Power of Internal Martial Arts

Visually, large-frame styles display several qualities:
1. Arm and leg postures are very extended, with the hands as far away from the body as the technical requirements of each style will tolerate.
2. Arm movements and stepping actions tend to describe large circles in the air, with the angle between the armpit and the elbow being as large as possible, even in transition movements.
3. The focus during waist-turning movements is on turning as far to either side as is comfortably possible.
4. Stances tend to be long and deep, with an attempt to go as low as possible.
5. Postures are extended, elbows 60 to 90 degrees to the side, and no tiny circle motions are present.

Visually medium-frame styles have the following qualities:
1. Arm movements will come closer, but not very close to the body, but just for short periods of time before fully extending away from the body again.
2. Stances are of medium height; the buttocks will not descend to be even with or go below the knees.
3. Both arm and leg movements tend to be extended away from the body, but not as far away as they can go.
4. Arm movements and stepping actions tend to use a mix of large and small circular movements, with the bulk of the movements being in the middle.
5. Waist movements will turn 90 degrees to the side, but not more. (Often the waist will only turn 45 degrees, tightening the arc with small movements deep within the belly or lower tantien. These movements are not externally obvious.)
6. Small, wavelike circles will begin to appear in the transitions between obvious postures.
7. The changes within transitions from posture to posture are much more emphasized than they are in the large-frame forms.
8. Elbows tend to face 45 degrees to the side.
9. The circles of the form are smaller than they are in the large style. Some circular movements are fairly obvious; other smaller ones are discernable only if you have an eye trained to detect extremely tiny motion.

Visually, the qualities of small-frame styles are:
1. Arm movements will come very close to the body repeatedly before fully extending away from the body again.
2. Stances will usually be high, often being done with the knees only slightly bent.
3. Both arm and leg movements will tend to be extended from the body less than they could be, often with only a few inches between their extension and retraction.
4. Waist movements often tend to turn only 45 degrees to the side.
5. Circles tend to become exceedingly small, with transition movements often containing not one but several circles, often on multiple planes and angles of movement. Even to the trained eyes of external martial artists and movement specialists, many circular movements that are physically occurring tend to not be externally visible, but if you could look below the skin inside the body, these circular movements would be extremely large and obvious. To do these powerful internal movements requires extremely strong intent and control of chi. In general, the small styles are considered by internal stylists to be the most advanced.

There is virtually no other martial art system or style, internal or external, that has combined and seamlessly integrated the whole pantheon of martial art fighting techniques in one package as effectively as ba gua. In ba gua, you can hit a person with an open hand, a fist, or a push. You can hit with your hand, your head, your shoulder, or any other part of your body. You can punch straight ahead, in a round fashion, or from every conceivable angle. You can also throw individuals without grabbing their bodies by tipping them through careful placement of your foot or by breaking their balance while controlling their arms or hands. You can use foot sweeps and leg cuts. In addition, you can lift an attacking man over your hands and throw him on his back or on his face or his head. There are also chokes and joint-locks or chin na techniques as well as grabbing techniques in which you seize your attacker's skin and try to rip it off his body. Ba gua also has a range of kicks both high and low, Knee butts, and stomping techniques, and a full arsenal of traditional weapons.
Ba gua was designed to fight up to eight opponents at once. This design is based on the inability of more than eight people to attack one person simultaneously without getting in each other's way (unless armed with long spears). When facing multiple opponents, the ba gua fighter flows through the group of attackers, constantly twisting, turning, and changing direction. From a defensive point of view, this minimizes the need to block attacks, since you are a continuously moving target that is no longer at the original location when the blow arrives. Never remaining in one spot for more than a fraction of a second, the ba gua chang fighter intends to disable or at least bypass, one opponent and continue on to the next before the first attacker is replaced. This efficiency can only be achieved through deception and exploitation of angles of attack that most other martial arts do not utilize. The training for fighting multiple opponents simultaneously starts with the practitioner facing a single person. Then, as training progresses, opponents are added one at a time. To develop fighting prowess, ba gua people consider it necessary to practice fighting applications with real human beings, who are basically unpredictable during fighting. However, solo form work and Walking the Circle is the foundation of the training and the source of your energy, body coordination, and the freeing of your spirit to move spontaneously and to respond to attacks.

The movements practiced in the ba gua forms are the exact ones applied in combat. Many martial arts have hundreds of moves, but when it comes down to empty-hand fighting, they usually use only a couple, with the rest only serving to develop physical coordination. Every movement in ba gua has practical and usable fighting applications. In the traditional schools of ba gua, a wide range of applications is taught to people to make their body/minds more agile and adaptable to unexpected martial changes, rather than only to accumulate an inventory of specific techniques to respond to specific defenses or attacks. In ba gua, the cultivation of energy and the fighting applications are based on two distinctively different practice methods. The first method taught by Tung Hai Chuan involves Circle-Walking techniques exclusively, and is referred to as the pre-birth method (or hsien tien in Chinese). The pre-birth circle methods can, depending on the teacher, be taught purely as an energetic movement art for health and meditation or in conjunction with ba gua fighting applications.
The second method, called the post-birth method (or hou tien in Chinese), emphasizes ba gua's fighting applications, not its health and meditation aspects. The post-birth method is done in straight lines rather than by Walking a Circle. In these methods, created by Tung's students, each trigram of the I Ching is represented by eight sections of overt martial movements (with applications) categorized by fighting techniques, such as palms, fists, kicks, throws, joint-locks, etc. Each movement includes within it both specific fighting techniques and generalized tactical principles that must be creatively applied, often using different physical weapons (palms, kicks, and so on) from the form movement.

PRE-BIRTH/HSIEN TIEN That which happens to a human between conception and the time they are born.
POST-BIRTH/HOU TIEN That which happens to a person after they leave the womb. Talents and skills not inherent but acquired after birth.

Ba gua is unique in that its most fundamental energy cultivation practices, derived from nei gung, are all incorporated into its pre-birth Circle Walking, the use of which is not found in other martial arts. The Taoists believe that the way a human being is energized while in the womb (the pre-birth stage) differs from the way energy is received after one enters the world (post-birth stage). After birth, humans energize through exercising, breathing, eating food, and resting. In the womb, however, it is the cosmic forces, according to the Taoists, that charge the developing fetus much like a storage battery. A good deal of the charge received before birth will be used up in later life, and the amount of energy stored in the "battery" will determine a human being's general constitution and lifespan. Pre-birth chi practices (including ba gua) attempt to reconnect with the original cosmic forces, charging the "battery" just like it was charged while in the womb, which may well upgrade a person's fundamental constitution. Post-birth chi practices are basically limited to optimizing what remains of a person's original re-birth chi.

The simple act of Walking the Circle creates a vortex that allows the practitioner to amplify, mix, and control the natural energies that keep coming up from the earth and down from above. The twisting actions of ba gua create spirals of these energies according to the will of the practitioner. Also, these spiraling energies can involuntarily move the practitioner's chi and body. In later stages of practice, you are able to create energetic vortices that spiral up toward the sky and down toward the ground simultaneously. These energy flows are also used to create extremely powerful fighting applications. Ba gua people believe that martial artists must be heroes, not cowards, and that this heroism must come from genuine internal centering, confidence, and skill rather than from bravado, raw physical talent, a violent mind, or a mere idea of the art. Tung taught different students different aspects of the art in different ways. Since Tung taught mostly in private one-on-one sessions or in small groups of three or four, he could tailor his instruction to the individual. He taught most of his students only the fighting applications of ba gua, leaving open the possibility of eventually teaching them the spiritual aspects as well. His instruction followed the path of least resistance for that particular student based upon the specifics of the student's previous background and experience. The pre-birth martial method, with its small number of external movements and large amount of internal content, could prove challenging for many in the West who want to learn ba gua.

Given our hectic pace, which usually leaves people with less than optimum time to practice, it is probably wiser and more satisfying to practice fewer movements in more depth to obtain maximum personal results.
In pre-birth ba gua, students are first taught the internal components through the Single Palm Change. Later, they are taught how to expand those components to direct and power other physical movements. At the initial training level, the hsing, meaning the forms or movements, come from Walking the Circle. Students typically would Walk the Circle over a period of one to several years. They would progressively add more and more internal nei gung elements while they opened up the energy channels of the body with specific static arm postures and the Single Palm Change.

Through this process, the body becomes very strong. The student can start to realize how the energy that is inside connects to the energy that patterns that is outside: how the yin and yang energies inside the body equate to the sun and moon in the heavens, how the microcosm and the macrocosm interconnect. Once this foundation has been carefully laid, the student can next begin to learn the movements of the Eight Mother Palms (ba mu chang), which, when done using the eight energies of the I Ching, are called the Eight Inner Palms, or nei ba chang.

EIGHT MOTHER PALMS/ BA MU CHANG
The eight basic palm changes or movement patterns of ba gua chang.

EIGHT INNER PALMS/ NEI BA CHANGS
Basic ba gua movement patterns that enable one to experience and ultimately embody the energies of the eight trigrams of the / Ching. (See p. 221 of Eight Outer Palms.)

The alternative method was to learn post-birth ba gua. This method works from the outside to the inside and involves learning a tremendous number of outer movement forms, each with a few specific fighting applications.
Instead, practitioners perform techniques and step in straight or zigzag walking patterns, in a manner similar to the Seven-Star walking pattern of hsing-i (see p. 202). After these post-birth methods are learned, the pre-birth Circle-Walking methods are incorporated into the system.

A post-birth method of teaching large numbers of movements was first used to instruct army troops by Yin Fu and his students (see p.308). These simple and very effective straight-line techniques were easier to teach soldiers than the more complex Circle-Walking methods. A post-birth method later passed from Gao I Sheng's students in Tianjin to students in Hong Kong and Taiwan, including Hung I Hsiang. Cheng Ting Hua also had a 64-change method done while circling that is distinguished by specific fighting applications and throwing techniques.

If another student already had a good foundation of internal power, Tung would usually teach the power training first and fighting techniques next.* However, whatever way ba gua was taught, the internal power training remained primary and the applications secondary. Thus, Liu's primary objective was to teach the author the energetic pre-birth practices whose power created the applications and movements in the first place.
Bai Hua, a students of Liu Hung Chieh, was Beijing-educated. I shared an apartment with Bai Hua for a time, and he had as strong an influence on me as did Huang Hsi I, especially in terms of lengthening body tissue and opening and closing the joints and body cavities. His emphasis was on creating chi and yang internal power A former Red Guard general when he was a teenager his martial approach was based on creating techniques that only required one or at the most two hits to completely incapacitate someone.
It was in these large-scale fights that Bai Hua gained his deep respect for ba gua as a martial art of the highest order, especially against multiple opponents in life-and-death battles.

Everything Bai Hua did was purely Taoist with no Buddhist overtones. He emphasized the fire method of Taoism (which Liu taught him, as opposed to the water method, which Liu taught me), and was highly trained in inner alchemy. His knowledge of the Hua Shan chi gung tradition and the old Yang style of tai chi chuan he learned from Lin Du Ying was invaluable to me in my attempt to comprehend the fundamentals of chi gung. Without both Huang Hsi I and Bai Hua, I would not have had the background or gung fu to have been qualified to study with Liu Hung Chieh, and would not have been able to comprehend Liu's work and transmissions. Bai Hua was a student of classical Taoism, in particular the I Ching. He saw all the chi processes of tai chi and ba gua as being nothing more than practical applications of the I Ching.

His way of teaching was to first have a student clearly understand the philosophical principles and theories. He would then focus on how to consciously turn the theories into practical applications for internal body movement (that is, the movement of chi inside the body and the specific mind states that would produce the required flow of chi). I asked Bai Hua if I could train with his teacher while I was there. Bai Hua said he hoped that I could. He told me that Liu Hung Chieh was a recluse in the middle of the city and did not teach people very often. He then added that it was totally unpredictable whether or not Liu would teach me, even if he, Bai Hua, asked, as Liu kept his own counsel and often refused to teach people, even some very famous martial artists in China who had sought him out. Bai then proceeded to write me a formal letter of introduction. As I later learned, shortly before my, arrival at his home, Liu had had a dream about teaching a foreigner who fit my description, and consequently agreed to take me on as a student. At the end of this training, the author became the first Westerner to be certified in the complete simplified tai chi system, including form, Push Hands, and weapons. The more advanced training of the pre-birth method focuses on tapping into the matrix of the I Ching to manifest spontaneously arising chi. This enables the practitioner to better handle the totally unpredictable and to slowly grow the spirit of wu wei ("doing without doing"), which is the essence of all Taoist mind/ body/spirit practices. During Circle-Walking practices, an individual walks around and around in a circle, regularly alternating direction between clockwise and counterclockwise and using various kinds of regular and specialized steps while simultaneously executing spiraling arm and waist movements.

