In Bagua there are ALWAYS multiple attackers.

It’s what Bagua was designed for. That’s it’s specialty.

…and assuming anything less is a dangerous mistake.

This means you must be mobile.

This is why you see Bagua practitioners always walking in circles.

(one of many reasons anyway.)

Moving well in place is not enough.

The art must be able to fight while it’s covering ground.

Walking or running, either will do, but you never square off with an opponent like you see folks do in the ring or on TV.

If you stay in one place for a moment they will surround you. They key to managing a group of attackers, so you don’t have to fight them all at the exact same time, is constant continuous movement.

Another factor is time.

There is a whole lot you can do against a single opponent that you simply do not have time for against a group.

Anything that can’t be done in an instant, anything that takes more than 1 step, is a liability.

You must be efficient.

If you have 4 attackers, every action you take has to account for all 4 of the attackers actions.

…and that’s just to stay even.

To dominate the situation each of your actions must be 8 times more effective than the action of any single attacker. (of course if you have 8 attackers you’re still only staying even.)

Also, your physical activity must require an eighth of the effort that each attacker is putting out if you’re just going to stay even with 8 attackers.

You cannot commit.

If you commit too much time, effort, energy or thought to any one person, action or technique the other attackers will get you.

All your techniques must happen almost incidentally. As if you didn’t mean to do it or even fully realize it happened as you were moving.

There’s more.

…but that’s a good place to start.

Of course all this takes time and training and lots of hard work.

That’s why it’s important to start with these ideas from day one.

…and that’s why our beginning Bagua training starts with lots of multiple attacker drills.