Gravelbelly Meets Baguazhong Practitioner

My family &I enjoy English Country Dancing one Friday each month. This past Friday, I met a practitioner of Baquazhong, one of the Chinese arts.

The practitioner (I'll call him "Buck") showed me some of the principles of his art. As he demonstrated, his movements easily took my balance.

Buck was a nice guy, though. As he showed me his art's version of push hands, he let me unbalance him.

He's back in Florida now, but he has sent me the link to the video below which lays out basics of the art.



There are three things I'd like to point out about the video -- all are pluses.

1. When the demonstrator shows the application of his movements against an opponent, you can see that those movements could easily be launched from the startle response position. Indeed, the demonstrator seems to do so more than once, whether by his design or not.
2. Notice the movements that are very similar to what I call the combat wedge, which I describe here.
3. The exercises look as though they are designed to promote focus, control and sensitivity as well as proprioception. 

In addition, my conversation with Buck revealed that in his art, they do not learn techniques, but rather practice movement. Then they practice applying the principles of movement to opponents.