| Courses of Study
and Costs - Bagua |
| We teach five Cheng (*) style Bagua
weapons sets: sword, deer horn knives, spear, special bagua |
| large saber and staff. The first four are in the manner
of Sun Zhi Jun and Li Chun Ling, while staff |
| is in the
manner of Ma Lin Cheng. The staff set uses a longer staff
- one can choose between |
| graphite (different colors), red oak,
stainless steel, white oak,rattan ...Traditionally, these
staffs |
| should be higher than your crown. They
vary a great deal in price - from $20 up. We suggest |
| visiting a store and trying several. Or
briefly borrowing from a classmate. A basic waxwood shafted |
| 78 inch spear with steel spearhead and red
tassel is about $40. Bagua uses a double-headed spear so you |
| would buy an extra spearhead and attach
it. An alternative is to buy two spearheads, two tassels |
| and choose your own material for the
shaft. The deerhorn knives (shown below left) and the bagua |
| big broadsword (shown below middle)
cost about $70. Getting a scabbard for the broadsword easily |
| doubles the price, so many students buy
or make a bag. There is a wide variety of swords |
| available and the choice is really up
to the buyer. The LONG sword used for Bagua CANNOT be |
| used in Shaolin, Tai Chi Chuan and
other arts because it is longer and heavier and is a two-handed |
| sword as is used in Mantis. Note that
one need only buy a weapon when it is to be studied. Hauling |
| any of the four long weapons around is
tedious (especially the double-headed spear shown below |
| right), so usually one practices at
home with a personal weapon and uses a borrowed weapon at class. |
| You would bring your personal weapon to
exhibitions. We suggest staffs and spears that disassemble. |
| No special clothing
needed for Bagua classes - a t-shirt and shorts or comfortable
pants will suffice. |
| Socks with Feiyue
shoes are recommended. Tai Chi Chuan style silks or satins would
be used for |
| formal events. |
| * = besides Cheng style, there are the
following styles: Gao family, Liang, Yin Fu and Jin. There are |
|
varying amounts of Xing Yi Chuan folded in. Depending on the
style and teacher there can be some |
| crossover with Tai Chi Chuan. For those
wishing to study the complete art including the very
|
|
elegant unarmed sets finding a teacher can be challenging. See
the link below for teachers in the San |
|
Francisco Bay Area. Tom Bisio's six volumes on Bagua NeiGong
are recommended. If I can find |
|
two liniments and an elixir I may teach Bagua Iron Palm (more
accurately, Iron Arm) in the
future. |
 |