Circle-Walking consists of several stages, each of which progressively builds upon the one before. The first is Walking the Circle while holding the arms in static postures, which, like the standing postures in I Chuan (see p. 181 ), is a method of basic power training. The second stage of Circle Walking is based on a meditation method that existed within Taoist monasteries thousands of years ago: the Single Palm Change, which represents the first trigram of the I Ching, known as "heaven" (or chien in Chinese). It signifies the essence of yang energy and is the e chi power generation method of ba gua, focusing as it does on using power in one palm at a time.

The third stage consists of the Double Palm Change, which represents the second trigram of the I Ching, known as "earth" (or kun in Chinese). It signifies the essence of yin energy, and is the prime yin or soft power generation method of ba gua. It focuses on using the two palms together, coordinating them until they are as one and are able to move and change the quality of energy between them with fluidity and power. The fourth stage involves the basic Eight Mother Palms, where each palm represents the energy, characteristics, strategies and subtle qualities of each of the eight trigrams of the I Ching. In some ba gua systems, rather than the focus being on the energies of the I Ching itself, it is on the qualities of the animals associated with each of the trigrams. The fifth stage of Circle-Walkng expands the repertoire to 64 techniques or hands, where each palm change attempts to represent the multitude of the qualities of the I Ching's 64 hexagrams.
Double Palm Change A movement that is the basis of all the yin, soft, or amorphous techniques of ba gua chang.

Instead, ba gua's Circle-Walking methods first emphasize physical mechanics. The practitioner walks around a circle that is typically 6 to 12 feet in diameter, although many advocate that beginners use a circle that is 8 or 12 steps around in circumference. This walking is done with three primary steps: (1) a straight step hat proceeds directly forward; (2) a toe-in step that propels and curves our leg and foot in toward your spine and moves your outside foot toward the center of the circle; (3) a toe-out step that propels you away from the enter of the circle. (Other steps include backwards, sideways, spinning, jumping, zigzag, skipping, cross-steps, and half-steps.) If the walking is properly performed, the body will naturally open its internal energy channels, becoming healthy and strong.

As both a martial art and an exercise art, ba gua is known in China for its reliance on footwork. It is not uncommon for ba gua people to do 270 degree turns, while one foot is firmly planted on the ground and the other (the toe-out foot) opens around. These kind of steps can only be accomplished if the hips and the rest of the body have become open and relaxed after long practice, and the twisting motion of the body's deepest muscles is very strong.

Ba gua's palm changes are not normally practiced in slow motion. This is in direct contrast to the primary method of moving in slow motion in the solo forms of tai chi. Although the initial practices are done at a slow walk, the walking speed progresses over one to two years to the equivalent of the pace of modern speed walking, with lightning fast waist and arm movements, spins and constant changes of direction. The initial slow practice speed is done not because it is mandatory as in tai chi, but in order to stabilize ba gua's many indispensable technical requirements. The fundamental principles of ba gua must be integrated into the body. In ba gua's initial period of practice, it is virtually impossible to walk quickly without violating some or all of these principles. One of the most important involves the twisting of the body, particularly the legs and waist. In ba gua, the body is constantly twisting and turning. No action in ba gua is done in a totally straight line, even in the relatively linear practice methods. Even a seemingly straight-line technique will be found, upon close visual analysis, to have a very slight curve. One of the unique things about this art is that many of its movements are completely spherical. The total flexibility of the body is critical in ba gua and, indeed, ba gua builds the most connected body flexibility of all the martial arts.

(a) the weight is sunk into the legs,
(b) the spine and head are upright, lifted and very slightly bowed,
(c) the entire body is relaxed but coiled toward the center of the circle,
(d) the tailbone faces forward, and
(e) both arms can either move in coordination with each other or simultaneously perform actions completely independent from each other.

Leaving aside for the moment the issue of Chi (which is of absolute importance in ba gua), the continuous lengthening of soft tissue, opening and closing of joints and body cavities, and twisting of the muscles, fascia, and ligaments that this art requires is what makes the body physically strong. The movements of ba gua are extremely demanding on the body. To an untrained observer it may appear as if a person is just walking senselessly in a circle, yet the body's twisting and turning while one is performing Walking the Circle invisibly puts massaging pressure on the internal organs and on the skeletal-muscular system. They are specifically designed to open the tissues and joints of the upper back, neck, chest, and arms to balance the body physically and energetically. The opening of the whole body happens gradually over weeks, months, and years of Walking the Circle. As the body stretches and strengthens, and more energy starts to circulate, the body progressively becomes more vigorous, as well as more relaxed. The eight energies that correspond to the Eight Bodies of Man are: the physical body, etheric/chi body, emotional body, mental body, psychic energy body, causal body, body of individuality, and body of the Tao. Each of these has a different energetic level of vibration. The purpose of this early stage of training is to have the body become coordinated, the mind to become still, and the Taoist meditation state of "no mind" (wu wei) to appear. Over time the rapid walking of the circle and the palm changes evolve into a swirling tornado with extremely rapid spiraling of the body and instantaneous changes of direction. Once you have reached the "no-mind" state, your consciousness and then your body begin to glimpse, experience, and integrate into your being, one by one, the actual living reality of the eight energies. Although the classic Taoist metaphors are pleasing to the intellect, the realities of these energies must be experienced in the cells of your body. You then begin to directly perceive how these eight energies combine with each other at ever-increasing levels of complexity both internally and in the continually manifesting world outside the body. This process is expressed in the art of ba gua as a smooth, unbroken flow through the eight palm changes. A modern example of such dispersion can be seen in some schools that use all the 64 hands for martial training. In such schools, often students cannot use the hand techniques effectively, which reflects a case of too much information and not enough true understanding and embodiment of the art. In contrast, the pre-birth method approaches everything from the inside out, and uses the Eight Inner Palms training. With the pre-birth method, you internalize what you are doing so that a very small micromovement can contain all of the energetics, internal body mechanics, and fighting applications of a form. Although there may be a great deal happening internally, an untrained eye would be unable to see what is being done. Traditionally, seven of the eight palms are done with an open palm and only one of the eight includes using the closed fist.

Eight Outer Palms/Wai Ba Jang
Basic pre-birth ba gua chang practice of secondary circle-walking techniques that function as fighting applications only.
The issue of change is the one that is most critical for martial or spiritual applications of this martial art. As a rule of thumb, the more you see on the outside, the less is happening on the inside. Conversely, the more that is happening on the inside, the less can be seen on he outside. This latter is the case for the top ba gua people. When they practice solo movements, what they are doing appears incredibly simple. This Single Palm Change was complete because it was fully developed inside the mind. There was no need for additional forms, because the "I," or intention, from which all of Shi Liu's thoughts sprang had a complete understanding of the nature of change and could instantly manifest whatever physical movement was required. This method of condensing all of the ba gua energy system into the Single Palm Change was the traditional Taoist monastic ba gua method, which was not concerned with martial arts, but purely with internal alchemy, Taoist meditation, and health practices. For Tung's disciple, Shi Liu tiny movements within the Single Palm Change became the means to cultivate his energy It might have been just a movement of the finger into a new palm shape that linked deeply inside his mind, energy channels, and psyche to give him the ability to transform it into a fighting application. Another person doing ba gua might have needed to do two or three large, expansive movements to accomplish the same result. Shi Liu's movement might have been only one-hundredth the size physically but it was equally or more effective, both in terms of moving chi inside the body and for purposes of fighting. Tung was the only one who has been credited with being able to fully use all eight palm changes. True understanding of a palm requires a detailed understanding of the internal mechanics of that palm, not just the external movements. Ba gua people consider the external movements to be more or less merely packaging. However, it is generally recognized that the essence of ba gua is contained in the Single and Double Palm Changes. As your ba gua becomes more developed both internally and externally there can be instances or periods of spontaneous movement. In ba gua language this is called, "When the dragon comes out of its cave." Spontaneous movement can happen while you are doing the form. You may spontaneously start releasing energy in very powerful ways, doing fa jin movements no one ever taught you. You may have psychic experiences of all kinds.

The I Ching, or Book of Changes, is about how one energy event, situation, or thing changes into another. When used for purposes of divination, the I Ching is thrown to obtain a moving line, which in turn creates a new hexagram, and that new hexagram is a bien hua, or change.
(1) initiate a change;
(2) carry through and support a change;
(3) do not allow a change to progress through its natural unfolding by freezing it in place through inertia or unrecognized internal resistance; and
(4) naturally or unnaturally terminate a change. The objective is not merely to intellectually comprehend the deeper meanings of the I Ching, but to make it personally relevant and spontaneously useful in daily life. For this, you need a regular personal practice. Ba gua was designed by the ancient Taoists for that purpose. The ba gua person changes the internal resistances inside the body so the body can appropriately adapt and instantly strike or defend at the new angle, without assuming a new external form.

The Single Palm Change alters as the ability of the practitioner improves in the same manner that you understand the inner meanings of the I Ching the more you work with it. The way practitioners move their insides, focus their attention, and change the energies inside their bodies all affect the possible angles of defense and attack of the

Dragon Comes Out of Its Cave
The experience lasted only a few weeks. One person who was watching described it as "shaking the dragon's tail" because my back and spine were vibrating so hard it looked as if a tail was coming out of my spine. The source of these incredibly rapid yet flowing movements is the release of a human being's internal consciousness. In this process, your energy starts mixing with the energy in the surrounding environment and you can tap into the primal energies that originated the ba gua lineage.

The spontaneous movements that I experienced are similar to what is called kriya or spontaneous actions in the Shaktipat meditation tradition of India's Kundalini yoga. The only difference is that this spontaneous movement took a form that is appropriate to ba gua and martial arts as opposed to an emotional or cathartic release.

A live energy simultaneously ascends from the earth and descends from the sky When they mix, they become a living force inside your body that physically moves you. It is not that you do a movement; instead you are moved, sometimes very forcibly. I clearly remember when it was occurring that I could spin on a dime in Liu's small room, whereas before I would normally have knocked something over. Spontaneous movement involved a level of physical coordination that even after twenty years of martial arts practice was beyond my capacities, yet I was doing it. My body was making impossible jumps in the air jumps I could never have conceived of before. I was experiencing the beginnings of ching gung, or the lightness of body skill, which historically is a specialty of ba gua. There was not any particular technique; it was just happening to me suddenly. When this period of spontaneous movement ended, it never fully recurred. I wondered if all the kundalini work that I had done during the two years I had spent in India (and practiced for years) just happened to be coming out in ba gua.

Ching Gung
Special technique, now virtually lost, for making the body incredibly light by changing its chi. Spontaneous movement is considered to be part of the spiritual side of ba gua. It releases bound emotions and gives one the ability to change energy to a degree that cannot be obtained from ordinary controlled ba gua practice. As these things start to happen, you can see into the root of what change in ba gua is really about. Spontaneous movement typically lasts for only a limited period of time, no more than a few years, and the levels of awareness it causes will not become permanent until the mind is sufficiently open, stable, and balanced. Bien hua, or change, is the heart and soul of the I Ching. Hsing, or form, is the way in which your body moves and the specific outer shape it takes, and is the basic focus of external art forms. Bien hua is also concerned with how your internal chi/body shape changes when it encounters a situation either inside your body, as your chi jumps from a lower level to a higher level of capacity, or how it changes in a martial technique from a palm strike to a forearm strike to a shoulder strike, and so on. In the spiritual aspect of ba gua, bien hua is concerned with how you jump from one level of consciousness to another in internal alchemy. In fighting, bien hua can be expressed in the way you change and how you perform a particular movement. The power can change minutely or dramatically to accommodate the way in which your opponent has changed the angle or power of an attack, and your body posture can change from attack to defense or defense to attack, possibly many times per second. First and foremost is the practice of applying a technique as the body learns to mold to the energies of the environment, as well to one's own personal energy and that of the opponent. As a martial and spiritual art, ba gua actively uses the chi of the environment, drawing energy from the earth and sky. Ba gua is considered to be a celestial art rather than an earthly art because it is common for ba gua people to quite literally draw energy from the planets and stars. By forming psychic connections with these natural forces, ba gua people utilize them as they move through and interact with the energy of the practitioner's personal aura. Energies constantly coming up from the earth and down from the sky combine with the local energy of the environment around you. If, for example, you live near a mountain or the ocean, your body absorbs the energy of these environmental forces as well as that of the wind and the trees. It also absorbs the energy of the human being who is attacking you. The combination of all of these energies gives rise to an exactly appropriate energetic response, which becomes the martial application.

My attempts to have him or his students elaborate on any other training of this type got nowhere. The situation always remained the same. I came and learned fairly regularly under this tree for several years. Then, one day, without warning, the group vanished. No one knew where they had gone or even exactly who they were. I never saw them again.

