Baguazhang

八卦掌 (Bāguàzhǎng) is often abbreviated to ‘Bagua‘ in the West even though this isn’t strictly accurate. The full name of the martial art is Ba [Eight] Gua [Trigram] Zhang [Palm], where ‘Palm’ is more of a reference to; ‘martial art that uses the open palm to strike’ or more succinctly as ‘boxing’.

What’s a Trigram?

In China there is an ancient almanac called the 易經 (Yìjīng). The name can be translated to ‘Classic [book about] Change’. This text builds up a binary system from a solid line and a broken line. Then it layers one of these on top of itself or the other, which creates four possibilities. When you layer three of these together you create eight combinations called trigrams. The Yijing itself uses 64 hexagrams (six layers).

Chinese people have been consulting this almanac for many centuries and it is a well known part of their culture. So, to simply refer to the martial art as ‘Bagua‘, is technically referring only to the eight trigrams that are part of this binary-style system of solid and broken lines. That said, once context is established, practitioners of Baguazhang will completely understand if you abbreviate it to Bagua.

If you would like to have private one-to-one instruction in Baguazhang please contact us to set-up a first session.