Yesterday, I talked about Taiji and Bagua. Well, more Taiji than Bagua. Taiji weapons, which I love. Passionately. It took my teacher literally placing a wooden sword in my hand to get me to try it out, but I could not be stopped after that. I love my Taiji weapons, and after I got home from the hospital, my biggest concern (after my cat, of course), was, “Can I do my weapons forms once again?”
Two days after I returned home from the hospital, I tried to do the Sword Form with a wooden sword. Normally, I use my steel one, but I wanted to try with as light as possible a weapon. Was it a smart decision? Hell, no! Was it completely predictable? Hell, yes! I made it through the third posture and then felt completely exhausted so I stopped.
By the third or fourth month I was home, though, I was back to my full routine. I taught myself the Fan Form post-hospital, and next up with be the Guandao Form. I’m doing other things in the meantime because I don’t want to just collect weapons.
Here is where Bagua steps in. I have liked it since my teacher suggested walking the circle in place of meditation. This was at the beginning of my studies with her, and I was having flashbacks during meditatiion. By the way, I have researched it and found out that for some people with trauma, meditation only exacerbated it. That made me feel better because all I heard was about how great meditation was for everyone. I know that is the tendency of human nature–to think that if something is beneficial to them, then it would be for everyone else.
I had the same issue with yoga. My mother practiced it and loved it. I tried it twice. I hated it both times. The second time, it was at a party. The person throwing the party had invited a friend of hers who was a yoga instructor to do a free session. There was many things wrong with it, but the biggest was that she declared she was very sensitive about whether people wanted to be touched or not.
Side note: people who declare things about themselves are rarely correct. Especially when it’s somtehnig that is seen as a given. “I’m a nice guy” is the quintessential meme about it. If you’re a nice person, it will be seen by others; you don’t actually have to say it. In addition, being nice is baseline and not something worthy of saying out loud.
I took Taiji from someone else before my current teacher. That first person was a narcissistic, predatory asshole. He also made a big deal about how he was able to read people and knew when they did not want to be touched. He was full of shit. He touched me to adjust me more than once, and the reason I finally left (after a year of hating studyng with him) was because he we were talking when he casually reached over and flicked my hair behind my shoulder. It freaked me the fuck out and was so intimate, I knew I had to get out of there.
With the yoga instructor, after she made this big production of how she was so sensitive to people, we started doing different postures. I hated it intensely, but went along with it. It was tolerable until we were doing a stretch on the floor. It was similar to putting your legs forward and stretching towards them. The instrutor stood behind me and said, “Oh, you can do better than that” and PUSHED me forward. It hurt like hell, and that turned me off yoga forever.
Side note: It’s interesting that I have had more than one person who claimed to be so sensitive to people completely fail to read me. Interesting, but not surprising. I’m exceedingly good at masking my emotions because I’ve had to be. I was not allowed to show them, especially negative ones. I got so good at burying them except for when I’m extremely stressed, tired, or angry.
Where was I?
Bagua. I’ve always liked walking the circle. It’s when I realized that I was not a pacifist and my life mattered. I’ve written about that in the past and with great difficulty, I will not write about it now. Suffice to say that it is, as the kids say, what it is.
Taiji is a very chill martial art. It’s about being in the moment and going with the flow. You’re never going to start a fight, but, you will, if you can, end it. It’s about being reactive and taking what is given to you. Redirecting energy and expending as little of it as possible. It’s why I started studying Taiji in the first place–because it’s known as the lazy person’s martial art.
Bagua is a different beast altogether. It’s aggressive and in your face. React? Fuck, no. ACT WITH A FIST IN YOUR FACE. I was telling my Taiji teacher that doing Bagua made me aggressive. I’ve said that I have an issue with my temper, but this isn’t the same thing. I’m not angry when I do Bagua, but I’m definitely more…pumped up than when I do Taiji.
If I had to rank them, I’m at a 3 when I do Taiji Solo Form and warmups. Well, more like a 2 for the stretches. When I do Taiji weapons, it ranges from a 5 to a 7. Bagua has me at a 9 from the get-go, and I anticipate it only goes up from there. Weirdly, walking the circle with the DeerHorn Knives lessens the intensity. I don’t know why that is true, but it is.
I feel as if my blood is really circulating when I do Bagua. I feel focused in a way I don’t when I’m doing Taiji. Taiji is so chill. I can’t tell you how doing the warmups and the Solo Form are so laid-back. It’s effort, yes, but I doubt it raises my heartbeat very much. Doing the Taiji weapon forms is different. It’s weight-bearing exercise and it’s why I’m getting swole.
Bagua is on another level. My teacher said that in China, if you tell someone you’re studying Bagua, they will say, “Oh, you’re a dangerous person.” And I see it! There is an energy to Bagua that is chaotic and frenetic. Yes, it’s still an internal martial art, but it’s much more vicious than Taiji. And I say that in a positive way. It was built around the DeerHorn Knives, and that is really the only weapon associated with Bagua.
I cannot wait to learn the DeerHorn Knives Form. I asked my teacher if she ever found it hard to reconcile her love for Bagua with her love for Taiji. She said no. The basics were similar, but the expressions of that base was very different. she said they were complementary–and that was how she though tof it.
That makes sense to me. They are different, but they work well together. I asked if she ever got in a fight, which would she use to defend herself. She said both. She gave me a brief demonstration, and it was really amazing how quickly she could move from one to the other without blinking.
Right now, I’m working on the left side of the Solo (Long) Form in Taiji and some basic walking the circle drills for Bagua. At some point, Iwant to add sparring. That’s my true love, and I cannot wait to be able to practice it.