Drunken boxers are constantly collapsing and then unexpectedly jumping up like a jack-in-the-box. They appear to completely lose their balance and/or roll on the floor taking the most unbelievable breakfalls, and suddenly leaping up to attack. When upright, they often appear to have no body solidity at all. They look totally vulnerable and wide open, and yet when an opponent seeks to take advantage, he finds himself throttled without knowing why or how. All and all, it is probably the most playful martial art I have ever practiced.
There are two schools of Eight Drunken Immortals. The first comes from the Shaolin branch of Earth boxing called ti tang, which specializes in ground-fighting techniques. In Earth boxing, when practitioners fall to the ground, they may hit their opponents on the way down and/or drag them down, too. Once on the floor, an Eight Drunken Immortals boxer uses very sophisticated ground techniques, especially kicks, nerve strikes, chokes, and joint-locks, either on an opponent already taken down, and/or on a standing opponent who is trying to stomp him. The second school is purely Taoist. It is a martial art that Taoists taught to their children or teenagers to develop their physical body and chi while they were still too young to undergo the precise discipline required to be successful in the internal martial arts.

Ti Tang
Various systems of Chinese martial arts concerned with fighting on the ground or earth. This style embraces a deep understanding of how human body weight and momentum work, and can manipulate these elements in the body as it is moving through space. In softness, Eight Drunken Immortals is closest to tai chi. In attack mode, it is a mix of tai chi and ba gua principles with some of its own unique material. In its footwork, evasion principles, and emphasis on change and unpredictability, it is closest to ba gua. Eight Drunken Immortals stresses several unusual martial qualities. It embodies more joint- and body-folding techniques than any other external or internal/external martial art. It imparts an ability to fold the human body like a rag doll, thus enabling the practitioner to both block and attack from quite unpredictable angles with every part of the body, including the buttocks and back. The extreme body-folding skill of the Drunken boxers makes it virtually impossible to apply joint-locks on them. Although some think Drunken boxers dislocate their joints to defend against locks, they do not. It is the extremely minute movements of the shoulder and area beneath the ribs that create this illusion. Eight Drunken Immortals is neither a "this or that" style, and equally uses punches, hand and finger strikes, and a large assortment of usual and unusual kicks from odd angles, joint-locks, all kinds of throws, both upright and crouching, and extensive use of the legs while on the ground. Although Eight Drunken Immortals does incorporate developed chi work, its main emphasis for power and movement is mainly on weight displacement rather than pure chi work, which requires no physical body weight momentum for success. Consequently this martial art studies the exact science of body momentum from every angle of body movement that can happen: upright, airborne, or on the ground. It is especially good for reversing the direction of body momentum within a tiny amount of space. This specific interest drives its practitioners until they are able to exert great control over how their body weight moves in space, both in projection, as in forward rolls, and while lurching both forward, backward, and sideways. These and any other movements, such as growing and shrinking, are analyzed in terms of the specifics of how shifts in the Drunken practitioner's momentum will correspondingly affect their opponent's momentum and body balance. Another weight displacement focus is the ability to make any point on the body, say an elbow tip, head, tantien, or knee become the center of balance and movement, and then to rapidly change at will from any one of many multiple balance points to another. Such maneuvering allows Drunken boxers to appear totally unbalanced when in fact their balance is perfect. Thus, multiple traps are set for an unsuspecting opponent. In more advanced stages of practice, this ability allows Drunken boxers to smoothly segment their body into independent parts connected by a common thread of balance. This ultimately extends to being able to put the entire power or weight of one's whole body into a single part of the body, such as a shoulder or forearm, or at its best into only a tiny single point, such as a fingertip. This method is commonly done in the internal martial arts, only much more invisibly and with much greater internal power. In the beginning, a Drunken boxer deliberately seeks to draw universal divine energy into the body from the heavens. In the Taoist method of Eight Drunken Immortals, it is this universal chi that makes practitioners "drunk," that flows through their movements. Neither real emotion nor acting is involved. Part of the training is to draw this universal energy into each of the three tantiens of the body, and move it between the three like a living force and next from each of the tantiens to anywhere in the body for specific effect. The chi work of Drunken boxers makes their bodies become very light or heavy, gradually or instantaneously Descending energy is used to sink their chi, which lets their hands sink to smash through their opponents. In these, the lightness of the arms and body increases speed while, by the hand being heavy at the very end, the Drunken boxer amplifies the hit. The control of energy inside the body enables the practitioner to be able to move rapidly and impressively up and down, forwards and backwards, left and right, as well as to shrink and collapse into a ball, and then grow and shoot out like a lightning bolt. Do not use reflexes to respond to an attack. Your mind is always present and still and, as indicated, you move spontaneously in response not only to the energies of yourself and your opponent, but also to the environmental energies around you. Most martial arts emphasize only having an awareness of the energy or body movement of your opponent. The true methods of change are learned when two people practice freely attacking each other at will. This may be done while both are Walking the Circle together or engaging in some other two-person spontaneous interchange with a minimum of rules (for instance, the attacker may attack only particular parts of the body in any way, or only use a specific strike). Rou Shou, a training method much like Push Hands in tai chi except that, with Rou Shou, you are allowed to hit, throw, kick, and apply joint-locks. You hit or slap gently in the initial phase so that no one gets hurt, but hard enough that the strike is felt. It is not like karate or Shaolin where you pull a blow; rather, it is closer to light sparring in boxing. After you have learned the ability to absorb blows to the point where you can easily take strong blows, you start hitting and getting hit harder and more heavily. Each change describes a different way in which the chi comes to a place in your body or your chi arrives at a specific energy level and changes into something else. Change is based on energy that is continuously coming together and separating. This fusion and fission releases tremendous energy and possibilities. It is the point at which this potential fusion or fission happens that determines the form that the energy will next take. Everything in ba gua is always geared toward allowing that sudden release or absorption of energy and using these intense mutating energies fruitfully.

Liu Hung Chieh and the author begin ba gua's Circle-Walking sparring practice. Ba gua is concerned with the eight basic angles of approach to a person: front and back, left and right (both above and below the waist), and the four diagonal directions. In ba gua, the change of angles is a major concern. When skilled ba gua practitioners come into contact with their opponents, they may change an angle minutely, either through walking or turning the dragon body or folding the wrist, elbow, and shoulder joints so that it will seem as if they are moving in three directions at once. In the middle of all these directional changes, the opponent is hit without knowing how from where. This rapid changing of angles makes a ba gua person disappear and reappear suddenly, leading many in China to liken ba gua to the actions of a ghost. Ba gua chang as a martial art divides horizontal space into eight angles of direction that can be thought of in terms of personal (not geographic) compass points with north always being the direction in which one is facing. The eight points consist of the four main directions (north, south, east, and west) and their diagonals (northeast, southeast, southwest, and northwest). Walking in a circle allows for exploitation of these various angles for martial purposes. First, it develops an awareness of these angles. Second, by firmly rooting on one leg at all times you can, with sufficient training, move with full speed and power from any one compass point to any of the seven other directions. Ba gua chang's rapid changes of direction are possible because each new step opens up another eight possible angles for movement. While this concept may seem simple, the practice is not. After an understanding of the horizontal angles is achieved through practice of Walking the Circle, a sense of the vertical is achieved through the eight palm changes. With these, the practitioner employs vertical up and down movements as the circle is walked, and thereby develops an insight into height and depth. By incorporating these dimensions, the angles of attack within ba gua chang's horizontal circular space are expanded immensely into the three dimensions of a sphere. Ba gua fighters, especially in the pre-birth practices achieve an awareness of surrounding space in a 360-degree sphere, as well as being able to perceive the chi above themselves and below the ground. Ba gua's consideration of these angles in three-dimensional space allows complete utilization of the spiraling energy developed through Walking the Circle. In ba gua chang, every angle has an arc no matter how slight. Using this spiraling energy allows you to attack with power from angles that other martial artists are normally unprepared to counter or to expect a counter from. The triangle is used primarily to triangulate force from two parts of the body to focus on a single point or to produce a power vector For example, force originating from points A and B can combine to bring force to point C, or can combine to produce a line of force from point C to point D. This triangulation can take a number of forms; (a) your opponent's force hits your left arm and is rerouted in a triangular manner out of your right arm; (b) you triangulate force from your left rear leg and your right hand or (c) you triangulate force from your right front leg and your right or left leading arm. In this case, attacks and defenses with the arms and legs are performed at angles ranging between 30 and 75 degrees, with a 45-degree angle being the most common and 30 or 60 degrees being the next most common.

The square is employed when moving in a zigzag fashion, to the side and then forward, and then to the side again. Here, you might stay touching or completely disengage from your opponent and move to the side, where your opponent's force lines do not impact your freedom of movement or set you up for an immediate counter. Then, from the clear space, you can counterattack. The triangle methods commonly aim to intersect the opponent's line of force, immobilize it, and then counter. The square methods usually aim to disengage from the opponent's force lines or threat of attack and then counter at a 90-degree angle. Commonly, one can shift continuously back and forth between a triangle and a square, often in the space of less than one-quarter of a millimeter, so that your shifts are utterly confusing to your opponent. This shifting is combined with rapid waist turns, joint folds, forwards and backwards body and footwork maneuvers, as well as sudden vertical body drops and rises. Considering this, it becomes easy to understand how ba gua confounds an opponent with its unpredictability as well as with its unique ability to project power from unexpected angles, which is its specialty.

There is simply no substitute for working with another person. The techniques for working two-person applications include: (1) Rou Sho; (2) Walking the Circle with palms joined and engaging in both preset and spontaneous attacks and defenses; (3) attacks and defenses executed from close, middle, and long distances (both pre-set and spontaneous); and (4) freestyle sparring. Rou Shou, which means "soft hands."

Rou Shou practice are to:
1. Develop sensitivity and aliveness of touch.
2. Overcome the tendency to experience paralysis or hysteria in combat.
3. Develop (as in tai chi Push Hands) the abilities to (a) root, (b) fold and twist the waist and arm joints, and (c) activate the springs in the legs for both vertical and horizontal movement.
4. Provide a safe, practical way to develop realistic combat techniques and fighting angles short of actual fighting. Rou Shou could prove invaluable to tai chi people, as it forms a natural bridge between Push Hands (which is insufficient for practical self-defense) and sparring. This safe transition is unfortunately lacking in most modern tai chi schools. Rou Shou differs from Push Hands in that the object is to hit your partner, not just push him. You can push if you like, but this is not the primary goal. Instead, pushing is only one of many options, which include joint-locks, empty-handed hits, throws, leg sweeps, and eventually "pointing" on the body (that is, dian xue or dim mak). Rou Shou is similar to Wing Chun's Sticking Hands in that both seek to hit, but beyond that their differences are substantial. Wing Chun angles are very linear, while Rou Shou is circular and spheri-cal. In addition, in Rou Shou, the hands are generally open, while in Sticking Hands punches predominate. Rou Shou is called "soft hands" is that you very deliberately keep your wrists relaxed and your hands soft. This allows you to hit your partners with power but without injury. Remember the safety of your partner should be your highest priority. An injured partner might not be able to continue to practice with you. Rou Shou occupies the middle ground between ba gua as a solo exercise and ba gua as a martial art. It progresses from a very structured and soft interaction with your partner to free-flowing controlled violence (where no injury is inflicted). Rou Shou practices progress methodically, layering one skill on another. Do not be in a rush to advance to the next level. Like building a house, you must develop your foundation carefully or the whole structure will be weak. When beginning Rou Shou, do not move your feet. Using a bow stance, shift your weight back and forth from one leg to another. Keep your arms in a big horizontal circle in front of your body. Then move your arms in a circular fashion to get a sense of your body as a sphere. Soften your body as you shift your weight back and forth. Twist your waist and legs as you move. You and your partner can then join your wrists as you both continue to move them in large circles. Alternately have one of you lead the other, as the follower lightly adheres to the leader's wrists. Make all your movements light and circular. Avoid any breaks in your motion as your arms progressively begin to spiral and wrap around your partner's forearms more and more over time, like a corkscrew unwinding.

