Cheng Style Ba Gua
Cheng
style pakua is the work of Cheng Ting Hua, who is said to be the top student of
Ba Gua founder Dong Hai Chuan. He had many students
resulting in more people studying Cheng style than any other style of Bagua. He
lived and taught on the south side of Beijing city. So people often called his
style Nan-cheng Zhang (Southern City Palm).Cheng is legendary for
his strength and skills. Some say he always wore a ten-pound iron vest, and
trained striking a three hundred pound sand bag, and a bathtub full of water.
His fighting skills are as legendary as his training techniques, it has been
reported that Cheng defeated numerous “masters” with the ease of a child
playing.
Cheng
style is perhaps the second most practiced style of pakua today, and is often
taught along with other bagua styles. Sun Lu Tang trained with Cheng Ting Hua,
so often if one is learning the Sun system of pakua they are also exposesd to
Cheng style.
The Cheng style uses the dragon claw as its base palm. According to the palm's shape, the other name of Cheng
style is Long-zhao Zhang (Dragon Claw Palm) Cheng style uses
eight mother palms as its base of forms, each of these mother palms are then
divided into eight sections each, thus making sixty four palms.
The
mother palms of Cheng style are single change, double change, flowing forward,
behind the body, turning body, grinding body, overturning body, and returning
body. The footwork that is essential to Cheng style is the hook step, and swing
step. The hook step must be small and the swing step big.
Eight Necessities
for Practicing Skill
My Cheng style lineage:
Cheng Ting Hua
Hua Ting Bu
Will Duncan
Jay C Shrewsbury (trained
with Will Duncan and Hu Wei Yue)