"Baji Quan" 8 Extreme Fist

[MenteReligieuse]

I read that Baji Quan was practiced by armored warriors. Do you think this restriced the movements of the style to some degree? As far as I've read, Baji is pretty straight forward in it's attacks, not very evasive.

 

What do you think?

[dingyuan]

Baji Quan was used to be the martial art of the imperial guards so I guess they are armoured warriors but one thing I am sure of is Baji Quan was designed to defeat an armoured. During the time of war, it is impossible to fight a fully armoured warrior with combos of punches and kicks, Baji Quan focus more on attack with body parts like elbow, shoulder and back in an instance knockdown. A lot of Baji Quan's moves are knockdowns which was designed to knock those armoured warrior of their feet, I think because the users of Baji Quan were also armoured during the time of war, you can't have much fancy moves due to the lack of freedom of movements, so the moves are very strightfoward.

 

The moves of Baji Quan are not hard to do like those in other styles, even those who has no martial art training can do them with ease but the hard part is to do them right with the right amount of force.

[Drunken Monkey]

just to point out.

 

the armour as worn by regular foot soldiers,

 

no matter what division they were from,

 

tended to be quite light and wasn't really that restrictive.

 

in the case of imperial guards they did not really serve to fight wars.

 

their job was more to protect the emperor.

 

war fighting armies were under command of generals,

 

who often held more power in this regards than the emperor.

 

an educated guess was sumise that their chosen style involved knockdowns

 

because this would prevent a rush attack by an individual

 

(remember, the emperor hardly ever left the confines of the palace and so an attack would almost always be by an individual intruder or very small numbers)

 

so that the other protectors and palace guards could come and subdue.

 

i've mentioned this before but the only known style,

 

ignoring actual war skills like archery and horsemanship etc etc,

 

that I can think of that was known to be taught to the chinese armies at large,

 

was the original shaolin longfist sets

 

(after yue fei i think.... or was it someone else from the fist soong dynsasty?)

 

the whole shaolin burning, traitors teaching shaolin to the armies is sketchy so i'll leave that bit for another time.....

 

there were always stories of other styles' being introduced

 

and certain styles being taught to local peasant militia

 

but it wasn't systematically taught like longfist was.

[dingyuan]

Hmmm Drunken monkey, I think your point makes more sense, but I did also read from some where else that Baji Quan was also made to fight armoured warriors. Maybe that website was bullshiting I think I go with your explanation, thanks.

[MenteReligieuse]

Where do you train it anyway? I can't find any Baji kwan around quebec city.

[dingyuan]

I am in Vancouver so I am not too sure about Quebec city, try to look for it online.

[SevenStar]

I read that Baji Quan was practiced by armored warriors. Do you think this restriced the movements of the style to some degree? As far as I've read, Baji is pretty straight forward in it's attacks, not very evasive.

 

What do you think?

 

the lack of evasiveness could be for efficiency. Watch a traditional thai boxer - not one who has integrated boxing footwork - they don't evade much. They attack... and attack. If someone strikes at them, they either parry or absorb, but rarely do they evade. Their most feared weapons are on the inside - elbows and knees.

[SevenStar]

you can go to either the kung fu magazine forums or the bullshido forums and try to find a guy named "Asia". He trains baji, and from what I understand is pretty good. I'm not sure how frequently he posts though, so maybe you can just send him an email or something.

 

Also, there are several other people on the kung fu magazine forums who train baji.

 

EDIT - I didn't know that bullshido was a censored word! lol...

[MenteReligieuse]

From http://crane.50megs.com/index6q.htm

In the North, among so many styles, the Qing Dynasty Emperors had chosen to train themselves & their personal bodyguards in Bajiquan, for good reason. Later when Bagua Founder Dong Haichuan & his disciple Yin Fu entered the Forbidden City, the Emperor also chose to let the Palace Guards train in Baguazhang. From this we know that the value of these 2 styles is beyond doubt. If Baji is linear & explosive, then Bagua completely compliments it by being circular & ever-flowing.

[dingyuan]

Actually I think he might have made a mistake here, it shouldn't be Bagua Zhang but rather Pigua Zhang that the imperial guards trained in along with Baji Quan.