos at bay.

Was Chaos just a description of the hunter-gatherer existence? When we now use the word "chaos" are we referring to the raw wildness of nature? Wolves are like devils in folk stories and songs. And the European Christian inheritors of the Pastoral tradition have equated wildness with the Devil and evil. In Carnaval celebrations of southwestern Europe, devils dance with wolves and stags. 

It is easy to lament European culture's departure from wildness and romanticize hunter-gatherer cultures as being in some way pure, like the original inhabitants of the Garden of Eden - at least as long as we have a warm house with a comfortable armchair and soft bed to return to after our pontificating hike. Most of us have no idea how hard it is to live that way. We hardly understand how hard it is to live as a bonafide pastoralist. 

My point is that when we consider transitioning away from the techno-industrial lifestyle toward a more Earth-centered one, we can have compassion for the ancestors' choices and their unintended consequences. We still have much to learn from our pastoral ancestors, our farming ancestors, and our hunter-gatherer ancestors. 

While the Yamnaya might have been referring to hunting and gathering in a wilderness as Chaos, we know that the contemporary unfolding of creating a culture of order and control is easily as chaotic - or even more so. Therefore, let's continue to hold this ritual of sacrifice to banish the chaos in our lives, borne not by the wild hunt and pesky scavengers, but by greed, hatred, and delusion propagated through modern forms of media. 

Bealtaine

Bealtaine, also Anglicized as Beltane, is Gaelic name for the month of May. It is also the name of the feast or festival historically celebrated on and around the first of May up until the present day in parts of Scotland and Ireland. And it is ancient. The surviving mythical and historical texts, written in Middle Irish around 1,000 years ago, remember the festival in ancient times, most significantly as the date of arrival of the different waves of peoples to Ireland. There is so much to unpack with Bealtaine. Who were the people of Bealtaine? Why is it so significant that it has survived several periods of extreme oppression? What parts of it are romanticized revivals and which are authentic traditions? And does that matter? What is the mythic origin of Bealtaine and how can we make it relevant to the post-/present- colonial existence we live in? 

Bealtaine is Celtic - and more specifically, it is Q-Celtic or Goidelic

Bealtaine is the name for the month of May in Irish. In Scots Gaelic, it is Bealltainn and in Manx, it is Boaldyn. These languages are all descendants of Old Irish, a member of a branch of Celtic languages called Q-Celtic, as opposed to the P-Celtic branch that includes Welsh, Breton, Cornish, and Gaulish languages. 

Besides Ireland and Scotland, Q-Celtic languages were also spoken by Celtiberians in what is now Galicia and Portugal and surrounding areas in the Iberian peninsula. Incidentally, Bealtaine is the date given in the Book of Invasions for the arrival of the Gaels, or Milesians, to Ireland from what is now Galicia. 

The Celtic languages, descended from Proto-Indo European, were spoken by one of the earliest westward waves of pastoral, herding tribes whose ancestors were a migratory patriarchal people originally from what is now the Ukraine and Russian Steppes, that many scholars believe were the Yamnaya. They began dispersing across Eurasia around 5,000 years ago and are the linguistic ancestors of most European cultures as well as those of Afghanistan, Pakistan, Iran, and Northern India. 

Bealtaine is all about a great big fire 

While the source of the word has not been proven, there is traditional agreement that it is a compound of Celtic "belo" and "te(p)ina"/"tanos", meaning "bright" and "fire", respectively. Through the centuries, great bonfires were lit at Bealtaine. There is evidence that a great fire was lit on the Hill of Uisnech in central Ireland every year at Bealtaine. The Rees brothers and other scholars and folklorists state that all persons in Ireland were compelled to put out their hearth fires and join the ritual in order to bring back embers to relight their hearths. In this way, all members of the tribe were united by one fire. 

