prana

Baguazhang and the internal martial arts:

For awhile now, as a supplemental to studying Tai-chi, I
have been working with a martial art called Baguazhang.
Bag-gua is different from the other internal martial arts,
(incl. Tai-chi, Hsing-I, and Ba-gua), in one fundamental
sense. Ba-gua is considered a Taoist-Yogic martial art.
Masters of this style appear as coiling, twisting dervishes,
capable of evading and diabling multiple attackers at th same
time. Ba-gua is also known for it's health benefits. Since man
spends so much time walking on artificial, even surfaces, this
causes muscular distension to build, esp. in the lower back as
your weight seeks to equalize itself against your skeletal frame.
The movements of Ba-gua seeks to create the sensation of walking on
uneven ground, helping to release tension from the lower back and legs.
This makes practitioners of Ba-gua appear to be off-balance, when in all
actuality nothing could be further from the truth. Baguazhang translates
roughly into "The Movements of the Eight Trigrams", which I will explain
more about later.