Category Archives: bagua zhang

Secret Gung Fu of The Shaolin Butterfly

Secret Gung Fu Revealed!

Secret Gung Fu refers to martial arts principles hidden for millennium. Here is the data you’ve been seeking.

I’ve always wanted to know secret gung fu techniques. I’ve studied Southern Shaolin and Northern Shaolin and Wing Chun and Tai Chi and Pa Kua and…I can’t stop.

This is not bad, of course, for the health benefits and the clarity of mind are absolutely phenomenal.

 

There is one problem, however, that I wish to address here, concerning the martial arts, and this secret gung fu thing.

secret gung fu

Secret Gung Fu shouldn’t be secret, and that is the heart of the Shaolin Butterfly


It can take several years to become expert in a system of Gung Fu. It can take more than a dozen years to master a system of Gung Fu. This is much, much too long.

My solution to this problem was to concentrate on isolating the main concept–and motion–behind a system of gung fu, and concentrate upon just that concept.

I didn’t want to learn by memorizing series of tricks, you see, I wanted to go for the gold. I wanted to find out the real secret gung fu behind any system I studied.

Every system I studied, however, was based on a different concept. Wing Chun slipped and angled , and the Mantis pulled with a hook. Pa kua made circles and deflected, and Tai Chi guided by absorbing. None of the systems seemed related, and this made finding a secret gung fu difficult, to say the least!

But, I reasoned, fighting is, at heart, fighting! There had to be a simple concept that tied them all together. There had to be some simple thing that was common to each fighting system, no matter how different the fighting system seemed to be! There had to be an underlying principle that I was missing.

And, in the end, I found it.

No matter what type of gung Fu you are studying, the body is the common denominator.

Gung fu, flower arranging, dance, taking a walk…they all need a body. And the body is constructed the same, for the most part, from person to person.

Thus, I dissected and analyzed all the arts, and found that there is a principle of body motion, relating to and coming from the body, that is the same for virtually all arts. And the arts I was studying suddenly made sense, and I could see the connections. I had found my secret gung fu.

I had found the source of it all!

Eventually, I formed my own system, and it is based on this common principle of body structure, and the only potentials of motion that a body is capable of.

I call this system the Shaolin Butterfly, and the true glory of it is that is includes virtually all potentials of motion from all other systems of Gung Fu. Oh, and one other thing about this secret gung fu system that is great–it can be learned in a couple of months.

This blog on secret gung fu was originally published 2009/06/03 on the Matrix Martial arts blog.

Bagua Zhang Technique is Simple to Use!

Bagua Zhang Technique is Too Simple!

Bagua Zhang Technique is an easy thing to learn and simple to apply. The problem is that they might actually be to simple.

Too simple to learn because most people don’t have the discipline of mind, the mental ability, to make Bagua Zhang Martial Arts work. They get lost in the endless possibilities of intricacy, and lose sight of the simplicity.

bagua zhang techniques

Come on! All of you! At once! I know the best martial art!

 

When you walk the circle you must do so with an eye to developing Martial Arts Bagua Zhang Technique. These martial arts gems rely on one simple principle: the opponent must extend his arm, and the person doing the circle walking self defense must use the extended limb like a captain’s wheel. That is, he must turn the spoke, that the hub of the body would revolve.

If the punch is fast and hard, this is difficult to do, and what punch is not going to be fast?

The solution is to practice until you see the energy forming, until you see the punch generating, and then be willing and able to use whatever part of the arm you get.

For instance, the attacker launches a strike, and it is a short, circular type of jab. To make a bagua zhang technique work the student must go with the punch, let it pass, and push on the elbow, or even the shoulder.

This means you have to not only walk sideways, but you have to fine tune your distance, so that the opponent misses, passes, and is the right range for your push.

When you push you must not do so faster than the strike, nor slower. The best bagua zhang techniques are going to be the ones in which you harmonize with the motion, and therefore with the attacker.

Think: if he feels you touch him, he will resist, so if you use too much force he will change. But you don’t want him to change…you just want him to be slightly out of kilter, unable to follow up, at a slight disadvantage.

Now, what do you want to do? Continue your circle walking and tie him in knots? Spin him to the earth, circle the arm and reverse direction into a lock or takedown? These are all potential bagua fighting techniques, but the one you choose will depend on one thing: what is the most simple.

What is simple, that is what is difficult. You see, most people train to do something, but when you reach the point where you do nothing, then you can let the attacker guide you to his self destruction.

There is a phrase in The Tao: ‘Do nothing until nothing is left undone.’

Do you understand how this works with a bagua zhang techniques?

The point is that you must practice not the technique, but the concept behind the technique, then your kung fu will work, and then you will have the effortless Bagua Zhang technique that is easy and simple to do.

There is a great piece of writing on how to learn kung fu fast at Monster Martial Arts. Or you could just go to the ultimate bible on Bagua Zhang techniques.