Cheng Sher Ba Gua Zhan
Ba Gua is a form of traditional chinese internal martial art. There are numerous flavors of Ba Gua. Cheng Sher Ba Gua Zhan primarily uses throws, trips, sweeps, and hard hits to incapacitate your enemy. Ba Gua is also based upon the Chinese medical system, and the exercises and forms are designed to strengthen, and "change" your body.
Below is some more information on Ba Gua.
Internal Martial arts such as Ba Gua can be extremely effective for self defense if trained correctly. There are a few strategic principles in Chinese internal Martial Arts that can provide a tactical advantage in melee combat. Here are a few examples:
Body Alignment / Posture and Body Changing
The first thing about internal chinese martial arts like Ba Gua is that they are based off of the chinese system of medicine. This system has been well aware of things that chiropractors and sports physiotherapists are just starting to learn about the human nervous system and spinal cord, meditative benefits, and muscle/tendon functional excellence. Like gymnasts and dancers, internal arts practitioners do difficult and challenging exercises, drills, and forms in order to literally change their body’s metabolism, balance, structure, tendon strength, speed and flexibility. The more serious one is with their body changing training, the more results they will see. Doing Ba Gua once per week without the requisite attention to the principles is not good enough. At first this training is extremely difficult, just as jogging is extremely difficult for the beginner. But after years of practice, the internal martial artist’s body starts to change, and they start to see the health and martial benefits as they begin to move as a functional unit and cease using “awkward force”. They also get damaged less often in hard martial arts sparring. This body changing also includes tendon conditioning, thus making an internal artist “seem” stronger as they move as a more functional unit. Tendons are as strong as steel. If you can learn to use them, and to strengthen them, then you will move as a more functional and solid (yet fluid) unit.
Friction and Sensitivity
Another key aspect in internal arts like Ba Gua is friction, or what is sometimes called sticky hands. With this body changing, and two person “push”, “search”, or “sticky” hands practice, practitioners become more sensitive to the movements of others, and by using this sensitivity, internal martial artists can use a foe’s force against them by placing them off balance, or out of position. And by using friction, the practitioner can deliver more kinetic energy per second than a straight punch. All boxers know that more friction means more damage, so too does this apply to throws and arm drags. The more friction when throwing an opponent, the more kinetic energy you deliver into them, the faster they hit the ground. Also, using friction properly gives one a slight edge in grappling contests of strength. Every little edge helps, and the chinese internal arts were made by diminutive people who still needed to defend themselves in mortal combat.
Contact us today to get private lessons in Ba Gua.
*Note: Harder martial arts training is not for everyone. Josh takes great steps to make sure ALL students are comfortable and there is as little contact with other students as possible. However, if you are interested in traditional martial training (which naturally includes moderate to full contact practice) Josh has the gear and would love to train with you.