Bealtaine is a portal from the wet, cold season to the warm, dry season 

Ireland, Scotland, and the Isle of Man are temperate and rainy. But beginning in late April and early May, these regions begin to warm up. According to scholars of Celtic Studies, the Celts maintained a binary view of space and time. There is a dark, cool, and watery half, and a bright, warm, and dry half. 
There is night followed by day; the new moon followed by the full moon; and winter followed by summer. The dark halves are associated with the Otherworlds of the ancestors, spirits, and gods; and the brighter halves, the physical world of human beings and their affairs. Bealtaine marks the beginning of the brighter half of the year.

But this concept of time and space is not a mundane division. It was important to the Celtic ancestors. and the short times between were especially significant. Both Bealtaine and its counterpart, Samhain, as well as dawn and dusk, were moments when there were no secure boundaries between this binary. In the Lebor Gabala Eirenn, each of the five kindreds that arrives in (or invades) Ireland do so on Bealtaine. They come into being from the Otherworld - similar to birthing from the dark womb into the world of light. These were also times when beings from both worlds could cross over to the other, creating mischief and chaos. So, Bealtaine is a moment of transmigration from the dark, wet half of the year and all its mysteries into the light, dryer half of the year. 

The Bealtaine fire cleans us from the forces of Chaos (or evil or just imbalance) 

Among Celtic cultures both present and past, during the time of both Samhain and Bealtaine, as well as twilight at dusk and dawn, mischief runs rampant. Halloween is abundant with traditions of celebrants performing tricks, deceptions, dressing as devils, goblins, pucas, etc. In the past, Bealtaine was too. This is a tradition of play that represents our own tendencies toward crossing the boundaries of acceptable behavior. It also represents the scourge of sickness and death that is often associated with the winter months. 

Until only the last century, country folk in the British Isles would drive their livestock between twin Bealtaine fires to purify and bless them as they move on to sunny pastures of summer. Likewise, there were traditions of people leaping over the fire for its protective power. 

Bealtaine is associated with sacrifice and loosely with the Wickerman  

As the energy of winter's dormancy, hunger, sickness, and death wains, Bealtaine is a time when farmers make sacrificial offerings of food and items to the ancestors, faery folk, and other spirits of the Otherworld to appease their grip on humanity. It is the inverse of Samhain, in which the energy of light and growth return. But those energies of chaos still threaten to steal life from the physical world as the seasons change.  

Bealtaine has long been thought to be associated with Belo, the dis-pater of the continental Celts. The problem is that it is not clear that the Goidelic cultures had an equivalent, unless it was Bilé, which is the name used for ancient sacred trees. Peter Beresford Ellis has attempted to reconstruct a Celtic creation myth based on the sacrifice of Bilé by fire, which then nourishes the earth and allows life to flourish. 

The Celtic tradition of burning a large effigy made of wickerwork was observed by Julius Caesar, Strabo, and probably Poseidonius. Those writers described the Wickerman as being packed with human and animals for sacrifice, though there is only scant evidence for this. In modern Celtic neo-pagan revivals of Bealtaine, the Wickerman has been reintroduced, without sacrifice. But in the Celtic regions of Northern Portugal, a Wickerman is still burned at the conclusion of Carnaval each year in an unbroken tradition that spans back to pre-Christian antiquity. 

The Wickerman is likely a uniquely Celtic rendition of the oldest creation myth of our Yamnaya ancestors, the story of the twins, Manu and Yemo

The practice of sacrificing a human effigy is not uncommon across Proto-Indo-European cultures. In fact, this practice seems to have direct roots in the Proto-Indo-European creation myth of Manu and Yemo. In this story, Manu, the semi-divine ancestor of humanity, sacrifices his twin brother, Yemo, in order to create the physical world and ward off the forces of chaos. In the Vedic tradition, Yemo became Yama who in turn became the sacrificial Purusa - a human effigy of clay that the Brahmins would build and destroy each year. Manu and Yemo are represented in Roman mythology as the brothers Romulus and Remus (Remus = Yemo). In Norse mythology, Yemo becomes Ymir. And in Irish mythology, the death of Emer Donn leads to the ability of the Gaels to land their ships on Erin. Sometimes, Yemo is either androgynous as is the case of Ymir, or is a two-fold character with a male aspect and a twin female aspect. 