Rou shou
(1) The author (right) turns his waist and defends, breaking the attacker's balance and making him come forward. Note that the author's lower hand is set to slap the attacker in the ribs. The slap would be generated by a waist turn.
(2) As the attacker attempts to escape backwards, the author separates and controls both of his arms, stretching one arm upward and the other outward.
(3) The author turns his waist to counterattack with a strike to the neck, which could continue into a throw. It appears solid and forthright. The skills learned in tai chi, (fa jin, rooting, yielding, circularity of movement, folding of the joints, and elasticity of the body) make an excellent foundation for Rou Shou. Conversely, Rou Shou will considerably improve one's tai chi and add interesting and valuable new dimensions to tai chi Pus Hands. Rou Shou can also be of great value to aikido practitioners who wish to increase their chi and aikido skills in ways both subtle and gross. If done properly, Rou Shou's snakelike movements can be incredibly beautiful to watch. Feel the ebb and flow of your energy and your partner's energy. Where does your partner's incoming force originate? How is it moving? Where is it heading? How can you redirect it, change it, absorb it, or move around it? Conversely, how do you shape your force to contact your partner? How do you change it to respond to his or her defense? Which angles work and which do not? In which angles is your functional power strong, weak, or neutral? Does the attack/defense arrive weak or with strong energy? Which sequence of actions and reactions creates an opening? Ba gua people do not try to crash through an opponent's arms. The key to a successful attack is to create a clear opening, like a hole in a shirt that allows a mosquito to bite. In the case of ba gua, a mosquito-sized opening allows a tiger to bite. Rou Shou then forms the bridge between maintaining your distance and the shock of arms touching and hitting, throwing and joint-locking. Rou Shou is a practical training exercise in that it allows you to develop the ability to hit your partners (or opponents) with speed and power. It can also make your body accustomed to the shock of being hit or blocked. If this familiarity is not acquired, in a real fight you could freeze like a rabbit caught in car headlights at night. The practice of Rou Shou develops your ability to move and eventually to fight. As you twist and turn your body, you should also open and close your spine and the joints and cavities of your body. This opening and closing, just as in tai chi and hsing-i, allows your body to act as a massive spring that can absorb energy and return it. It also enables you to move vertically up and down with great ease, which is crucial for attack and defense. The twisting and turning of arms, legs, and body is necessary to redirect incoming force. Often, one's hands and waist seem to be going in different directions, which creates deceptive angles of attack that most people would not consider possible.

Expand the limits of your Rou Shou practice over time. Do Rou Shou with as many different partners as possible. Each person will have individual physical, energetic, and emotional characteristics. At any given practice, you and your partner can agree on whatever variations of Rou Shou you desire. For example, you can alter the speed of your motions or the power of your strikes. Have fun with it! A major escalation of Rou Shou is to allow your feet to move. This in turn allows you to practice your footwork and coordinate your feet, hands, and body. Another escalation is to increase the power of your strikes to give your partner a more substantial hit. If your techniques include an ability to bend at the wrist, it not only gives you the flexibility for ba gua palm strikes but also allows you to strike your partner's body solidly, but without inflicting injury. The same strike could either be uncomfortable, very painful, potentially injurious, or even lethal, depending on whether your wrist and palm are soft or solid. "Uncomfortable" will be sufficient for you and your partner to register a score. Anything less than this may leave you unclear about what really happened, and you will not learn to act and react a realistic way. As you escalate, negative emotions will tend to arise. This is where having a still, meditative mind will be realistically tested. Learning how to relax under intensifying force will also prove invaluable in learning to deal with stress induced by aggression and/or time pressures. Relax and don't worry. Be patient. Over time your awareness and ability to feel your partner's movements will improve. Practicing Rou Shou will develop your ability to move chi in your body and use it for martial purposes. In the initial phases of Rou Shou, you are in constant contact with your partner, which allows you to directly feel your partner's body and energy. However, after some time of practicing Rou Shou you can begin to step back from your partner so that you can gain an understanding of feeling your partner's energy from a distance, without touching. This begins the bridge between Rou Shou and practical fighting. You will find that as your sensitivity improves, the distance between you and your opponent makes little difference. You extend your mind to feel the other person's body, and you move accordingly. At higher levels of ba gua training, there are quite sophisticated attacks and defenses that develop the ability to enter and exit the opponent's attacks and defenses building on the skills & sensitivity acquired through Rou Shou.

Movement of on Arm
1. Various types of fists--flat, vertical, uppercut, hammer-hand, thumb side of the closed fist, and with various knuckles protruding
2. Whips with the fingers, palms, and back of the open hand or fist
3. Cuts with the knuckles, heel of the palm, and edge of the open hand
4. Finger strikes and rakes
5. Open-hand strikes--ridge of hand, heel of hand, wrist, and center of the palm

Moving the Arms Quickly in All Directions - The Speed of Different Hand Positions
1. Hand position and soft tissue
2. Interrelationship of soft tissue
3. Condition of connective tissue
4. Nerve signals
5. Circulation

Leg and Foot Speed
-Kicks
-Footwork,
-Waist and Body Turnings
1. Using one or both hands to strike, grab, pull, or guide the opponent
2. Kicking with either your front or rear leg
3. Kicking and striking simultaneously or in tandem
4. Raising or lowering the body
5. Feet fixed and flat-footed
6. Feet fixed with one or both heels raised
7. Front foot fixed with rear foot pivoting, either flat-footed or heel raised
8. Both feet pivoting and moving simultaneously or sequentially with and without hand movements

Type II: Speed-at-Touch
1. Hand and arm to hand and arm
2. Leg to leg
3. Hip to hip

I practiced karate intensely during all my teenage years, so tensing myself physically and emotionally to accomplish a goal was drilled into my very way of being throughout an important developmental period. Looking back, it seems that this habit of tension spilled over into all aspects of my life well into my thirties, causing a lot of general stress, and making it difficult to fully relax in the practice of internal arts. The catalyst that changed this habit turned out to be a style of Northern Shaolin. I learned Northern Shaolin Six Combination boxing from Bai Hua in Hong Kong just before returning to study with Liu Hung Chieh in Beijing. There is, however one notable difference between these two types of fighting: In Northern Shaolin, the muscles are never tensed, they always remained relaxed, whereas in Shotokan karate the muscles always tense for power at the end of a technique. Yet Northern Shaolin is able to provide as much striking power as karate without muscular tension. One component involves breathing techniques and the other involves the rapid stretching of the soft tissues outward along the muscles associated with the yang acupuncture meridians and inward toward the body along the muscles associated with the yin acupuncture meridians. The outward stretching creates projecting power for striking through an opponent, and the inward soft tissue movement creates pulls, power blocks, parries, and cutting actions. The power of a blow in Northern Shaolin comes from the speed at which the soft tissues move, not by tensing the muscles at the end.

At the point of focusing your blow, you do not contract your large muscles, abdomen, face and jaw, as you do in karate, but rather open and relax these muscles in a short, concentrated explosive burst, like a laser firing. In karate, on the other hand, at the point where you take someone out, you focus your attention on the opponent's body or your visualization of it, tense your body, yell, and become fierce.
Speed in the Gaps between Touching and Disengaging - A Note about Touch and Non touch Speed

The Fast/Slow Paradox Of The Internal Martial Arts
More emphasized is timing and at-touch speed, either physical or mental, especially the speed to recognize and move to advantageous fighting angles. There are two important structural aspects of the internal arts that account for this focus:
(1) the methodologies behind power generation and
2) an emphasis on the nonphysical aspects of combat rather than just the physical.
1. Fire and explode your power, usually tensing your muscles, which is never done at any point in any internal arts technique.
2. Have a brief rest space where the muscles and nerves relax and regenerate. This gap allows a necessary space to recharge, much as a weight lifter rests between sets of lifting weights. It is helpful to remember that there are physical limits to how long muscles can continuously tense before fatigue occurs or the nerves that signal the muscles to tense can no longer operate at maximum efficiency.
3. Rev up the muscles and nerves to bring them back on line as you move into your next attack or defense technique.

Creating a "smoothrunning" nervous system is necessary for developing speed in the internal martial arts. This achievement also results in a generally more comfortable body, and is a strong component of the stress relief and stamina development aspects of the internal martial arts. Your mind, through the medium of your chi and nerves, becomes like the control knob of an electric dimmer switch, where you can change the neurological signals to your muscles effortlessly Turn the mind one way and you can instantaneously accelerate or overcome body inertia. Turn the mind another way and you can instantaneously stop or control the speed of your deceleration.
1. Carefully and realistically observe where your speed is originating in your body.
2. Allow yourself some time to become comfortable there, both mentally and neurologically, until you can move without self-consciousness from this speed origination point, whether it is in your hand, foot, hip, torso, or anywhere else.
3. Focus first on single techniques. Consciously work on progressively moving your point of origination to more useful areas of the body--your shoulder rather than your elbow, your hip rather than your chest, etc. At each new more useful point and training plateau, you must always stabilize and become comfortable before moving to the next better point. Otherwise you may later have difficulties in your upward climb to achieving your maximum speed potential.
4. Reusing all the exact same procedures just covered, next focus only on the transitions from technique to technique. The speed needed for a single technique is easier to acquire than the the speed needed to transit between continuous multiple techniques.

Being able to take full kicks to the knees and shins and being able to withdraw his testicles into his body, he could not really be hurt. About the only thing that you could hit that might make a difference was his head. I never attempted that, because given how Chinese are about "face," hitting Wang on his head might be interpreted as issuing a challenge that I wanted no part of. Consequently I never tried.
He would perhaps leave an opening for his body, but would never leave a gap that would allow a head hit. Wang was fast enough to block most straight-on strikes thrown at him, but most of the time he did not bother, much like you might not bother stopping a tiny mosquito from biting you.

Bai Hua
Bai Hua's speciality was unbelievably rapid openings and closings and linear speed from point A to point B. In fact, he was a heavyweight who could move exceedingly fast between points. In any sort of Push Hands or touch-fighting application practices, Bai Hua's speed came out of his ability to fluidly change from technique to technique.

Although he was faster than Wang in touch practices (being much younger), he clearly was not as fast as some of the other masters. In touch practices, Bai Hua emphasized power over speed. He strongly favored speed during openings and closings of the body. However, rather than focusing on speed in getting to the target, he emphasized the speed of blasting through it once he got there.
Bai Hua had exceptional elbow control, and in all his touch and nontouch practices, he emphasized the springiness of the elbows and on increasing their striking speed. Bai Hua was especially fast when using weapons, particularly the spear and the straight sword, which he clearly used physically faster than any of the other masters.

Huang Hsi I
Huang was extremely long-limbed, with huge hands the shapes of which could change with lightning speed. During touch practices, he always stressed the ability to rapidly change between the permutations of any single technique. Although he had a vast technical repertoire, rather than using a different technique each time an opponent changed on him, he would himself rapidly change into another permutation of the technique he was using, so as not to break his flow.

Liu Hung Chieh
Liu had transcended physical speed in the martial arts. He was not particularly fast physically in the last years of his life when I knew him, yet he had found the "Holy Grail" of speed within the internal martial arts. He was able to move at any speed, no matter how slow, and yet always beat his opponent. He accomplished this feat through complete mastery of energy, both his own and that of his opponent, in terms of speed, subtlety direction, and power.

There were no gaps in Liu's defense, and it was as though he knew what you would do before you did. In nontouch practices, he was a member of the minimalist school of movement, sometimes not moving his hands more than two or three inches no matter what type of attack I brought against him. In general, his power was such that once he touched my hand there was no way to budge him if he did not want to move. The more I tried, the greater the holes in my defenses became and, at will, he could move through and hit me or apply some other internal martial arts technique.

At touch, whenever I would try to apply power against him, there would simply be nothing to apply the power against, and I would find myself slightly off-angle no matter how fast I readjusted the angle. Of course, he was able to either apply fa jin instantaneously, no matter what the position, or move my arms out of the way, easily touching me gently after opening up an unimpeded highway to some target on my body. Liu did not emphasize speed but rather ability to slip inside a person's movement or, at any contested fighting angle, to exert a light, irresistible force that always put an opponent at a disadvantage. Liu is the only person I ever met who could move significantly more slowly than I, and yet always easily prevail.

Chinese people of varying ages practicing tai chi for health in a Beijing park.
The healing, meditation, and martial aspects of internal martial arts, especially ba gua and tai chi, are completely intertwined. This chapter completes a circle as we move from the martial to the healing side of the internal arts, whose power can be used to fight disease. In fact, for most people, the fame of the internal martial arts comes not so much from their excellent martial capacities, but rather from their superlative ability to treat disease that other methods cannot, as well as from their ability to enhance other healing methods. The practice of internal martial arts supports lifelong vitality and suppleness, especially into old age, and consequently can serve as a useful adjunct to any longevity program.

Tai chi is the most popular. Its popularity is due in large part to its initial relative ease of practice and to its accessibility because of the larger number of active tai chi teachers. This being said, ba gua and hsing-i also have the same abilities, although they use different methods. Many throughout China turn to tai chi and chi gung to heal themselves of all manners of illnesses and injuries.

All the internal martial arts are used therapeutically in China to reduce blood pressure, improve nerve function, regulate the digestive system, and treat what is becoming known in the West as chronic fatigue syndrome (or burnout). The internal martial arts are also well known for helping to rehabilitate traumatic injury to the joints, muscles, and spine.

