The previous chapter examined the Taoist yogic roots of Ba Gua Zhang. This chapter looks at the application of Taoist yogic theory and practice to Ba Gua Zhang and the internal martial arts.
taoyin
nei kuan
shen tien
yuan qi
nei gong
"Who knows where the rivers of internal energy go? In the body great and wide they circulate and collect into ponds, stagnant pools and swamps. In the same way that swamps breed insects, with stagnation in the body, there is disease."
Tao yin
One of the most important discoveries of the ancient Taoists was the direct manip-ulation of internal qi. Other than massage, there are two ways to direct internal qi: mental exercise (nei kuan or nei shih) and manipulation through posture—the grandfather of qi gong, an art called taoyin.^ The Taoist exercises described in Chapter Two were designed to move and guide qi and through this process trans-form the body. Taoist sages believed that by becoming in tune with and balanc-ing qi, a harmonious inner environment within the body is created, which reflects the idealized, harmonious universe. Through taoyin practice an inner alchemist returned mentally and physically to shen tien, a state before the normal decline of birth and death sets in, where balanced qi brought him into harmony with the natural order through internal balance and where his yuan qi, (primordial qt) would be full and uncorrupted. During the Tang (618-906 A.D.) and Sung (960-1279) dynasties these practices became popular within Taoist circles. Man-uals describing principles of "nourishing the life force gymnastics" were popular among literati practitioners of Taoist physical yogas. Texts advised that these exer-cises be done to "render the body more supple and to rest it." The result of these exercises was nei gong, skill or mastery of the inner qi flow. Elaborate health-ther-apy systems, probably the oldest and most complete physical therhealth-ther-apy system in the premodern world, developed from this body of knowledge.
Physiotherapists of ancient China understood that qi moved in the human body like water in a river. When pathways in the body's energy dam up, block-ages form and the energy in the body, just like nonmoving water, becomes stag-nant. These blockages, according to Taoist inner alchemists and later the tradi-tional Chinese medical doctors, were the primary cause of ill health. Stagnant qi was understood to be the cause of joint tension, backache, headaches, high blood pressure, cancer, and stress-related visceral organ dysfunction. Taoist physiotherapy became a standard approach to therapy for centuries, but it wasn't until almost a thousand years later that the science and art of manipulating qi would manifest as a primary focus in select martial arts.
Yogic-based internal martial arts
As described in Chapter Two, Taoist yogic practice merged with martial arts in turn-of-the-century China. This was the genesis of a unique approach to mar-tial arts where mental and physical tools were developed to aid the adept in the experiencing of and merging with the universal principle—die mysterious Tao—
and master combat arts in ways never before seen. First among these new martial
arts was Ba Gua Zhang, the coiling, twisting, and turning of which became the ultimate psycho-physical yoga of nature and life. "More than memorizing and practicing moves, Ba Gua Zhang is about life."
Does mysterious inner power exist? Does it reach its greatest potential when matched with meditative trance? What happens when you combine meditative trance with special movements that "mimic the sky?" (in ancient Chinese thought heaven was round and earth square). These were the questions that obsessed the Dragon Gate Taoist sect to which Dong Hai-Chuan, the founder of Ba Gua Zhang, belonged. Practitioners of the Dragon Gate believed that one could induce a special mental state by walking a circle while chanting and practicing breathing exercises. They believed that through this prac-tice they developed a special connection to the mysterious universal principle, and that this connection resulted in special power and knowl-edge. Everything was in place for the Ba Gua Zhang martial art to develop.
Variant curricula
Most martial artists at the turn of the century had little if any education. On the whole most pugilists, and this includes those practicing Ba Gua, were illit-erate common laborers who were not interested in the deeper meanings of yogic practice. Typically they studied martial arts to acquire employable skills with the aim of becoming a bodyguard. Those who did bring deeper thought to bear on their martial arts, particularly in Beijing and Tien Jin, wrere a relatively small number of literate martial artists in the cultural centers of northern China dur-ing the late 1800s and the early 1900s. This small number of researchers, includ-ing Liu Bin (see page xvii) and Sun Lu-Tang (see pages 18-19), were goinclud-ing to impact the arts in significant ways. It is interesting to look at parallel develop-ment occurring in T'ai Chi Ch'uan during the same period. Douglas Wile has made an extensive examination of the historicity of the Yang style. In discussing Ch'en Hsin's writings made between 1908 and 1919 he called it "the only work comparable in the scope and detail of its medical, metaphysical, and medita-tional content." Wile's analysis includes an extensive discussion on the possible nexus that produced the T'ai Chi "Forty Chapters" mix of martial arts, medi-cine and meditation which has become synonymous with internal martial arts.44
"In the case of Ba Gua as in select T'ai Chi and Hsing I circles, a genre of mar-tial-intellectuals emerged who sought to merge their art with ultimate princi-ples of health and life. They developed ideas that supported a grand philoso-phy congruent with their martial art merging with Taoist yogic practices.
Drawing of a Taoist yogi taken from an ancient text.