Crucially, many Indo-European mythic traditions equate the origins of natural elements with the body parts of Yemo: bones are the mountains, flesh is the earth, blood is the sea, breath is the wind, etc. This is its function as a creation myth. In Irish mythology this is represented when Emer Donn's brother, Amergin the Poet, proclaims this embodiment of the earth in song as soon as he steps onto the shores of Erin. "I am wind on the sea | I am wave on the ocean | I am the roar of the surf | I am the stag of seven tines... the fairest of herbs... the salmon in the pool... the lake on the plain..."

In most of these mythologies, Yemo himself comes to represent either Death or the forces of Chaos. Emer Donn becomes the chief of the Land of the Dead. Yama becomes the god of death and the Underworld. The Caretos in Northern Portugal are devilish characters of chaos and mischief and the giant effigy that is burned is in the same image. 

Bealtaine and the wickerman are a ritual renewal of the covenant between the human body and the earth

While it seems true that the Yamnaya cultures were quite patriarchal*, having been the proponents of a pantheon of mostly male sky gods, with the Sky All Father (Zeus, Deus, Dis Pater, Jupiter, Tue, Tyr, Odin, Dagda, etc.) as their chief, I think we can learn something from this ancient mythic cycle. 

As white people begin to reconcile and grapple with their collective role in the colonization and destruction of Native lands across the globe, one of the first recommendations to heal is to rekindle a visceral connection with the land. One of the key delusions of whiteness and colonialism stems from a disconnection from the land and from others peoples. Instead of viewing nature as a collection of relatives, our modern culture views it as resources to be owned and extracted. 

So the practice of sacrificing ourselves, in whole or in part, to nurture the world around us and the story of our natural environment as body parts of an ancestor can help us to reconnect. It represents a communion with or an embodiment of nature. This visceral relationship with the land can have the effect of cultivating animistic understandings of all the beings in our surroundings, deepening this relationship. This is only the first step in healing, but it is perhaps fundamental.  

*The Yamnaya cultures were the original colonizers, colonizing all of Europe and much of Central and south Asia. Europe's matriarchal heritage comes from the Early European Farmers, who seem to have spread across Europe (and supplanted the indigenous European hunter gatherers) much earlier from what we now call the Middle East - the area of the Tigris and Euphrates Rivers. These matriarchal cultures are represented in mythology by farming gods like Dionysus and Demeter in Greece, the Vanir among the Norse, and probably Ceasair of the Irish.

Bibliography

Cross, Tom Peete and Clark Harris Slover.  Ancient Irish Tales.  Barnes & Noble, New Jersey, 1936.

Ellis, Peter Berresford. A Dictionary of Irish Mythology, Oxford University Press, Oxford, 1987.

Ellis, Peter Berresford. The Druids, Constable and Co. Ltd., London, 1994.

Ellis, Peter Berresford. The Chronicles of the Celts: New tellings of their myths and legends, Robinson, London, 1999.

Gregory, Lady Isabella Augusta. Cuchulain of Muirthemne: The story of the men of the Red Branch of Ulster, London, 1902

Gregory, Lady Isabella Augusta. Gods and Fighting Men, John Murray, London, 1904

Lincoln, Bruce. The Indo-European Myth of Creation, History of Religions, Nov. 1975.   

Rees, Alwyn and Brinley. Celtic Heritage, Thames & Hudson, London, 1961.

Rhŷs, John. The mythological treatment of Celtic ethnology, Scottish Review, Oct. 1890.

Squire, Charles. Celtic Myths and Legends. London, 1901.

Why Bother with Forms?