In Taoism, however, health is defined not so much in terms of superior performance, but more as a state of overall wellness in which your mind is clear, your emotions balanced (that is, you are mentally healthy), your body is free from organic illness or injury, and you have strong vitality coupled with a sense of well-being.
On the other hand, an internally healthy person may be frail-looking, unmuscular, or fat, be able to run only a few hundred meters, or lack physical strength. Yet this person may have a strong, healthy back, good joints and blood circulation, be emotionally balanced, have no internal organ or central nervous system problems, be able to do all of life's normal activities with stamina, have a full sexual life, and be able to handle heavy stress in a relaxed way.

In the Taoist chi development arts, the first goal is to make a person healthy, a goal that is useful and accessible to everyone. That level of chi development actually takes less work than becoming "fit." To become a superior martial artist or athlete, you must first become healthy and afterwards work harder to achieve fitness, maximum competence, and peak performance. Chinese call tong, which is the ability of the chi to completely circulate throughout the body without being obstructed. It is the responsibility of individuals to decide what they want, and how much they are willing to do for the benefits. You get what you pay for--there are no free lunches in any genuine internal practice. Real ba gua and tai chi teaching masters are a bit like food store owners. Some have small stores (one or two categories) with a few items of high quality. Some have big supermarkets with all five categories, but with a mix of high and low quality items. The stores where everything is of the highest quality are exceedingly rare. The challenging job of a ba gua or tai chi master is, from the categories available, to teach students in a progressive manner tailored to what they want, what they are capable of achieving, and the balanced development and integration required for their bodies and minds. The meditation techniques of calming the mind will be of immense help in balancing your emotions. Ba gua practitioners who train for fitness attempt to create superior balance, speed, and strength while upgrading their internal organs, glands, and joints in order to gain superior vitality and mental alertness. All this must be combined with a mind and central nervous system that is relaxed, calm, and flexible. The central technique for internal development in ba gua, the Single Palm Chang, was practiced in Taoist monasteries for at least 1500 years with no martial applications. It was done purely to enhance health, fitness, mental clarity and meditation practices. If one wishes to add martial applications to the mix, forms done at slow and medium speed are sufficient for health, while full-speed, rapidly changing defense/attacks are necessary for full fitness.
Unfortunately, there are incorrect chi gung practices that can negatively impact a student's chi and/or central nervous system. Chi gung exploded in popularity in Taiwan and Mainland China during the latter half of the 1980s. At the International Chi Gung Conference in 1994, held in San Francisco, California, professionals in the field reported that the improper practice of chi gung was a problem escalating throughout Asia, and even more in Mainland China.

The ba gua healing system, for example, specifically uses the eight primary energies of the I Ching, along with diagnosing the energies of the three tantiens, to treat what has gone physically, emotionally, psychologically, or spiritually wrong with the body from improperly performed energetic practices. This three tantien pulse-taking is a highly sophisticated technology that is a specialty of the Taoists. The Buddhists and medical chi gung practitioners have alternative ways of approaching the problem. The hands-on healing technologies of tai chi, hsing-i, and ba gua are all derived from chi gung. They are collectively called tui na, or more specifically, chi gung tui na (tui means to push, na means to grab or pull.) Chi gung tui na can be thought of as energetic therapeutic bodywork or massage.

Hsing-i adepts are well-known for their bone-setting skills and deep tissue work and are also skilled at repairing heavy traumatic damage to the body, called die da in Chinese. Tai chi includes very sophisticated techniques for working with the yin aspects of chi that are particularly effective for treating diseases of the internal organs and cancers. Ba Gua adepts are also proficient in all these areas and have specialized skills in working with the spine, central nervous system, and nerve damage. The traditional Chinese medical practice that- deals with immediate bruises, swellings, and broken bones from accidents. In order to practice the methods of the energy therapies of internal martial arts, significant training in cultivating one's own chi is required. Generally speaking, a practitioner should be able to feel the chi inside his or her own body before undertaking the more difficult task of feeling chi in someone else's body.According to legend, Tung Hai Chuan was found injured in the mountains by Taoists who healed him and went on to teach him ba gua to complete his healing process. Whatever the truth of the many legends about Tung, this story illustrates the traditional linkage in Taoism between the healing arts and the martial arts. In fact, it is common for high-level Taoists to be trained in tai chi, hsing-i, and ba gua, all of which cultivate the ability to project chi, a skill that can be used to heal people or to hurt them. The ability to project chi to kill or harm a violent assailant becomes a valuable tool in the hands of an accomplished chi gung doctor when that chi is used to kill cancerous cells or shrink tumors, a speciality of some of the best and most experienced chi gung healers in China. To hurt and heal are two sides of the same chi coin. In China, the skills that chi experts found to be most necessary for actively working therapists concern: (1) how to protect yourself, as a healer, from having your patients pull energy from you; (2) how to use chi gung exercises to regenerate the depleted chi of your system; (3) how to avoid patterning your own body's chi after the chi of the sick patient. This latter is a particularly necessary skill for naturally intuitive healers. Such healers often psychically meld with the energy of their patients. A healer does so in order to feel inside his or her own body what is ailing the client, to understand at an experientially visceral level how to fix the problem. Without being clearly able to separate yourself from the condition of a patient, the danger exists that you will pattern yourself into the problems that your patient is exhibiting or that you will simply exhaust your own energetic reserves.

Three goals include gaining skills in:
1. Sealing your chi so that it cannot be pulled from your body
2. Moving energy from the outside environment into the patient's body so that you are not using your own energy and depleting your reserves.
3. Becoming consciously aware of how deep and strong your energetic reserves are at any given point in time. If you have depleted your reserves to a dangerous level, you must learn how to use specific techniques from the 16 basic components of the Taoist nei gung system to replenish your reserves.
4. Reclaiming the chi you projected from your own body into your patient to re-pattern his or her dysfunctional chi.
5. Clearing from your body/mind any emotional or psychic influences that you have picked up from your patients during therapy.
6. Checking yourself at regular intervals during the day for the presence of any subliminal residues. This is done so you can take remedial measures using your chi gung techniques to clear the negative influences the same day they occur, thus preventing cumulative buildup--being your own human Geiger counter, so to speak. It is the cumulative buildup of emotional/psychic residue over time that physically wears people down and results in emotional burnout.

In China, tai chi especially is used as a supplement to train competitive athletes of all kinds. This training is provided to improve the athlete's reaction times, reflexes, and rate of recovery from injuries, as well as to oil their joints, increase their range of motion, and, most importantly, extend the length of their competitive careers. Now the West is just beginning to pick up on this approach, which will most likely sooner or later be adopted by our professional sports teams and individuals as a competitive adjunct. Active fifty-year-old gymnasts, boxers, and karate, tae kwon do, external kung fu, and aikido practitioners, both in the Orient and the West, while existing, are few and far between. Above the age of sixty-five, they are virtually nonexistent. In actual fights, where no quarter is given or taken, it is doubtful how many of the martial arts seniors could defeat much younger stronger martial artists. The elderly silver-haired grandfather or grandmother who begins karate and becomes good at it, is sufficiently rare to merit appearance on a television show or at least a news spot.
Contrast this situation with that of the internal martial arts, where half of all practitioners in China are over fifty and where it is not an uncommon event when an internal martial artist who is a senior citizen soundly defeats a much younger, stronger martial artist. In fact, at the master level, this is a normal state of affairs. In this sense, the internal martial arts is the Western equivalent of golf. Indeed, these two activities have many parallels. Both have a steady, even flow to them, and have a tradition of being done outdoors in parklike settings. Both are low-impact sports that rely on skill much more than on brute strength and genetically determined athletic ability. As such, both are widely taken up by middle-aged and older people as well as youth, skill being equally available to all ages. Players of both golf and internal arts will practice for hours on end to experience the clarity of the "perfect shot," where the mind and body become one, without demanding it happen instantly or every time. Both can claim a high percentage of educated and successful people who appreciate the level of competence and perserverance involved in achieving effortlessness and subtlety under challenging conditions.
Most of my friends who were dedicated no longer practice martial arts due to the normal consequences of aging, and I have felt sadness over witnessing them doing without what had once been a great joy to them. Echoing the words of millions in China, I can honestly say that by using internal martial arts and chi gung, this state of affairs does not have to be. I say this being a martial arts insider approaching fifty at the time of writing this book, a person who has loved and practiced external, external/internal, and internal martial arts until they became part of my blood and bones.

Although I had also, along with its fighting techniques, personally specialized in the health side of the internal martial arts throughout the 1970s, it was not until I worked with Liu Hung Chieh in Beijing that I learned just how deep and beneficial this other life-serving aspect of the internal arts could be. Slowly and meticulously over the years, Liu went through all the movements patiently with me again and again from an energetic and therapeutic perspective, just as we also looked at them from the point of view of combat, Taoist meditation, and internal alchemy.

All aging people, whether martial artists or not, can deeply benefit from learning some of the internal methods that can bring vitality to anyone of any age. Quality of life has become a major issue for aging populations. I would argue that practicing the techniques of chi gung and nei gung can be a remarkable way to increase the quality of life for the aging.

Psychologically "yang" emotions of anxiety, rage, unending wanting and its attendant frustration are all gradually reduced with internal martial arts practice. Several internal practices contribute to lessening these very human emotions that reduce the joy of living. The first is the breathing techniques, which tend to calm the mind and smooth the tendency of the mind to erupt and explode. The second is the stilling of the mind, which is a basic goal of all internal martial arts solo practices and a fundamental ingredient of their fighting applications. As this mental and emotional stillness begins to settle into the nervous system, becoming "embodied," it balances, calms, and changes the physiology, thereby removing many of the unconscious biological triggers that hormonally maintain a predisposition to frustration and anger.

The internal martial arts develop patience. Developing patience gradually creates a sense of psychological equanimity and acceptance about life and its often uncontrollable changing circumstances, which in turn, creates a healthier sense of internal balance and the ability to comfortably live with oneself. Psychological health at some level requires humans to come to realistic terms both with external events that are commonly beyond our ability to control, (much as the human need for control wishes they were not) and our own human limitations, (such as wanting to do a movement well before one has put in sufficient practice), which invariably will take time and patience to smooth out.

Psychological "yin" emotions of lack of self-esteem (which can lead to all kinds of compensatory negative "yang" emotions), self-destructiveness, apathy, lack of follow-through, and depression are also helped by internal martial art practice. Anything that gets a person's energy moving can have the ability to shift the physiology that predisposes a person to many types of depression. The high-energy practices of moving quickly (such as rapidly Walking the Circle in ba gua or doing speed punching or fast forms in tai chi or hsing-i) can be especially useful for moving someone's energy out of a depressed state. The act of achieving competence in the internal arts can gradually raise a person's self-esteem in several ways. First, by realistically becoming competent in something that by its nature is not easy, a person develops follow through and realizes what can be accomplished in life, which gives a realistic counterforce for overcoming previous tendencies toward failure and a sense of worthlessness. Second, the internal arts can make people aware that they can "get in touch" with their insides for long periods of time, with out discomfort. The more a person delves into the spiritual practices of martial arts, the clearer and more magnanimous their self-perceived internal environment becomes. Once this happens, the need for unconsciously driven self-destructive behaviors may well begin to diminish of its own accord.

