This is lesson 6 in our free online Bagua training.
This lesson begins the Single Palm portion of our intro to Bagua. Single Palm is the signature fighting positon of Bagua. In this lesson we cover the basic posture and in the next several lessons we’ll show the fundamental of how to fight effectively from the Single Palm stance.
Transcript:
OK, so we’re going to do Bagua’s single palm position and stance so that you can work on that. So I’ll show it real quick here.
So I’ve got my knees together, I’ve got my butt underneath me, and my waist is turned. I’m off to my side, this is up here kind of like cross-pocket.
This shoulder is not sticking up like that, it’s more like I’m holding something heavy this way and that I came a little bit further with this while keeping that down. Turn the fingers up, put the other hand over there, kind of like ‘get away from me’ kind of a thing.
Single Palm Foot & Leg Position
So footwork first. Put you feet together bend your knees, and then bring you butt back forward a little bit and in. Then scoot that foot so that it wasn’t actually a step, it was a slide out to there.
Make sure that you’re sunk enough so that you can bend the knee like you’re stepping on the gas but that you’re back here and there’s no gap really between your legs. At the same time you could just as easily step behind you, set it down. That way you can also turn, and when you turn, put your legs together like this and notice that my knees are together and the foot could come here or here.
Turn the foot in, now I’m in the same position as i was in a second ago but facing the other direction.
the knees are protecting your groin area. You can pick up the front leg or the back leg if you want to. So you’re very mobile in the position even though to look at it in the beginning or you’re doing it wrong, it seem like it’s not. So the foot is here, pull it out of there completely, pull it up, put it back. The other one, up, back, behind you. Shift it, there they are together. That’s your footwork for simple, simple right now. That’s the footwork for the stance.
Hand and Arm Position
Then from here it’s, put your hand here like it’s holding something. Don’t let that shoulder move even though you’re gonna move that arm all the way across you. Turn that palm over but don’t lift the shoulder, keep it like that. Turn you fingers to the ceiling so that this is pushing down and around and up like that.
Now, don’t have it sharply bent and cut off here as much as it’s sort of angling it’s way up and it should point at the elbow on the other arm and then that hand faces straight out. There are different styles, hand positions and things that people do.
Simple, simple is I want that palm to come off there with no problem. the other arm is helping to cover my whole ribcage, covering those organs as well as your elbow is helping to cover some of that. It’s supporting to some degree that other hand.
Stay sunk for quick stepping
If your butt is sticking out before you step forward, you’re going to have to pull it in and then step. If your but is in, you’re literally rocking the feet and step. Same thing for going backwards. If your but is out, you will feel it in the shift. If it’s down and under you, it’s as fast as you can think to move your foot.
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