Chinese Martial Arts (CMA) are marked and recognized by the beautiful movement routines referred to in English simply as forms (套路, pinyin: tàolù). This is especially apparent in contemporary wushu and Taijiquan. Most styles of CMA have at least one major set that includes free hand, weapons, and two-person sparring forms. But these forms do not exist in a vacuum. They have real purpose that may or may not have been lost to any branch or lineage. They serve both as reminders of martial techniques and routines of fitness.
So that's just the basic context of this post. The reason why I'm writing on this is that in the past few years, having learned from a few teachers, I've come to notice what it takes for a form to be useful. As I see it, good form requires three intersecting factors: structure, context, and personality.
Structure is the engine of the form. It is the most fundamental component and without it, a form lacks power and stability. This is even true of the Simplified 24-Form Yang-style Taijiquan. Sifu Gregory Fong was clear to distinguish "dead" form from living form. I have already written about the "internal engines" that describe this in depth for the "internal" styles of CMA. But even the external styles depend on powerful structure. The traditional Shaolin martial artists are often depicted as standing in various stances for hours. And the physical training is intense and gives power to every strike, kick, or jump in wushu and kungfu routines. Without adherence to the structure, a form will have many holes of weakness or deadness wherein it will ultimately fall apart.
Where structure is often missing in popular CMA forms, especially in the West, context is similarly forgotten. Every single movement in every form has meaning. The twisting of arms, the spreading of hands, the lifting of knees are not just for looks. Each movement, no matter how abstract, is a reminder of a myriad of martial techniques that include four components of fighting: hand strikes, kicks, joint-locks, and take-downs. A teacher with real Sanshou experience will be able to help a student understand all the possibilities. But even if a practitioner is using CMA for health and fitness and is not interested in the fighting aspects, those movements can be explored for strength-training or yogic qualities. This is especially true of the internal styles, which have incorporated so much Daoist yoga (Dao Yin). So the practitioner must ask, "why this movement?" Unfortunately, I have seen too many practitioners learn a form that has complicated movements, like Swimming Body Baguazhang or Chen-style Taijiquan, only to confuse and muddle the movements. This is due to their lack of understanding of the martial context of the movements. If one is not interested in Sanshou or training the martial components, one should consider a simpler form such as the Old Eight Palms of Baguazhang or the simplified Yang style Taijiquan.
Personality is the last piece. All of my teachers have emphasized the need to make a form your own. Master Wen-Ching Wu told me the story of the student who learned a form from his teacher. After completing the form, the teacher instructed the student to go and practice it for five year and not to come back until then. The student practiced the form his teacher taught and after five years returned to his teacher. He demonstrated the form to his teacher, who said, "This form looks a little different from what I taught you. Let me show you a couple things." After their time together, the teacher once again instructed his student to not return until he had practiced for five years. Following suit, the student returns after another five years to his teacher. This time the teacher remarks that his form looks nothing like what he had taught him. "Therefore," the teacher said, "you have achieved mastery!"
Sifu Fong also encouraged this while teaching us the traditional Chen Taijiquan form. Fong used to talk about dance and rhythm, saying that we needed to learn to put our own rhythm into the form. In fact, he learned it from Chen Xiaowang. But if you look at any of Fong's videos, his style is his own. What he does looks nothing like the form that Chen Xiaowang teaches these days. Fong had learned the form and infused it with his own personality and knowledge. Indeed, if all the major styles of Taijiquan originate from the Chen family style, why are they so different if it were not for their originator's infusion of personality?
As stated on another post, I always look for the roots when learning. In fact, I feel like I cannot learn UNLESS I learn the root concepts. It's as if everything I learn comes with the question, "why." Once I have learned the formula and the concepts, then I can learn to improvise with meaning, either at a subtle level or at a really expressive level. That said, after six years of studying Baguazhang, I feel as if I am only just beginning to learn.
I highly recommend any of the writings of Wang Xiangzhai. However, I also recommend not taking his opinions as dogma, as so many have unfortunately done. Instead, consider that Wang provides the tools to pick apart dogmatic systems and get to the core material. Always ask "why." It's simply disappointing to see a practitioner express a martial arts style learned by rote outside of structure, context, and personality.