Finding out that positive action yields real internal benefits and competence also gradually cuts out the ground from which apathy takes root and grows. Moving beyond apathy towards a more positive direction in life lies at the core of all spiritual martial arts practices. When a practitioner enters the active spiritual stage of martial arts, he or she deliberately seeks to resolve all that which prevents the full flowering of love, compassion, equanimity, forgiveness, justice, generosity, and wisdom. These qualities all contribute to a healthy psychological environment and have the possibility of transcending all psychological limitations. In this way, people can "defeat" their own "lower nature" and possibly emerge "victorious" to fulfill the potential with which all humans are born. Like many in Taiwan, he came from a farming background, and consequently had a strong affinity for living things, including plants and herbs. He loved to cook for people, and was one of the few men I ever met who could prepare food with medicinal herbs and make the dishes taste good. Very flexible physically, Huang had an endearing habit of squatting flatfoot on a tiny stool while talking on the telephone. Most gifted chi gung therapists and bodyworkers I had met during all my time in the Orient. I lived and studied with Huang Hsi I in 1978 and 1979. At that time, he was one of Hung I Hsiang's most powerful hsing-i students. Huang, before, during and after his time with Hung, had quietly studied with some of Taiwan's most adept old internal masters from the Mainland. During those years when we were roommates, Huang--of all of Hung's students--clearly had the finest and most subtle command of Rou Shou that I had ever seen. It was primarily through Huang's teaching that I was able to completely understand much of what Hung I Hsiang was imparting. Huang also was the first to make me understand the importance of the Taoist method of working with the spinal vertebrae and cerebrospinal system. It was the personal applications of many of his techniques that allowed me to begin recovery from the severe back injuries that I sustained in a car accident (cracked vertebrae and ripped soft tissue) in 1982. Without the life-giving spinal chi gung knowledge that Huang Hsi I, Liu Hung Chieh, and some other Taoist chi masters had taught me, I would never have walked again after that crash, and most likely would have died in the crash itself. Huang's methods helped me greatly with the continuous pain I suffered in the immediate aftermath of the accident. Later on, the Old Yang style tai chi of Lin Du Ying helped heal my upper back and neck, and finally the Wu style tai chi taught by Liu cured my, lower back. Huang took his knowledge of chi, the hand movement work of ba gua, and the internal martial arts, and directly moved it into the beneficial arena of therapeutics and healing. He started and developed a highly successful practice as a chi gung doctor. In modern times, the clear source of what is commonly recognized as high-level tai chi originates from the Chen village in central China. Four main theories concerning how tai chi first found its way into the Chen village. The famous Taoist Immortal Chang San Feng watched a snake and a crane fighting. From this observation, he created a new soft internal martial art that was different from the external Shaolin Temple gung fu, and which he infused with all the wisdom, military strategies, and longevity methods of Taoism. This knowledge passed down to Wang Tsung Yueh, who arrived at the Chen family village in central China, which was clearly off the beaten track and located roughly about a week's horse ride away from the Shaolin Temple. Theory Two says Wang Tsung Yueh learned tai chi chuan from one of several possible lineages whose sources are not completely clear, possibly that of Chang San Feng, or lineages hundreds of years older. At this point, Theory One and Theory Two dovetail. They exploded and attacked Wang. He accepted the challenge, and then proceeded to beat the stuffing out of them in a most convincing and spectacular fashion. The next day the villagers asked Wang if he would teach them this amazing martial art. He agreed. However he did not have the time to teach them the physical movements of his martial art. Instead, he adapted the principles of his Taoist martial art to their Shaolin-like external martial art style of Cannon Fist.
In Theory Three, tai chi chuan was created by Chen Wan Ting of the Chen village, who had been a fighting general in the army of Chi Chi Guang, China's most famous general of the period. As such, Chen was expected to perform the actual art of combat equal to or better than his troops, and could be required to accept physical challenges to prove his worth at a moment's notice. Chen Wan Ting is said to have combined the principles of Chinese medical theory and the acupuncture meridian system with Chi's martial art methods. Twenty-nine of the thirty-two basic techniques in Chen tai chi are more or less identical to those in Chi Chi Guang's military training manual for his troops. Chi's method was clearly Shaolin-based.
In Theory Four tai chi was brought to the Chen village by a man named Jiang Fa, who was on the run for unspecified reasons. Jiang was given political sanctuary and protection by General Chen Wang Ting in exchange for teaching him and his clan tai chi chuan. In this theory, Jiang Fa knew both Wang Tsuang Yueh's internal power system and Chi Chi Guang's martial methods. Chi called these Chang Chuan, which was in effect a compendium of the best Shaolin fighting techniques of sixteenth-century China. However, details of how Jiang Fa came to possess all this knowledge is left vague. In this fourth theory, Chen Wan Ting was still a fighting general but under a different Ming Dynasty general than Chi Chi Guang.

The Chen family style of tai chi chuan directly derives from, or has a common antecedent with, the military manual of Chi Chi Guang. Second, although the Chen style clearly uses acupuncture points and meridian-line theory, it is consistent, especially in its middle-and upper-training levels, with the more complete traditional Taoist nei gung method, of which the acupuncture meridian system is only one part.

Originally, the Chen tai chi style had six forms which, over time, were condensed to two forms--the First Set and Cannon Fist. Over the next century, the Chen village developed this internal martial art to a very high level. The village prospered by growing and selling herbs and was successful partially because of the ability to guard the transit of its valuable products. In the nineteenth century, Yang Lu Chan (1799-1872), a talented and motivated young man with a great love of martial arts, was told by his teacher, a decent man of integrity, that he could take him no further. The teacher said the martial art of the Chen village was up to the standard of the young man's talent, and the ideal place for him to go. However, the teachings of this amazing martial art were secret and forbidden to nonfamily members.

Possessed by a desire to learn this art, Yang devised a scheme to enter the Chen family village, which was barred to outsiders. Convincingly pretending to be deaf, he managed to become a servant to the family of the clan's martial art leader. Yang worked hard, reliably accomplished his tasks, gradually became completely trusted, and was given keys to all the rooms. The keys allowed him to watch the internal training unobserved as it was done behind locked doors. After the training was done, Yang assiduously practiced what he had seen late into the night, arising earlier than the others to fulfill his role as trusted servant. This clandestine process went on for several years.

One day Yang got caught. Some trainees demanded that he be thrown out of the village on the spot; others wanted to rip him apart. The head teacher allowed Yang to demonstrate the movements he had learned through spying. Next, Yang was allowed to take the challenges from the trainees, whom he soundly defeated. The head of the clan pondered the question, "If this young man has come so far without instruction, what could he do with it?" Chen was impressed with Yang's good nature and character and appreciated the great patience the young man exercised to gain the opportunity to learn. Deciding that Yang's obvious talent, perseverance, and competence were not to be denied, Chen gave him a final initiation, testing his sincerity and traditional Confucian respect for a teacher. Yang passed with flying colors. He shortly became Chen's favorite student. The first six years of Yang's training were focused on teaching him the internal power work of the form, accurately and precisely down to the minutest detail. In the next six years, concentration was on refining his listening, interpreting, and discharging energy abilities to a high degree with Push Hands training, and training both with and without weapons. The last six years of Yang's training were devoted to learning the fighting techniques and strategies to be used against lethal, motivated opponents, both empty-handed and armed. Yang completed his martial education and left with his teacher's best wishes and willingness for him to spread tai chi outside the village and teach whomever he wanted. Yang traveled throughout China, challenging every highly respected fighter and master to test the truth of his art, both empty-handed and with his favorite weapon, the spear, known as the "king of traditional Chinese weapons."

No matter where he went, Yang unequivocally defeated everyone, without hurting them, even those who tried to maim or kill him--a superlative level of skill that made him universally recognized as a martial master of the highest level. From these challenges, he earned the name "Yang the Invincible." His skill level eventually landed him the job of martial art teacher to the Emperor's personal guard, a position reserved for the man proven to be the best martial artist in China. In time, the system that Yang taught became known as the Yang family's tai chi or, simply, Yang style tai chi. The stories of Yang Lu Chan are legion. He was a deservedly mythic figure in Chinese martial arts. Legend has it that once he left the Chen village, he never lost one of his many matches. Numerous Yang style tai chi books in English and Chinese tell wonderful inspirational stories about his martial exploits as well as those of his sons. While continuing to teach the Emperor's elite, Yang also taught regular citizens in Beijing. One of Yang's first students was a man named Wu Yu Hsiang. After initial study with Yang, Wu decided to go to the Chen village to widen his exposure to this wonderful art. On the way to see Yang's master, he instead was introduced to a top Chen style master of the small-movement method. Wu studied with him and learned the small style well. In a corner of a salt store near the Chen village, Wu, perhaps along with his brothers, discovered the Tai Chi Classics, which described the philosophical and operational underpinnings of the Chen family's internal martial art. Around this time in Beijing, the name tai chi chuan was first coined, based on Taoist philosophical principles. The name continues to this day. Wu's art focused on the small-frame aspect of tai chi (see p. 111), which today is rarely found in its pure form. In the twentieth century, the Wu Yu Hsiang style changed its name and ultimately became known as the Hao style, after Hao Wei Zhen. It eventually fused with the hsing-i and ba gua practices of Sun Lu Tang to become Sun style tai chi. The Boxer Rebellion shocked China into the modern world with machine gun fire, and Beijing was effectively conquered by the Western nations and the newly industrialized Japan. The foreigners burned the impact of their victory into the Chinese consciousness by carving China up into "concessions," or colonies. Before this defeat, the Chinese often believed martial arts could border on the "supernatural," and many were not convinced that guns were superior to the martial arts. Now they were. Although the internal martial arts had a clear edge over external martial arts, they hardly had one over repeating or automatic weapons. The martial tai chi of Yang Lu Chan changed emphasis after the Boxer Rebellion, when the Chinese clearly realized what guns could do, and that guns were here to stay.

Old Yang Style The emphasis in Yang's method a before the Boxer Rebellion was on fighting techniques. The training focused on both producing power and how to effectively use that power under lethal conditions. During the lifetimes of Yang Lu Chan, his son Pan Hou, his grandson Shao Hou, and Wu Jien Chuan, Push Hands was not equated with combat training. The motions of peng, lu, ji and an (see pp. 127-135) were much more emphasized before the Boxer Rebellion. The students of this generation were taught tai chi as a fighting martial art, and the forms they did were called the Old Yang style. Forms and Push Hands were viewed primarily as useful preparatory skills, the stepping stones toward the actual ability to successfully perform fighting applications in unrehearsed combat. Many of the students of that generation were taught the tai chi fighting skills fairly directly. These martial teachings, while being in the minority now still exist and continue to be taught today.

New Yang Style Most of the Yang style done today comes from Yang's other grandson, Yang Cheng Fu, who did not come into his own until after the Boxer Rebellion. When he was young, Yang Cheng Fu took up a dissolute life of drinking and living in red light districts, and did not complete the classical combat training. However, he was very good at Push Hands. In his era, the 1920s and 1930s, students were very interested in becoming healthy and strong, which is what the practice of Push Hands accomplishes.

It is equally difficult today to find those who can teach the martial side and those willing to put in the time and effort required to attain mastery. As we move more toward the next millennium, most tai chi schools do not even seriously practice Push Hands, and even fewer reach the level of fighting applications. There is much value in terms of personal cultivation to be had learning both Push Hands and the fighting applications side of tai chi, based on calmness and clarity rather than an animal hormonal rush.

Yang Style Begets the Wu Style
During the time Yang Lu Chan taught the Emperor's guards, he had three top students: Wang Chun, who was the most proficient with hard energy, Ling Shan, the best at using soft energy; and Chuan You, the most adept at transforming energy, the highest level of tai chi. After the fall of the Manchu Ching dynasty Chuan You's family changed their Manchurian name to the Chinese name of Wu, to be more politically in tune with the times. Chuan You's method of tai chi is still taught in Beijing, although not very widely, as he was primarily a working rather than a teaching martial artist.

Chuan You passed all his knowledge to his son Wu Jien Chuan, who also learned from Yang Lu Chan's son, Pan Hou, teacher of many of the better tai chi fighters to emerge in the early part of the twentieth century. Wu Jien Chuan taught along with the Yang family members at their association in Beijing before both he and Yang Cheng Fu left Beijing to spread tai chi to Shanghai and southern China. Wu, however was almost twenty years older than Yang Cheng Fu and more immersed in the martial way of the Old Yang style. On many occasions, both Wu and Yang Cheng Fu did their tai chi forms together in demonstrations, and it has often been said that Wu sharpened Yang Cheng Fu's skills at Push Hands when they were together in Shanghai. Wu Jien Chuan, however, became more involved with the small-movement side of tai chi rather than the large and medium movement method of Yang Cheng Fu. The form movements Wu himself taught are basically the same as the modern Yang Cheng Fu form, as both of them collaborated. However, because the form is a small movement style, its movements are more compact, and because it derived from the Old Yang style, it holds much of the old knowledge of fighting applications, with a strong stress on throwing techniques. Wu Jien Chuan was a prolific teacher who spread his tai chi throughout southern China as much or more than Yang Cheng Fu. For those who do traditional tai chi, the Wu style is the second most popular in China, the Yang family and their students having had a generation's head start. In the next generation, Wu's sons changed the form, emphasizing higher stances and less circularity than their father's form, shifting in the manner of Yang Cheng Fu toward a less martial orientation. The Wu style has three main branches: those of Wu's father, Chuan You, mostly centered in Beijing, which has the least number of adherents, the students of Wu himself, which is the most prevalent; and those deriving from his sons, the number of practitioners falling somewhere between the other two branches.

