No more comments or question? I am not enclined to write more. Please don’t just expect me to. There is more but I am only going to write if there is interest. Either way…
bricks…ymaa exercises no?
8gua
Greetings..
Yes.. however, i have been using 4"X4" wood blocks and stacking them 3-4 high.. Dr. Yang introduced me to the exercise about 4 years ago and i find it very beneficial..
Buddy: in the turning i notice that i am storing spiral energy in the yang leg (with proper knee alignment), is this similar to your experience? At what point do you release the waist, either in application or as in a silk-reeling movement?.. Does the “rectangle” include the hollow chest concept?..
Be well..
Please forgive me if I address these issues one at a time. I mean nothing by it. It just helps me to organize my thoughts (sorry Fpow)
First off I don’t use the bricks or anything like that. I’m probably never going to be in a position where bricks are involved. Maybe it’s good but I’d rather spend my time in other areas. YMMV.
"Buddy: in the turning i notice that i am storing spiral energy in the yang leg (with proper knee alignment), is this similar to your experience?
Bob, I understand your question, but perhaps folks without your experience wouldn’t. Does that make sense? Normally I wouldn’t want to talk at all about how the the legs twist (luo xian jin). Why? Because, based on my experience Westerners store a lot of crap in their soft tissue. I’ve seen this as a part time body worker( I’ve had a little training but only that). BTW, me too. But yes to answer your question. Otherwise the weight shifts and stores into the weighted leg (duh, Buddy)
"At what point do you release the waist, either in application or as in a silk-reeling movement?..
Bobby Bobby,
You DO ask good questions. Let me answer your first question first. In the exercise you don’t involve the waist. Period. OK?
Now. Application (I know what you mean by SR but…maybe others don’t) so I will try to address both issues. With SR and apps. it’s a matter or skill and experience. Does that make sense? The answer is, and I hate to write this openly, not because it’s some great secret but because that noobs will do this before getting real good basic training. If you haven’t been doing this for at least three years dont. Or ask your teacher, or write me personally. Please, don’t go wrong where I did.
OK here it is. The hips control the whole body. The waist controls the hips. Bob I never really release the waist , it always stores, even as it releases. IOW, I can 'fa" and be ready for the next ‘fa’ Make sense?
Does the “rectangle” include the hollow chest concept?..
Bob,
I think I know what you mean. But again some guy from Peoria might not. I want to answer your question and I will but if you could phrase it so that noobs might understand it? I will explain my version in great detail. I’m sorry to be a stickler at this but we have agreat opportunity here. We can actually try to expalin what it is we are talking about so nooone gets cheated. Wasn’t around when I was young.
Be well..
GIVING THE GOOD STUFF AWAY FOR FREE…
Yer a good man Tripp.
Pete,
You don’t even have to ask for it. You know that, mi casa su casa.
Hey it’s not like you are going anywhere, bra.
Buddy
Greetings..
LOL.. i know, i guess i’m trying to lead the dialogue a little too far..
Regarding the waist, an analogy i like is those stupid (never got one that worked) paddle-ball things.. the paddle with a rubber string and rubber ball attached.. even when the ball was returning and the string was loose, the string was preparing for the next extension/recovering its stored energy.. the waist (DanTien) is always ahead of the frame, leading it.. and, as the frame arrives the Dantien is already on to its next adventure..
Regarding the “hollow chest”.. does this exercise include elements of Peng.. is it appropriate to “float the breath” during the transition of direction (lung peng).. (i love that phrase)..
FWIW, the bricks (wood blocks for me) will highlight inappropriate connections with the ground (they fly out from under your feet).. they also force you to reach your energy further downward to find stable ground, then.. when you are on stable ground, the training of “reaching” permits a much deeper and more stable rooting..
Be well, and good dialogue 
Bob,
“Regarding the “hollow chest”.. does this exercise include elements of Peng.. is it appropriate to “float the breath” during the transition of direction (lung peng).. (i love that phrase)..”
When you say ‘hollow chest’ are you referring to the Chinese phrase, and forgive my poor Pinyin, ‘han xiung ba bei’? This is often translated as something like ‘sink the chest and raise the back’ Let me give my take on the phrase. Raise the back means to lift the skull off the spine and open up the occiput. Sink, or hollow the chest, let me explain by way of example. If I put my palm on your chest it should, when you release tension in the chest, slide down like snow sliding off a roof on a warm day. Does that make sense? The combination of these two actions opens up the back and more importantly the front of the spine. And if by Peng you mean the supporting jing then yes this is present with this phrase.
However that is more an issue of standing practice which I haven’t discussed but I am certainly willing to. Actually it is precursor to this material. The exercise I am discussing is more one to start to develop whole body motion centered on the hips. Sorry, I don’t know what you mean by ‘float the breath’. Except if one is doing a particular breathing method, and as this is mostly for beginners I’m not going to discuss that just yet, it’s best to just breathe naturally. Again I am willing to, but too much too soon is just a distraction.
Buddy
Buddy, sorry for taking so long to get back to you. Thanks for the info. I gotta tell you man…we do that very exact excercise for our begginers, the side to side, then adding the turning, then of course, we start adding arms, and seeing how the body movement can move the arts with the body, how to make circles with the body, etc. All this of course takes time, and we do not do all this at once. I still do these type exersices even though it has been years since learning them. Great stuff.
You say this comes straight out of Kumar’s book?
“Buddy, sorry for taking so long to get back to you. Thanks for the info. I gotta tell you man…we do that very exact excercise for our begginers, the side to side, then adding the turning, then of course, we start adding arms,”
Ah Cd,
I haven’t added the arms yet. That is going to be much more difficult to write about. I hope you will comment, when I try to give my own take on it. Leo and Bai He (Pete) please talk about how this changes the exercise.