Gregory Fong: A shepherd towards perfection

I had been watching videos of Gregory Fong’s Yiquan and Taijiquan for three years before moving to Portland, Oregon from Rhode Island. Sifu Fong’s style was unlike anything I had seen. At first, I thought it was a little bizarre and quirky. But I could tell from the videos that there was some real speed and power that wasn’t really visible in the videos themselves. I could tell that if I saw this man, in person, I would be able to see the real power. That’s why I kept watching and why I reached out to him when I did move here.

I had emailed him a few months before we arrived with interest in Baguazhang and Xingyiquan. But Sifu suggested that I come instead to his Yiquan class. After living in Portland for a month, I came to a Thursday night Yiquan class. That first class was possibly the most painful martial arts class I had ever experienced. Not because I got thrown around or bruised by powerful strikes.

Cheng Tinghua’s Baguazhang: Divergent and Emergent Expressions of CorePrinciples, Conclusion and Discussion

Part 1: Introduction and Background

Part 2: Comparison of the Old Three Palms - The Core of Cheng-Style Baguazhang

Part 3: Common Expanded Palm Change Principles

Conclusion

After analyzing the common concepts and movements throughout the different schools of Cheng-style Baguazhang, it is difficult to establish a claim that any one set of forms beyond the Lao San Zhang truly derive from from Cheng Tinghua. Indeed, what is clear, is that given the commonality among the schools of the Lao San Zhang, these three palm changes likely did originate from Cheng Tinghua as postulated by Grandmaster Liu Jingru. However, many of the practitioners of these schools make claims of direct lineage, not only from Cheng Tinghua, but from Dong Haichuan. Yet, only two of these masters adhere to a uniform set. Sun Lutang’s lineage dropped one and replaced it with a fireman’s carry, called the Double Embracing Palm. And the Gao and Liu Bin schools replaced even more. Certainly, the concepts of walking in a circle and using one’s open hands to respond to an attacker derive from the old masters. 

If we accept what many martial arts historians state, that Dong Haichuan taught different Baguazhang maneuvers to different students based on the martial arts that they already knew, then mastering Baguazhang is really about incorporating circular walking and quick direction changes with martial arts techniques and applications. We can use the Lao San Zhang as the basis for incorporating various expressions of strikes, kicks, grappling and take-downs. In my opinion, a practitioner has much to gain by stripping away the excess palm change forms of Baguazhang down to its core principles and focusing all his or her training of intention and expression of power there. Then everything becomes Bagua.

Cheng Tinghua’s Baguazhang: Divergent and Emergent Expressions of CorePrinciples, Part 3

Part 3: Common Expanded Palm Change Principles

Click here for Part 1: Introduction and Background
Click here for Part 2: Comparison of the Old Three Palms
Click here for Part 4: Conclusion and Discussion 

In Part 1 of this essay, I pointed out that the differences between the more well-known branches of Cheng-style Baguazhang are vast and have implied that this may be due to the backgrounds of the leaders and practitioners of these branches. I described each of six leaders of these branches who have servived into the present (with the exception of Li Tianji who passed away in the 1990s). In Part 2, I described the importance of what has been called the “Old Three Palms” - palm change sequences that seem to be shared universally in all the branches with some variation. I also compared the execution of these “Old Three Palms” among five major branches of Cheng-style Baguazhang.

Part 3 will focus on and compare the remaining five of the Eight Palms form among the five branches. Mostly, I am interested in exploring common concepts or principles while highlighting the differences, in some cases extreme, between the different branches in their execution of common palm changes. It is important to note that only two of these branches share all eight names of the Eight Palms form. Finally, these sequences of movements are very difficult to describe with words, much less compare. That said, I apologize to the masters and grandmasters of these traditions for butchering their graceful and precise forms with clumsy descriptions. 