Before the Boxer Rebellion, people studying one kind of martial art did not learn with people devoted to another martial art. In order to become genuinely trained in a Chinese martial art, a beginning practitioner had to undergo a formal disciple initiation ceremony. During this ceremony, disciples had to take many oaths and "kowtow"--knocking their heads to the floor, often with significant force, to demonstrate sincerity. The teacher became your surrogate father; you as disciple became his surrogate son. The strong Confuciannature of the ceremony powerfully bound you to your teacher and fellow students, your new martial art family. Students were not allowed to study outside their systems, unless given express permission. Those who disobeyed this dictum were given the silent treatment by colleagues, and a martial family member might even challenge the offender, with mutually understood lethal intent. "My style is better than your style" For instance, this old feudal mind-set is a popular theme in the Chinese martial arts movies coming from Taiwan and Hong Kong in the last half of the twentieth century Unfortunately, old habits die hard. All these expectations, inculcated by Confucianism, carry sanctions if transgressed. In China, the martial arts tradition was especially orthodox. Today, because Westerners do not have an understanding of "implied Confucian expectations," Western students often become confused by and have difficulty learning from Chinese martial art masters. There is a large cultural gap to overcome, particularly when both sides have grown up with very different kinds of social, behavioral, and psychological boundaries. Often, a few bows or handshakes are not sufficient to smooth over misinterpreted expectations, implied in the mind of one, but never overtly or coherently expressed to the other. Often, each side feels exploited by the other.

Before the Boxer Rebellion, people of one internal martial arts style normally did not share knowledge with those learning another style, just as during the Cold War, the American and Russians did not openly share their military technology with each other. The reality of guns took away a good part of the pragmatic need for the separation. Afterwards, teachers began to become more willing to teach those who had studied other styles. The trend began just before the Boxer Rebellion with the hsing-i and ba gua schools, and extended to the tai chi schools by the next decade. By the 1920s, the central government had set up national martial arts schools where many styles were taught under one roof, sometimes by the top people in their respective styles, including tai chi's Yang Cheng Fu and Wu Jien huan. During this time, the internal martial arts began to be practiced increasingly by the more educated members of society a trend that continues to this day.

Life was fairly stable in China before the Boxer Rebellion. People did not move around much. Afterwards, the Chinese population became extremely mobile: railroads were built, a warlord period began, the country was invaded by Japan, the Communist Revolution brought on a civil war, all displacing massive numbers of people. All this movement caused a mixing of martial art styles to an extent unprecedented in China's history.
Tai chi began to mix with other styles in three main ways. First, in 1914, the small-movement Hao style (of Wu Yu Hsiang) was taught by Hao Wei Zhen to a famous hsing-i master called Sun Lu Tang, after Sun did him a good turn in Beijing. Sun, like many hsing-i and ba gua people after him, was intrigued by tai chi's idea of softness. Sun combined the soft-body method of tai chi with the rooting and tantien techniques of hsing-i and the stepping methods of ba gua. He subsequently wrote a series of internal martial arts books stating that the three internal arts are of one family. This unification becomes the first of the tai chi combination styles and the only one widely known to be based on the small-movement style. Tai chi, hsing-i, and ba gua share an incredible number of crossover techniques; in these cases, each of these arts are essentially executing the same fighting application, but with their own particular flavor. These styles usually use the basic form sequence of the Yang style, but in numerous specific movements covertly or overtly incorporate elements of hsing-i and ba gua, such as:

1. Substituting a hsing-i or ba gua arm/hand movement for its specified tai chi movement. For example, a rounded horizontal Ward Off tai chi movement could change to something more like a vertically oriented rise and drill hsing-i/ba gua move, done with the softness of tai chi. Tai chi's Fair Lady Weaves the Shuttles becomes more like hsing-i's Pounding Fist. These substitutions occur throughout combination forms. In effect, a hsing-i/ba gua technique is done in a tai chi way.
2. Ba gua footwork is often substituted for tai chi footwork. A ba gua "toe out" step being used to change directions or turn the body around is the most obvious giveaway, as this movement does not exist in traditional tai chi.
3. The presence of the hsing-i animal form movements within the tai chi form.
4. The palm is formed in a hsing-i/ba gua way not that of tai chi.
5. The obvious rising neck of hsing-i can be seen, which is not normally done in tai chi.
6. Stances utilizing 60/40 balance of weight on each foot begin to come into play, rather than the 100/0 balance of the Yang style.

As tai chi mutated into new styles--Chen to Yang to Hao to Wu to Combination styles, each new style changed its form movements slightly or significantly. These core changes were not originally made for their health benefits to the general public, but for their ability to pass on the original teacher's martial skills to the next generation. Two competing partisan points of view are held about the effective result of these changes. The first is that it is the earlier style that contains all the original material and that the new was a watered-down version of the old. The opposite view states that the new model improved the old, taking it to new heights with new material, eliminating the deadwood of the parent forms.
1. Stances Unlike the Yang style, the Chen style utilizes stances where both feet are not pointing in the same general direction. Chen style also often utilizes forward stances with 55/45 percent leg weight distribution. Yang style classically uses 100/0 weight balance of the legs (that is, 100 percent of your weight is on you front leg, zero percent is on your back leg), and only the forward bow stance. The Chen form derived from battlefield military movements, where people wore medieval body armor that had to be compensated for. The Chen-style stances in question were specifically designed to achieve these compensations and obtain a workable position from which to realistically throw an armored opponent. By the time Yang reached Beijing, times had changed. With the advent of firearms, battlefield armor became obsolete; hence, the need for techniques to deal with armored foes had passed. Yang and his students had to deal more with situations encountered by bodyguards, not armies opposing each other. Yang was also teaching people who had clear training in Northern Shaolin, which uses bow stances. By capitalizing on what they already knew to train them, Yang, in the opinion of some, simply adapted to the needs of his environment. The 100/0 weighted bow stance is also an excellent way of working with the basic tai chi technical requirement of "empty and full" (one leg is full of weight but empty of internal power and vice versa), which has exceedingly practical reasoning behind it.
2. Arm Movements Chen style emphasizes overt "silk-coiling" movements. In these motions, during the inward and outward twistings of the body's soft tissues, the elbow tip is constantly moving between two poles (that is, forearm parallel to the ground--the elbow at 90 degrees and the forearm perpendicular to the ground with the elbow facing the floor Yang style emphasizes the "pulling of silk" technique. In this, energy is pulled directly from the spine to the joints and the twisting of the body's soft tissue is clearly present but hidden in subtle body movements. The elbow tip is fixed somewhere between facing the ground and a 45-degree sideways angle. The elbow tip never faces 90 degrees to the side, or alternates between moving up and down between facing the ground and 90 degrees to the side, as in the Chen style.

The reasons for changes within the Yang style are:
1. The desire of a teacher or group to trademark what they are doing, to distinguish their specific philosophy or their training methods within the Yang-style universe. Often, you see the desire of a group to differentiate its material from variations that are, in its view, of a lesser quality or from a more "impure" lineage. In America, for example, there is the Tung Family style and the Cheng Man-ching style, each of which has either a completely distinct form or several distinctive trademarking movements within its form. The Tungs have several unique movements within their slow long form, as well as a modified fast form, which is not exactly how their teacher Yang Cheng Fu performed tai chi. Then there is the modified 37-movement short form of Cheng Man-ching, which again is not exactly what the Yang family did.
2. Individual variations personally favored by the teacher are institutionalized into the form. One good example is the Fair Lady's hand position of Cheng Man-ching's Yang style form. This position was clearly not present in the classical Yang family forms.
3. Tai chi teachers themselves learned only fragments, not complete forms, and they pass their incomplete knowledge down the line. Thus, students through the generations continue or escalate the watered-down version.
4. A student learned well from his or her teacher, but changed the moves to conform to a personal viewpoint on what was valuable in tai chi. Such changes can become institutionalized.
5. A branch exclusively focuses on one or only a few parts of the complete internal 16-part nei gung system and fashions the form to fulfill its chosen aspects of tai chi's energy work, leaving aside other important considerations. Gradually the physical movements are molded to fit and express the partial energy work.
6. Movements can look quite different, based on what principles teachers most valued for creating fighting applications.
7. Original Yang transmissions concerning tai chi's internal techniques are incompletely received, so the principles of other martial arts are thrown in to make up the difference. This process makes the hybrid tai chi form a kind of mixed drink, one part Yang tai chi, two or three parts something else. This situation happened commonly using Northern Shaolin in Mainland China and adding in Fukien White Crane in Taiwan. Often, the "secrets" of these styles are based on Shaolin, rather than tai chi, methods. Bear in mind that teachers can only teach what they know. Three generations down the line, a student having learned an incomplete system only knows that this is "my style." Such students are neither aware of their form's possibilities nor shortcomings.
8. Measures are taken to make tai chi easier to learn. Consequently, forms are shortened, movements deleted, precision in specific movements becomes vague, all under the banner of reducing a learner's frustration level when faced with challenging material. Usually, this "dumbing down" of tai chi is done to either help spread its genuine health benefits to a wider audience (as something is better than nothing), or to acquire more paying students. When simplification occurs, sometimes the martial and energetic content of the form suffers--it is either greatly diminished or is completely dropped.
9. Many teachers in their older years lose the motivation to put forth the necessary energy and care required to maintain the form and/or present it in its full details.

The Yang family always did both slow and fast forms, which derived from the two original forms of Chen tai chi. The first focused primarily on slow movements with a few fast movements sporadically thrown in to practice fa jin. In the second form, the emphasis was more on the fast movements than the slow.

Foundation Of The Da C~La School In Modern Times
Mysterious founder of modern ba gua, Tung Hai Chuan (1798-1879), can be said with certainty. One is that his method of teaching was unique in that he did not teach anyone who was not already a martial arts expert. A prospective student would have had to have practiced martial arts for many years before Tung would even talk to him. Ba gua was a graduate school for martial artists, not grammar school, high school, or even college. It was considered to be an extremely sophisticated martial art, and anyone Tung taught had to have a demonstrated commitment to study.

A number of Tung's senior students became the backbone of the modern ba gua school and went on to teach many people themselves. However, there were four in particular whose skill or gung fu rose above the others. These are known as the Big Four

Tung's Four Main Students
Yin Fu (1842-1911)
Despite his diminutive size, Yin Fu was known to be incredibly powerful. His fighting techniques, using his Willow-Leaf Palm, were based upon being able to cut right through an opponent's arms to hit his body. Yin Fu made his living as a professional bodyguard, but he also taught many people while he was in Beijing, and in Shandong province when he was older. He had a number of famous students. Unfortunately, many who claimed to have come from Yin Fu's school probably did not. When Walking the Circle (a basic ba gua training technique--see p. 216), Yin Fu's students walked with their fingers pointing horizontally toward the center of the circle instead of pointing up toward the sky, which is the usual manner the movement is done. They were known for training in this walking style, as well as for their ability to pierce their opponents' bodies with their fingers. Yin Fu had already mastered lohan chuan, a Northern Shaolin system of boxing, before studying ba gua with Tung. By incorporating his lohan into Tung's ba gua, Yin Fu developed an entirely new methodology for teaching ba gua, one that used linear rather than circular techniques. Ba gua is basically a circling movement art that develops what is called hsien tien, or "pre-birth" chi, but these linear methods develop what is called hou tien, or "post-birth" chi. Yin Fu's purpose in developing these linear methods was to teach the basic self-defense techniques and body mechanics of ba gua before introducing Circle-Walking. Walking the Circle can be somewhat abstract for beginning students. The linear method was learned by Gao I Sheng, who came to Beijing to study with Yin Fu, Cheng Ting Hua, and perhaps other masters. These straight-line methods are primarily concerned with the projection of power for fighting and have no discernible application to Taoist meditation. Early in his ba gua training, Liu Hung Chieh also studied Yin Fu's walking method. He trained with some of Yin's students, who worked out at Cheng You Long's ba gua school. A that time, ba gua was one school without branches. It was only later that styles became separated.

Cheng Ting Huo (1848-1900) Another of Tung's famous students was Cheng Ting Hua. More people who practice ba gua today come from the Cheng Ting Hua school than from any other. Cheng Ting Hua had studied suai chao, Chinese wrestling, when he was young. As a result of following the path of least resistance, Tung taught more of ba gua's throwing methods to Cheng than to any of his other students. Cheng was known for his throwing abilities. He was a short, stocky man built somewhat like Tung himself, and was very strong. Cheng Ting Hua developed a method of 64 changes that are only done while circling. While Yin Fu's method is known for its straight piercing movements done with a tremendous amount of power, Cheng Ting Hua's ba gua is known for extremely fast and complicated snakelike shifts of direction, which leave opponents completely disoriented and thus easily defeated.

Ma Shr Ching aka Ma Gui (1853-1940) Ma Shr Ching (also known as Ma Gui) studied with Yin Fu for the first several years of his ba gua training and afterwards studied directly with Tung in his house. Much of the first-hand history of ba gua given to the author came directly from Liu Hung Chieh, who heard it directly from Ma Shr Ching when he was Ma's private student. Ma took no formal disciples, and he taught Liu only when he was older. Ma did not like to teach. He owned a successful lumber business in which he made enough money to make it unnecessary for him to earn his living as a professional ba gua teacher. Another of the Big Four Ma Wei Chi, owned a successful coal business. Together, these two were called collectively "Mei (coal) and Mu (lumber) Ma". Ma Shr Ching told Liu how Tung had taught. Tung frequently would sit with his eyes closed, describe every motion Ma was making, and tell him to adjust it one way or another. Tung used to sit and meditate for hours every day. The basis of his martial power, at least according to Ma, was at least as much due to his sitting practices, which were pure Taoist meditation, as to his martial arts techniques.

