How To Get Into The Yin Fu Ba Gua Stance

This video presents compares a common way of describing how an individual gets into the Yin Fu Ba Gua stance and a thought provoking way of how an individual gets into the Yin Fu Ba Gua stance.

[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KamQU_4I3yk]

A webpage duplicate of the video is also included for those who prefer to read, and for more leisurely study.

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This video is titled “ How does a person get into the Yin Fu Ba Gua Stance ?”

Ba Gua is the name of a hand to hand combat system developed in China. Yin Fu Ba Gua is a particular school of Ba Gua, which means they do Ba Gua with certain changes made to the basic Ba Gua system. The changes made to the basic Ba Gua style, were created by a man named Yin Fu.

The Yin Fu Ba Gua stance is relatively unique, as shown in this picture.

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The body is lowered about halfway to the ground,

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the buttocks are sticking out to the rear of the body,

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and the chest is pulled upwards and backwards.

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The arms are held by the side of the body,

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with the hands located by the chest.

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How does a person move their body into the Yin Fu Ba Gua stance? The answer to that question seems obvious, because of the previous description of the Yin Fu Ba Gua stance.

The person would lower their body towards the ground, while sticking the buttocks out to the rear. Then the person would pull their chest upwards and backwards. The next part of the video will show a simple animation of this process.

This picture shows a profile view of a human body

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and two arrow shaped objects.

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One arrow is over the body and points downwards.

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The other arrow is in front of the groin area and pointing to the rear of the body.

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As the body lowers towards the ground, the upper arrow moves downwards simultaneously, to emphasize the lowering of the body. As the buttocks stick out to the rear, the lower arrow moves to the left, to emphasize the buttocks sticking out to the rear of the body.

 

This picture shows an arrow pointing up towards the chest,

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and an arrow pointing away from the back towards the rear of the body.

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This animation shows the chest moving upwards and backwards, with the arrows moving simultaneously to emphasize the direction of movement.

The previous animation would seem to answer the question “How does a person move their body into the Yin Fu Ba Gua stance”. The animation did demonstrate one way, to visualize how the human body moves into the Yin Fu Ba Gua stance. But there is an another entirely different way to visualize, how the human body moves into the Yin Fu Ba Gua stance.

Kung fu styles in China are categorized into internal and external styles. Ba Gua is an internal style of kung fu. What do the words “ internal “ and “ external”, mean when referring to kung fu styles?

A simplistic definition of an external kung fu style would be “ an external kung fu style emphasizes the use of the external part of the body, to perform the movements of the style “.

A simplistic definition of an internal kung fu style would be “ An internal kung fu style emphasizes the use of the internal part of the body, to perform the movements of an internal kung fu style.

What does, “an internal kung fu style emphasizes the use of the internal part of their body, to perform the movements of the style” really mean?

The next part of the video will provide a simple and intuitive way to visualize how moving the body with internal power works

The arm and hand in this picture will be used for the demonstration.

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As shown in this animation, the hand naturally grasps and holds onto things.

This picture shows a profile view of a standing human body,

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with the arm located behind and below it.

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The arm is then inserted into the internal part of the body thru the natural opening in the buttocks.

Next the center of the body is made partially transparent so the hand can be seen within the body.

This animation shows the hand closing as if it was grabbing onto something inside of the body.

According to Happeh Theory, internal power can be thought of as working this way. Some internal part of the body clenches itself tight, like the hand inside of this body clenching itself.

Now that the hand has grabbed onto something inside of the body,

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what will happen if the arm is pulled?

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Because the hand has grabbed onto the inside of the body, if the arm is pulled on, the body must follow.

This is the alternative way to visualize, how a person moves their body into the Yin Fu Ba Gua stance. As shown in this animation, if someone reached into the butt of a person, grabbed ahold of something, and pulled on it, the pulling hand would pull the body into the Yin Fu Ba Gua stance.

In order to move their body into the Yin Fu Ba Gua stance using internal power,

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the internal martial artist would clench the inside of his body, like clenching the fingers of the hand,

then pull their body move into the Yin Fu Ba Gua stance, using the clenched inside part of the body.

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