Bagua (Pakua) Part 2: Styles of Pakua

The first article in this series, named Bagua, gave the introduction to Bagua’s origin and martial arts founder. This edition will explain some of the different styles of bagua practiced today. Pakua has many styles, in fact too many to name here, but some of the styles include: Dragon Style, Dragon Heart, Swimming Dragon, Yin, Goa, Sun, Cheng, Liu, Fu, Lu Shui-Tian, Li Zhenqing, Liang, YinYang, and Yang. Each style is unique unto itself, the footwork, applications, and kua’s are different in nature and name.

Sun Style:
Sun Style Pa Kua was the creation of Sun Lu Tang. Sun Lu Tang also created Sun Style Xing Yi, and Sun Style Tai Chi. He is accredited as the first martial artist to write about and be accepted for the intellectual properties that the martial arts have always had. When Sun wrote his first work it was widely accepted by the people as an alternative way to view the martial arts, instead of them being viewed as a “fighting” art, they could now be viewed for the philosophical and spiritual aspects they have always been founded upon.

Sun Lu Tang was taught bagua by Cheng Ting Hua, and became quite sufficient at the art. Sun’s system differs from most other pakua by its footwork, softness, quickness, and basic moves that can be combined to create an endless system. His skills are legendary, and the stories that surround his life are incredible.

The Sun style of bagua consists of two palm changes, and eight animals, lion, snake, unicorn, dragon, sparrow hawk, bear, monkey, and phoenix. After two more years of exploring these concepts one can learn, the “endless” bagua, which is the highest level, but a level that can never be “mastered”.

Cheng Style:
Cheng style pakua is the work of Cheng Ting Hua, who is said to be the top student of Ba Gua founder Dong Hai Chuan. He had many students resulting in more people studying Cheng style than any other style of Bagua. He lived and taught on the south side of Beijing city. So people often called his style Nan-cheng Zhang (Southern City Palm).Cheng is legendary for his strength and skills. Some say he always wore a ten-pound iron vest, and trained striking a three hundred pound sand bag, and a bathtub full of water. His fighting skills are as legendary as his training techniques, it has been reported that Cheng defeated numerous “masters” with the ease of a child playing.

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Cheng style is perhaps the second most practiced style of pakua today, and is often taught along with other bagua styles. Sun Lu Tang trained with Cheng Ting Hua, so often if one is learning the Sun system of pakua they are also exposed to Cheng style.

The Cheng style uses the dragon claw as its base palm. According to the palm's shape, the other name of Cheng style is Long-zhao Zhang (Dragon Claw Palm) Cheng style uses eight mother palms as its base of forms, each of these mother palms are then divided into eight sections each, thus making sixty four palms.

The mother palms of Cheng style are single change, double change, flowing forward, behind the body, turning body, grinding body, overturning body, and returning body. The footwork that is essential to Cheng style is the hook step, and swing step. The hook step must be small and the swing step big.

Yin Style:
Yin style in perhaps the most widely practiced system of pakua today, and for many reasons. Yin Fu (1841-1909) was the founder of this style and he was also a direct student of bagua’s founder Dong Haichuan. It is said that yin fu began to study with dong hai chuan after dong defeated him in a challenge. Yin fu was reluctant to totally grasp all of bagua and let go of the shaolin tui na he had practiced for years. It is also said that dong finally became upset at yin fu’s reluctance and knocked out yin’s two front teeth, I have seen no photos of yin fu smiling to prove or disprove this story. The king liked him too and let Yin join the king's security guards. When Master Dong retired, Yin took over as the supervisor of the security guards. Then he worked for the emperor in the Forbidden City. The Empress Dowager liked his skill and even wanted to study with him.

Yin taught Bagua and lived on the eastern side of Beijing city. So Yin style will always be called Dong-cheng Zhang (Eastern City Palm). The other name of Yin style is Niu-she Zhang (Ox Tongue Palm) because the palm's shape in this style looks like an ox tongueYin style is perhaps the largest system of bagua not only in its’ practitioners but also the material of the style itself. Yin style offers the most arrays of techniques, forms, chi gung, weapons, and palm changes than any other system of pakua.

The ox tongue palm is the base palm for the Yin system of pakua. Yin style is divided into eight sets, each having eight palms for a total of sixty-four forms. The yin style also teaches the eighteen lines of lohan fists, the 12 continuous leg methods, and the three basin palm frames.

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