BajiQuan in Detail...?

[Baji87]

My name's Eric, I'm 21, from America, and I live and work in China, in Shandong Province. I'll be here a while.

Now, I wish I could ask the locals, but at the moment my Chinese is extremely poor, and the ones I do manage to communicate with know nothing or next to it. Something I keep hearing is that Bajiquan is practised by very few people. And those that DO know, well, even if their conversational English is good, there knowledge of Wushu is not usually wholly and completely transferable. And yes, I am working on improving my Chinese as well.

I have been looking for a Martial Art that was right for me, and I am pretty much convinced with what I've seen and read. Of course experience and time will be the only true tell, but before I decide who to learn from, I have to (want to) understand what my options are...something I am currently mixed up with.

I've read ALL the pages I could (yes, i've read bajimen...), but all the information is very generalized and I am looking for a bit of detail and history.

I understand that Bajiquan is an Art Form, and in that Art Form there are different styles and families. I've heard of the Wu, Huo, and Liu families (and many listed on Bajimen with no actual details about the different styles).

I really want to know, if anyone does:

1) What are all the different styles/families/branches/etc of Bajiquan existing in and outside of China today?

2) Where are they from and where are they mostly practised today?

3) What similarities do they share and what makes them different?

4) What are the most traditional of these styles? And what's your definition of traditional?

5) The Forms: It's my understanding that there are 20 (?) standard forms that are shared by all branches of Bajiquan...is this accurate? If so, what are they all?

6) What is BajiQuan's relation to other Martial Arts, especially TaijiQuan?

Also, I've heard people from the Liu family style say in their history of Baji that Wu Zhong had no descendants, and yet I've also heard many others say the the man by the name of Wu Lian Zhi in Mencun, Hebei (Baji's birthplace, apparently) who is the head of the Wu Family Style, is Wu Zhong lineage (in fact i've even seen a provided family tree of it)...Does anyone know for sure?

I hope that any of you might be able to assist my curiosity...I know I ask a lot...and I'm sure I'll have more questions, too...but I thought that the Martial Arts Forums would be the best place for this post.

Thanks,

Eric

[NightOwl]

Hm, can't say much for the state of Bijiquan. From everything I've seen, the trend in MAs in china has been more and more towards contemporary wushu and away from regular training. I do wish you luck though!

[Existence_is _suffering]

Haha, I wrote a whole paragraph about Baguazhang before I realised my mistake

Ok, from memory, it originated in Hebei Province but is pretty well-known across the country (Taiwan too).Very martial oriented (not really pretty) and has some kind of charging step... (sorry, I know I'm sketchy but it might help ) It also has quite strenous lower body training. Has a higher horse stance than most of the long fist styles... As far as I recall it has little to do with Tajiquan, BUT, is closely related to an art called Piguazhang and is sometimes taught along with it. This site looks to have some decent stuff on it as well: https://www.geocities.com/ottawakungfu/300baji001 and click the links under "Baji" in the left-hand window (sorry for all the directions but my computer doesn't show the URL for some reason.) Alternatively, go to yahoo and search "geocities.com - baji' click on the first thing that comes up (should say Hsing Yi and have atlantamartialarts in the URL) then click "Baji" in the left hand window. Sorry for the long-winded instructions and I hope I've provided at least some help!

E.O.S

P.S. I'm very envious of you, living/working and training in China is one of my dreams! Good luck with everything!

[Kajukenbopr]

Not a lot of information about the style here in America, that I have found, at least...

If you want the moves, look for a wushu school, if you want to learn to fight, look for a teacher that doesnt work for the goverment and teaches the martial application

I think Bajiquan has more in common with XingYi than with Taichi...