Cheng Tinghua’s Baguazhang: Divergent and Emergent Expressions of Core Principles, Part 2

"Baguazhang was originally called chuanzhang [Zhuǎnzhǎng, 轉掌]. When I was a child, I had opportunity to meet Cheng Tinghua. I remember that he was like a dragon flying in air, his changes in movement were innumerable and unpredictable. It is difficult to reach this level. If you think about Dong Haichuan, it is difficult to imagine his skill. Liu Fengchun is my good friend. His basics are deep, b[ut] he lacks higher achievement. But those who practice 64 palm methods and 72 kicks are far behind him. I hope that baguazhang practitioners will concentrate on studying double and single palm change, focus on experiencing each movement, working hard and studying theory. If they do this for long time, many can approach essence."

-Wáng Xiāngzhāi (founder of Yiquan), “Essence of Combat Science”¹

Part 2: Comparison of the Old Three Palms - The Core of Cheng-Style Baguazhang

Click here for Part 1: Introduction and Background

Click here for Part 3: Common Expanded Palm Change Concepts
Click here for Part 4: Conclusion and Discussion

Lǎo Sān Zhǎng 老三掌

The three common components of all the branches of Cheng Baguazhang are the Single Exchange Palm, Double Exchange Palm and the Smooth Posture Palm. It has been written that both Dong Haichuan and his student, Cheng Tinghua², taught only three palm changes: the Single Exchange Palm, the Double Exchange Palm and the Smooth Posture Palm. Indeed, in an interview with Jarek Szymanski in 2001, Liu Jingru said that the Cheng-style Baguazhang originally had only these three palm changes, called Lao San Zhang (Old Three Palms)³. And in his second volume of work on the Cheng Baguazhang of Beijing’s South District, Zhang Jie also points out that the fundamentals of Cheng Baguazhang are these three palm changes.


While all of the different schools of Cheng-style Baguazhang vary in their presentation of the Eight Palms form, these three palm changes are universally represented. The Lao San Zhang might be compared to Wang Xiangzhai’s various combat stances in his Yiquan (AKA Dachengquan): they form the intentional basis of all improvisational fighting techniques and help to strengthen instinct. And while they differ slightly in their executions of Lao San Zhang, the differences between the schools are minor and stylistic. However, the differences are worthy of attention and exploration.

Besides these “Old Three Palm” changes, the old masters also taught, in common, circle walking and possibly Rou Shou, the Baguazhang-version of push hands. In terms of the Eight Palms form, the typical explanation is that all five other palm changes are expansions on those three basic palm changes. It appears that those expansions had become personal expressions of wrestling applications learned from Cheng Tinghua. Hence, the vast differences among them. We will explore those differences in the next part. For now, let us compare the expressions of the many branches of Cheng Tinghua's Lao San Zhang. 

Single Exchange Palm 單換掌

The characters for this movement literally mean big or single (單, Dān) exchange (換, Huàn) palm (掌, Zhǎng). It is the most basic palm change - the core martial movement of Baguazhang found among not only all branches of Cheng-style, but across all styles of Baguazhang. The basic purpose of the move is to respond to an attack and switch the guard hand and direction of walking. The simplicity of the Single Exchange Palm provides broad interpretation for martial applications, including several palm strikes, joint locks, and take-downs, with or without sweep kicks.

In terms of the Single Exchange Palm of Cheng Tinghua, there is some slight variance. That of Sun Zhijun and Liu Jingru are nearly identical, with only one difference: Sun Zhijun performs the opening move, “Raise the Clothes,” in a low “prone” stance or half-squat stance whereas Liu Jingru performs it in a high ready stance. 

Li Tianji’s students perform it similar to Liu Jingru. But other inheritors of Sun Lutang’s school, like Liang Shouyu and Ji Jiancheng, begin with an upward sweeping “Lion Palm”^4,5, and lack an articulate “Raise the Clothes” maneuver.  All the Sun-style practitioners’ Single Exchange Palm ends with Sun Lutang’s trademark xingyiquan influence of rise, drill, overturn, settle.