I’ll give my brief take. Addng the arms makes it much more difficult to just concentrate on the hips.
and seeing how the body movement can move the arts with the body, how to make circles with the body, etc. All this of course takes time, and we do not do all this at once. I still do these type exersices even though it has been years since learning them. Great stuff.
You say this comes straight out of Kumar’s book?"
Mmmm, no. Not str8 out of the book. I don’t think you’d find anything I say contradicted in there. And I’m fairly certain if you called him and said," Is Buddy full of ****?"… he would say no, he represents what I represent fairly accurately.. He can read all this if someone sends it to him. While I’m no longer associated with his group directly, I can only give credit where credit is due. Kumar is Kumar but IMO, particularly when I learned from him, the material is first rate. He was teaching some seriously good stuff, and he himself was a baddasss win or lose.
B
No problem Buddy. Sorry to get the cart ahead of the horse there with the arms. Depending on how busy I get, sure I will stay engaged on this conversation, since this is finally some good stuff. I often wonder, however, if any people actually take stuff like this, the very basics, that currently do not know how to do it, and go work on it to really get it.
I mean, and you obviously know this, that this kind of stuff IS the art. So any practice in these basics is time well spent.
One more thing to add here minus the arms. Still standing feet parallel. While shifting the weight, and turning, continue to always lift from the spine/crown, while sinking the root staying relaxed. That usaully goes out the door the first time you add any new piece of movement. But it gets back in there after some reminding.
Ahhhh, also, it is imperitive of course, that the knees do not flex to the inside or outside during the shifting. The knees must remain over the feet, otherwise you will injure those knees over time. Like driving a car out of alignment. No big deal until 10K miles later and your tire has been half worn down by the friction.
.
Adding the arms is rather difficult at first.
It seems as if “intention” immediately goes to the arms and
people start turning the waist instead of the hips.
At least that was the key for me.
The arms only move and rotate in a fixed manner up and down (in exact opposites).
Only the hips truly move and shift. Very important is that everything moves and stops at once.
I hope this helped a bit.
Agreed on the ‘intention’. It goes to the arms at first, and the tempation is to try to move the arms in a disonnected fashion.
Who wants to start on the differences between moving the hips in this excersice, and the waist, and what that all means? I would like somone to expound on that some.
The hips inolve “whole body” power by engaging the legs.
While the waist, after the proper basic training, can increase the range of structural power, once the body is properly aligned and open. The longer and looser the pelvis and the hips? The more the waist can extend the torso, extend the structure and issue good “rooted” power.
When you see the pics of Bagua Masters, twisted this way and that and are still properly aligned, that’s what we’re talking about.
They are “open” and coiled.
I guess after a serious amount of time put in, the body creates a lot of “space” tendon, joints and most importantly fascia are properly stretched and lubed (sinovial fluid), these coiled postures are rather simple and relaxed and structurally sound.
From personal experience, I know that my body and most especially my spine is stronger and much more flexible than years of study in other arts. Keep in mind I practice no static stretching
on a consistent basis.
BaGua prepares the body for BaGua and everything runs together and augments itself. That’s why I love the basics. That’s why my teacher beats the basics into our heads all the time.
Hope this helps and I hope Buddy swings by to
check my logic here.
Oh, that was the theory part.
One exercise Buddy had me do with the “Shift and Turn” was to
put your palms together at Dan Tien, clasp the firngers together and use the to index fingers to make a “Guide”. Make sure they are in a straight line with your nose.
Shift the weight to one leg using the hips only and turn the spine
as the Kua opens. The “pointer” or guide at Dan Tien will naturally turn and open. Keep your nose and “straight” spine completely in line with the pointer. You have now just rotated your “axis” if you have kept your spine completelt in line and done all the shifting and turning in your hips.
Think of your spine as a big antennae, from the tailnone to the crown of the skull.
I enjoy cleaning jockstraps. Does anyone here have some for me?
No. That’s the hokey pokey. You don’t “put your leg out”.
Think natural posture, feet shoulder width apart. Shift weight using nothing but the hips.
I have to sign off now. Hopefully Buddy will be back to clarify or correct anything that I may be off base on.
He asked me to chime in, and these are my personal observations while under his tutelage. I think I have a fairly sound grasp of the basics as Buddy teaches them. Until he
gets back< we’ll tread some water…
See you bums tommorrow;) 
Pete’s got the right of it. God this is satisfying. Of course now he’ll have to worry about “sucking at a higher level”. Seriously it is as he descibes. And BTW this isn’t really baguazhang per se because there a lot of different styles out there that do much different jibengong. It’s my way based on how I was taught at one time. It works for me and seems to work for my folks. But really it’s neigong and it’s had some interesting effects, not all martially related. We are, as a school, totally dedicated to Yizong bagua, particularly of the Qian Kun school. But we do a couple of other things to that enrich our lives, I think.
Pete carry on please. Leo?
Buddy
Cr*p. I usually just peruse this board once in a while. And of course Buddy draws me out on an exercise that I have difficulty with. 
The advice I would add:
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As mentioned before, that feeling of “expansion” needs to be engaged at all times. What I see sometimes is people get focused on the weighted leg that they are shifting onto, that they forget the other leg. Keep expansion there.
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People go beyond their hip frame/structure. What happens? You engage the waist. You need to stay within your body’s hip frame/flexibility. I always tell the new guys not to compare themselves to others, because everyone is different. I see everyone thinking the goal is to be able to stretch to the side (beyond 45 degrees) which is not the case. You want to isolate your hips and just learn how to shift.
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People go too fast. Slow down! This isn’t a race, it’s a drill on developing a certain type of movement. Some people do it too fast and they miss everything.
I’ll swing by more often and add what I can.
-Leo