Fox doing the Six Connecting Kicks or Six Harmony Kicks

This is a small clip from a demonstration from a while back. This style is a part of our system of Gao Bagua as a supplement to teach kicking. It is known that you cannot understand soft style until you have first learned hard style. Otherwise your movements we be empty. So this lineage has many other styles that have been adopted in order to emphasize certain techniques that later could be attached to your Bagua learning. We most often use Baji, Seven Star Palm, Wu Dang Fist, Five Elements, Six Harmony Kicks, Crouching TIger Sword, Six Harmony Sword, Strange Spear, Gao's Staff, Double sticks, Qing Ping Sword etc. All of these systems are not part of our system of Bagua but all teach fundamentals needed to understand the nature of combat. I know that a lot of people don't like forms because they believe it is some sort of performance but that is not what it is designed for. Think about any form as being the ABC song. We have to learn it when we are young so that we don't forget any of the important letter when trying to spell a word. Just as a form you must take the letters and movements out so that you can begin to write your own story. So it is best to take the movements that you need the most and then practice them over and over in a combat scenario.

Comments

Adrian said…
Well done Sir. I really enjoyed watching that form! "It is known that you cannot understand soft style until you have first learned hard style. Otherwise your movements we be empty." I do not know this first hand, but intuitively it really seems correct. . .Is this viewed shared by many in the CMA community that practice external/internal forms? I am an admirer of Baji Chuan, how does this system inform your Baqua practice? Thank you for posting.
June 26, 2009 at 12:04 PM
Robert Jay Arnold 孔有有 said…
I think it is safe to say that the idea of hard style must be learned in order to understand soft style is shared by most masters. In fact they often refer to soft styles as graduate school. I think Baji is great because of the development of extremely explosive power for short distance. One of the Baji masters famous quotes is "I don't not know what it is like to hit a man twice."
June 26, 2009 at 5:42 PM
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