Luo Dexiu of the Gao school also performs the Single Exchange Palm similarly to that of Liu Jingru. However, the cover move with the guard hand is far more subtle. Also, rather than closing tightly with the "Hide the Flower Under the Leaves" movement, the closing is looser, more like "Holding Qi Ball" from Yang-style Taijiquan. The ending outward thrust begins with the rear hand, then the lower palm finds itself under the armpit, as in "Hide the Flower," finally exchanging guard hands with the centrifugal turn.

Like Luo Dexiu and the Gao school in general, Zhang Jie separates the Single Exchange Palm (SEP) from the rest of the eight palms form. Additionally, he provides a deeper exploration of the SEP. In his first volume of work, he illustrates that this palm change is really more of a principle than a specific sequence of movements. In fact, he demonstrates eight variations of the SEP. Some of the variations reflect the variations described above. In any case, the SEP provides the core movement to all Baguazhang fighting techniques.

Double Exchange Palm 雙換掌

The meaning of the characters are also quite literal, providing “double (雙, Shuāng = “two birds in the hand”) exchange palm.” The purpose of the Double Exchange Palm is to add even more possibility through a series of movements added to the Single Exchange Palm.  These movements theoretically are responses to two attackers or, at least, two attacks. Indeed there are two changes.

The Double Exchange Palm varies only a little more than SEP among the branches. After the initial SEP opening block, all branches begin some version of the “Point to Heaven, Dig the Earth.” The way that I learned this move from Wu Wen-Ching was to bend the upper elbow at a 90-degree angle, thereby making the “Point to Heaven” arm a solid inward block. Otherwise, all the branches seem to have a very similar execution of the move in which the “Point to Heaven” arm reaches nearly straight upward.

The next move is where things begin to diverge. Sun Zhijun, Liang Shouyu, Li Tianji all perform slightly varied versions of “White Snake Hides in the Grass,” while Liu Jingru uses “Swallow Skims the Water” to continue the second change. Sun Zhijun articulates a transition from half-squat stance to a bow stance before closing the DEP. Liu Jingru follows the half-squat stance directly with the close. Both close with “Ride the Horse and Grasp Freely.” Neither Liang or Li of the Sun Lutang tradition go into the half-squat. Rather they open the “White Snake Hides in the Grass” as a half-horse or bow stance.

Luo Dexiu, from the school of Gao Yisheng, performs Double Exchange Palm in essentially the same way as the others with stronger twisting movements from left to right and vice versa for all the movement transitions. However, the Gao tradition has named the palm change 龍形穿手掌 or “Dragon Shape Boring Hand Palm.” Like most of the other traditions, he follows the “Point to Heaven, Dig the Earth” position with a combination of "Swallow Skims the Water" and “White Snake Hides in the Grass" where the lower hand pierces down along the outstretched leg and the upper hand sweeps in a large circular motion with a deep forward bend. 

Smooth Posture Palm 順勢掌

There are a few different translations of this concept. Some translate it as “Follow Through Palm.” Others as “Yielding Palm,” “Flowing Posture Palm,” “Advantageous Palm,” “Push Palm with Momentum” and “Smooth Posture Palm.” The first character, 順 (Shùn), has two parts: “head” + “flowing like a stream.” This can mean “smooth, flowing or hitchless.” The second character, 勢 (Shì), is complicated. The top part means “mound being worked” or “to cultivate.” The bottom part means “strength.” Altogether, the character means to cultivate strength and is usually used in context to mean “influence” or “situation,” and sometimes “posture.” Incidentally, the two characters together are used to represent Homeopathy. Chinese-English dictionaries also translate the two characters together to mean “to take advantage of or sieze an opportunity,” “convenient,” and “without taking extra trouble.” Read “eeeaasy.” For the purposes of this article, I will use “Smooth Posture Palm” only because it is the most common translation. However, I would prefer something like, “Accepting the Opportunity Palm.”

