Sun Style Ba Gua

Sun Style Pa Kua was the creation of Sun Lu Tang. Sun Lu Tang also created Sun Style Xing Yi, and Sun Style Tai Chi. He is accredited as the first martial artist to write about and be accepted for the intellectual properties that the martial arts have always had. When Sun wrote his first work it was widely accepted by the people as an alternative way to view the martial arts, instead of them being viewed as a “fighting” art, they could now be viewed for the philosophical and spiritual aspects they have always been founded upon.

Sun Lu Tang was taught bagua by Cheng Ting Hua, and became quite sufficient at the art. Sun’s system differs from most other pakua by its footwork, softness, quickness, and basic moves that can be combined to create an endless system. His skills are legendary, and the stories that surround his life are incredible.

The Sun style of bagua consists of two palm changes, and eight animals, lion, snake, unicorn, dragon, sparrow hawk, bear, monkey, and phoenix. At the beginning levels one learns the “muddy” step, kobu stepping, walking a large circle (usually a twenty step circle), and changing directions using the kobu steps. When one is sufficient at this (this will take around six months), one can move on to the single palm change, then double palm change. After the palm changes are practiced enough to be sufficient, usually around another six months, and these basics are grasped, you can begin learning each animal, one per month, at this point you have nearly two solid years of Sun style bagua basics, and can move onto blending the ten palms to create unique sets, this should be practiced for at least one year. When this is completed one will now be able to learn various circle sizes, such as twelve steps, eight steps, and three steps, then you can discover the spinning steps. At this point one should no longer be a beginner and can start to explore such ideas as fast stepping, blending, and line stepping. After two more years of exploring these concepts one can learn, the “endless” bagua, which is the highest level, but a level that can never be “mastered”.

The applications, and sensitivity drills were not mentioned here, and are certainly a large part of bagua, but this is why you see such a large amount of time for each component.

I absolutely love Sun style bagua, it is a unique version of bagua and is what I believe what real bagua should look like and be practiced as. You can learn the basics, create forms for competitions, or use it as one of the best chi gung sets out there.

Web links for Sun Style Ba Gua: http://www.plumpub.com/, http://www.suntaichi.com/sunlutang.html ,

My Sun style Ba Gua lineage is as follows:

Sun Lu Tang

Sun Cun Zhou

Hua Chun-ron

Hu Wei Yue

Will Duncan

Jay C Shrewsbury (studied with Will Duncan & Hu Wei Yue)