Ma Wei Chi (1851-1880) His nickname was "Ten-Day Ma" because when he hit someone that person usually died after ten days. It was not that ten days were needed before an opponent's injuries would finally kill him; Ma Wei Chi could easily kill an opponent outright, rarely needing to strike more than once. Rather Ma Wei Chi's strikes were designed to cause latent internal damage that would only later cause death. The ten-day delay would prevent Ma Wei Chi from being considered the legal cause of the death, keeping him out of trouble with the authorities. The first, told by Liu Hung Chieh, is that the relatives of a challenger who became a victim of Ma's ten-day procedure took a cowardly form of revenge and had him poisoned. The second, told by Jang Jie of Beijing, was that Ma was killed in a challenge match by a Buddhist monk who was a martial arts master. The killing was done to prevent his excessively immoral violent behavior from continuing. Ma Wei Chi was famous for his fist techniques, which are not as common in ba gua as palm strikes. He was also well known for his ability to circle around an opponent and use his forearms and fists with devastating effect, as well as for his straight palm work. As a general rule, most of Ma's students were not considered to be that good, which was probably a result of Ma's incredibly violent temper. He liked to prove that what he did worked. Unfortunately, this inclination resulted in frequent bodily harm to his students. Consequently, they often did not complete their training.

Among these stories are those that speak of Tung's ability to jump up in the air to great heights (ostensibly, as high as twenty feet). This ability is what the Chinese call ching gung, or making the body extremely light. Tung was renowned for being able to leap up and hang by his fingertips from very high objects, such as ceiling beams. However, it appears that he did not pass on his knowledge of ching gung to anyone. None of his students could duplicate this ability.

He taught this person ching gung for two or three years while he himself was still perfecting the skills he had learned in the mountains. Tung had taken pity on this individual, who was poor, and had helped him. A couple of years later, this same person turned up in Beijing as a cat burglar He was using his ching gung ability to leap over fences and walls. Tung is supposed to have found out about this and ordered the burglar to get out of town or else he would kill him for immoral use of his teachings. Unfortunately, this sour experience is supposed to have deterred Tung from teaching that particular skill. Many ba gua people can jump very high, but the actual method of ching gung was not passed down. Many contemporary ba gua researchers have failed to uncover one single person in any tradition who had this ability

When Tung died in 1879 at the age of 81, a number of his students left Beijing and settled in North China, carrying the art with them. Yin Fu left Beijing and went north to Shandong Province, where he died in 1909 at the age of 69. Yin Fu's lineage was passed down through many people, including Kung Pao Tien, who also went north to Shandong Province. Cheng Ting Hua died young, and some of his better students also settled in North China, while his two sons continued to teach in Beijing. However, until the 1920s and 1930s, the strongest ba gua was without any doubt still to be found in Beijing and Tianjin. Then two events produced great turmoil in China: the Chinese Civil War and the war with Japan. During this period, massive migration from North to South China and from China to Hong Kong and Taiwan occurred, including many ba gua masters and practitioners.

A large number of ba gua people ended up in Shanghai, a city that was becoming a great commercial center. Professional teachers were attracted to it for its financial opportunities. In addition, a number of the ba gua people were members of secret societies, which also followed the commercial activity to Shanghai. Others, involved with the Nationalists as high officials or as members of the upper strata of society, stayed with the seat of government, which was forced by the fighting to move to Nanjing in the south, then Chongqing in the west, and ultimately to Taiwan. Many ba gua people joined the military and died in the wars.

Tai chi chuan came to the West largely as a result of this migration. Yang Chen Fu (of Yang style tai chi), his son Yang Shou Jung, his disciple Tung Ying Chieh, and Wu Jien Chuan (co-founder of Wu style tai chi) all ended up in Hong Kong and became very well known, while masters such as Cheng Man-ching went to Taiwan. From Hong Kong and Taiwan, tai chi came to the West. Only extremely dedicated people were involved in ba gua in Beijing and Tianjin. One migrant wave occurred at the end of the 1920s, when a particular group of five famous martial artists, including representatives of the ba gua/hsing-i school (Fu Chen Sung and Gui I Jai) went south, They were called the Five Tigers, and were sent by the northern military people to Canton in the south. Liu Hung Chieh was a friend of Wan Lai Sheng, one of the famous five tigers, and studied for a short time with Wan's Natural Gate Boxing teacher, Tu Hsing Wu. Liu and Wang both had the same Six Combination Shaolin Boxing teacher. After Liu defeated Wan in a friendly match, Wan introduced Liu to Tu. who accepted him as a student. Liu studied briefly with Tu Hsing Wu, but stopped when Tu wanted him to start the practice of kicking big wooden logs barefoot. Liu continued with his ba gua practice instead. With the re-emergence of the Chinese Civil War after the defeat of the Japanese in 1945, and then the Communist takeover of China in 1949, ba gua was further dispersed. During the 1940s and 1950s, many people fled Mainland China to Hong Kong and Taiwan. A few high-level ba gua people went to Hong Kong, such as Shun Hsi Kun (who went to Taiwan at the end of his life).

However, hsing-i was another matter. The most well-known public hsing-i person in the early 1970s was the late Han Hsing Yuan, who was one of Wang Xiang Zhai's four main disciples from the I Chuan school. This school of hsing-i (see p. 180) focused on standing rather than moving practices. Han did some ba gua, but it was not his principal interest. There are a few other top hsing-i people in Hong Kong, such as Chen I Ren and Liang Jr Pang, and quite a number of competent middle-level people. More top ba gua people went to Taiwan rather than to Hong Kong. In Taiwan, too, however, not many of the top people took on more than a few students. There were also many good hsing-i people in Taiwan, but only a few taught in each major area. In Taipei, there was Chang Chen Feng and, later the Hung brothers (Hung I Hsiang and Hung I Mien), and Chao Lien Fang, who was personally very good at hsing-i, but did not really impart his knowledge. In Taichung, there was Chen Pan Ling and Wang Shu Jin, as well as many other more good small and secretive hsing-i/ba gua schools.

Another problem with ba gua in Taiwan was that the Mainlanders, the ones the locals called the wai sheng ren, or out-of-province people, looked down on the native Taiwanese as socially and racially inferior--country bumpkins, in effect. Generally the Mainland ba gua people preferred not to teach Taiwanese. They considered it below their dignity to do so. Chang Chen Feng outraged many Mainlanders by teaching Taiwanese. In addition, if you were Taiwanese (as was Hung I Hsiang) or if you had a Taiwanese teacher, you were automatically dismissed by the Mainland people as not being any good, regardless of whether you had a high level of skill or not. Over time, these attitudes have changed somewhat, in part because many of the Taiwanese became better at ba gua than the children of the Mainlanders and in part because Mainlanders and Taiwanese have become more socially integrated. As a general rule, most of the really good ba gua teachers had only a few students who were closely connected by family or friendship. Convincing a teacher to accept you as a student could take years of trying to meet him, talking to him, bringing him gifts, and using all of your powers of persuasion. Many seekers of the art considered themselves fortunate just to meet and talk with the top instructors, and the acceptance of a person as a student or disciple was rare indeed. The Mainlanders who did their training in the 1920s and 1930s had a skill level that was appreciably higher than that of those who had trained in the 1950s and 1960s. This discrepancy was not only a function of the number of years of practice, but of the purity of the ba gua learned. The difference was not trivial--it was like night and day. The art appeared to be dying, as each succeeding generation exhibited a lower-quality ba gua. The same situation existed for hsing-i and tai chi chuan.

As ba gua came to South China from Beijing and dispersed from there to Taiwan, Hong Kong, and the rest of the world, it became mixed with various Southern as well as Northern Chinese martial arts. When lower level ba gua people left Beijing, they may have carried only 10 to 20 percent of the entire art, and the blending of this partial ba gua with other arts resulted in a great deal of dilution and contamination of pure ba gua. It was common for a person to learn some ba gua from here, some hsing-i from there, a bit of Chinese wrestling from over there, and maybe some other martial arts or chi gung from who knows where, and then to start teaching their own hybrid version. Even the better mixes would be only 30 percent ba gua, with 20 percent hsing-i, 30 percent tai chi, and 20 percent miscellaneous arts. This hybridization did not happen in every case, and many high-level people remained selective in their choice of students and traditional in their teaching. However, it is accurate to say that as ba gua spread outward, its quality diminished and that clear transmissions from the original ba gua school were few and far between. A similar situation existed with tai chi, where the majority of tai chi teachers who left China for Taiwan were not exceptionally schooled in tai chi. Many factors disrupted the transmission of ba gua in the post-1949 era. First of all, in 1949, China was politically torn in two. Many people who as Nationalists were subject to execution or long-term imprisonment tried to flee to Hong Kong, Taiwan, or Southeast Asia. For those who remained on the Mainland, admitting that they knew ba gua was risky. They could be placed on the "to be observed" list, which was potentially extremely dangerous. Many ba gua people fled to remote areas of China and "hid their light," not showing what they knew. If they were over 60, they may have "hid their light" until death. If they taught at all, it was probably only to one or two individuals in secret, hardly what could be called optimal learning conditions. Secondly, before the Cultural Revolution in China, there was the "Great Leap Forward" in the late 1950s and early 1960s, when 30 million people died of starvation. During this time, there was almost no food in China. For any serious athlete doing heavy training, sufficient food is necessary to train well. Since food was not available, the ba gua training of the generation of the 1950s and early 1960s suffered accordingly. One of Mao's most trusted bodyguards was a ba gua man; then Mao promoted tai chi strictly for health and the ba gua people could sometimes hide behind that authorized sanction. The third weakening factor was the fact that "the old" became a primary target of the Cultural Revolution and was to be fought against, just as Confucianism and Buddhism were to be opposed. The ingenious solution to this problem was the creation of Wushu, or "martial techniques arts." Instead of Wushu being military or meditative in nature, it was instead a state-sponsored performing art system. Wushu is based on a mixture of martial arts movements, dance, and gymnastics. From a battlefield perspective, martial arts were downgraded to "martial movements," commonly performed more like dance than boxing. The emphasis was placed on physical education, with a bias toward visual beauty in performance. Wushu was also designed to catalog and preserve the martial movement forms, essentially creating a living encyclopedia of Chinese martial techniques. Backed by the central government, the Chinese martial arts were thus promoted both to the mass of the Chinese people, as well as to other nations through official government-sponsored international goodwill Wushu tours. The emphasis was on athletics, stretching, beauty of movement, and the Chinese spirit. This agenda was an entirely different one from that of traditional martial arts, which incorporated the battlefield virtues of courage, spirit, power, fighting competence, meditation, as well as Confucian, Buddhist, and Taoist moral values. Whereas traditional martial artists will spend anywhere from five to thirty years perfecting one integrated martial art, the Wushu performer is similar to a dancer using the modern dance method. Just as the modern dancer then goes on to continuously learn new pieces of choreography, the Wushu person will next learn hundreds of sets from dozens of martial arts performed as permutations on the basic chang chuan training. Wushu practitioners usually study the outer movements (sets) of a martial art for a few months and then add the new "martial art" to their teaching or performing repertoires, normally without having gained any significant fighting competence in the "new' martial art. Traditional teachers, aware of the Wushu approach, have often voiced reservations about it. In the 1990s, traditional approaches have begun to reemerge within Wushu, especially with the reinstitution of full contact competitions in China. However, performing arts and martial arts are entirely different creatures with respect to what they give to the individual practitioner and to society. Wushu is primarily concerned with the surface external movements of ba gua, while traditional ba gua is concerned with the internal development and practical skills that can be gained from this ancient art. The values and skills of someone concerned with chi cultivation and fighting abilities are quite different from those of someone interested in stage performance. Wushu has made valuable contributions in terms of physical culture and organizational skills. Overall, however, Wushu has been one of the streams that has diluted the art of traditional ba gua chang. The schools of Cheng Ting Hua and Yin Fu have become the two dominant ba gua schools inside and outside China. Currently in China, the majority of the strongest fighters and the most skillful physical technicians of ba gua without doubt come from the Cheng Ting Hua school. Cheng Ting Hua practitioners seems to be relatively growing. This state of affairs may be due to the fact that Cheng attracted better students or may be because his system is more learnable. In the United States and Europe at this time, the vast majority of practitioners descend from the Cheng school.