In any case, the concept contained in the combination of the two characters may capture the essence of Baguazhang. Perhaps it can be thought of as flowing with the situation or winning with smooth influence to allude to the Art of War, “winning without conflict” per the line, “supreme excellence consists in breaking the enemy's resistance without fighting.” Liu Jingru says that the purpose of the Smooth Posture Palm “is to follow the same direction of the opponent’s thrusting force and apply the force back to strike the opponent.” It is a palm change in which there are two changes along with two changes in direction, leaving the practitioner walking in the same direction in which they started.

Of the Lao San Zhang, this one varies the most among the different branches of Cheng-style Baguazhang. All branches step away from the center of the circle and use the guard hand to press or push forward in the new direction. A rough simplification of the application would be to say the body momentarily switches direction with the forearm of the guard hand pressing down on the opponent’s chest.

Sun Zhijun steps out with the outer foot, perpendicular to the circle. The rear hand tucks under the rib cage and the guard hand follows the outward movement, executing the press. The rear hand then leads toward the back to change direction again, similar to an abbreviated execution of “Swallow Skims the Water.” He finishes with “Ride the Horse and Grasp Freely.” Zhang Jie’s execution of this palm change is nearly identical, though he brings the guard hand up high over-head before pressing down.

Liu Jingru is very careful to keep the line of the palm change with the line of the circle. The guard hand moves into the “press” with a move called “Steal the Helmet from the Back.” This is actually a very common move in many other Swimming Body and Swimming Dragon form variants and may be a relic of the original Cheng Smooth Posture Palm. Liu opens from the press with a very deep and low “White Snake Hides in the Grass” move. He also finishes with “Ride the Horse and Grasp Freely.”

While Li Tianji’s version is similar to that of Liang Shouyu, Liang adds a slight but important movement. Both resemble that of Liu Jingru more than that of Sun Zhijun. Both tend to use the “Steal the Helmet” move, though not always. Both open from the press with “White Snake Hides in the Grass.” Where they are different is in the beginning. When Liang Shouyu steps out of the circle, he leads with the rear hand in a curling blocking motion. This move is meant to intercept a strike and place this hand at the small of the back of the opponent, creating a fulcrum while the guard hand presses down on the opponent’s chest.

The Gao tradition has linked the Smooth Posture Palm to the Snake Shape (as did Sun Lutang in his book) and named the sequence Snake Shape Smooth Posture Palm (蛇形順势掌). Luo Dexiu changes direction on the circle in an outward manner and moves into an execution of “Swallow Skims the Water.” Then, with the rear hand, he executes "White Snake Hides in the Grass" more deeply than others and as if to respond to a second attack from the rear. The "White Snake" move finishes as "Ride the Horse" but ends in a bow stance before returning to circle walking.

*    *    *

In order to truly appreciate the intentionality of the Old Three Palms, it is probably useful to understand the various expressions that all of these masters provide. It is likely unproductive to follow the mold of any one, since all of our bodies are a little different. Indeed, if a one-size fits all approach really worked, then the expressions of the Old Three Palms by all these masters would be identical. A student of Baguazhang should train each of these three palm changes and as Wang Xiangzhai suggests, “focus on experiencing each movement” and their possibilities. Eventually, the practitioner will have their own expression.

---

1 Wang Xiangzhai, “Essence of Combat Science,” Trans. Andrzej Kalisz (Yiquan Academy, 2004) 3-4.^↩

2 Szymanski, Jarek, “Interview with Liu Jingru, Cheng Style Baguazhang expert from Beijing,” ChinaFromTheInside.com.^↩

3 Szymanski.^↩

4 Liang, Shou-Yu, Jwing-Ming Yang, Emei Baguazhang: Theory and Applications (Boston: YMAA Publishing Center, 1994) 276.^↩

5 Crompton, Paul, “Pa Kua with Ji Jian-Cheng,” Pa Kua Chang Journal 3.4 (1993) 21.^↩