LIU DEKUAN
and the 64 Hand Techniques
In 1990 Master Liu Jingru offered me a new,striking possibility. Until then I had not even suspected that really
it would exist baguazhang linear techniques .Yes, of course I had seen the 16 linear techniques pakuas
(another diction for bagua) existing in the school of my former teacher, Shin Daewong, but, while I had been finding some
interesting,some of them seemed redundant or drawn out ,for ex., from
taijiquan. Furthermore I had always thought that the Bagua techniques existed
only walking the circle. I welcomed therefore with surprise and interest these 64 techniques that
then revealed in effects as an incredibly rich technical baggage ,many of them in a logical way
being linked for fighting, and they introduced themselves therefore as those combinations that every martial Art has to offer: To the question from who these techniques originated, Liu Jingru explained that they originated from a teacher named Liu Dekuan but that
after, due to their importance, had been incorporated in the Cheng Tinghua
school. And this was all!. As the years were passing , meeting other
teachers and reading chinese books and articles ,I noticed that almost
every bagua school had incorporated this system. In the 1994, April,
I could see the 64 hand techniques of the Li Ziming school; I ascertained that they were slightly different from those learned by
Liu Jingru. Later I was able to look at the techniques of Gao Jiwu,a
master of the Yin Fu school that however had made a name in Beijing for
his ability in the practice of the 64 Hands and for their applications and
two-man sets . Finding that the techniques of the Gao Jiwu school were better
structuralized, at last in 1997 I decided to adopt them. In effects the
great majority of the combinations learned by Liu Jingru remained but expecially
in the last form, some change has been done that it makes a great deal the same more effective. Unfortunately in the transmission of the techniques always something must be
gone lost and I
had the impression that in the Liu Jingru school something was lost. In
recent years Gao Jiwu has also published exactly the songs (i.e. that
rhyming passages that traditionally were used for memorizing execution and applications) and I am so able to offer a comment suitable to
the pure sequence of the movements. According to Gao Jiwu “Bagua 64 Shou and the 72
Tecniche(that come from them ) are hidden in the best of the technical
bagua TAOLUs. Every position has attack and defense possibilities. The 64
Hand Techniques are divided in 8 Tang, every Tang is formed from 8
positions. Every Tang has as initial position LAO SENG TUO BO “The Old monk Lifts the Bowl". The Tangs can linearly be practiced or
walking the circle. When we practice them, it is asked for to arrive to:”While
there is nobody in front it is as if there would be someone.”
The movements have to be rapid and so also the steps, the palms have to be as penetrating spools
(zhang ru chuan suo),high and low they have to reciprocally favor , reaching the point that outside and inside are unified and energy and strength go
together.... This TAOLU is the most important basic work in the exercise of the Baguazhang".
BIOGRAPHY OF LIU DEKUAN.
Liu Dekuan, also called Daqiang Liu, that is “Great Spear Liu”,was born in
Cangzhou, Hebei province. As a young he was in love with martial Arts becoming particularly skilled in the use of the long
spear and the staff. Since then he roamed the northern provinces for many
years. Once upon a time, while he was staying in Henan,heard to say that there was a some Hu Tianxiang that
was very skilled in the use of the ji or halberd and he formally submitted to Hu, becoming a student of
his. Hu Tianxiang taught him the use of the Fantian hua ji. Subsequently
he learned the Taijiquan and went to Beijing to make friendship with Cheng Tinghua. After he had found
Cheng,that lived in Chongmenwenwai Huashi, as it often happened, there was a kind of challenge, more or less
friendly,between Cheng and him in the use of lance and baton and,in the clash that
followed, Cheng's staff struck the thumb of Liu that could not shut once anymore the hand on the
weapon. One more time Liu subdued himself to a great master, Cheng, and
so formally he became a student,entering in the Baguazhang
"family". Dong Haichuan had already died from various years,so Liu became direct student of Cheng and after
his death in 1900 ,helped his child Cheng Youlong to establish, in 1903, a “martial school" in the
Ximi street of Qianmenwai, in the western sector of Beijing. In the same year he established Liu Zhenlin as
help-teacher. So,in that period of confusion, Cheng Youlong, Liu Dekuan and Liu Zhenlin acted as preservers of the
Cheng Tinghua's tradition .In that same period they created the 64 Baguazhang
Hand Techniques ,collecting in a simplified, linear form ,the best of the techniques “hidden” in the
taolus. In these techniques are evident the presence of the Xingyiquan and also
influences of Shaolin. Liu,ato whom goes the principal merit for the creation of the
linear tangs ,used again his own ability with the spear in the creation of a taolu
called Bamian Zhanshen Qiang or more simply Zhanshen Qiang: This taolu is not
properly circular even if the circularity is present. I still remember as Liu
Jingru,who taught me it, told me of this characteristic . Besides this set,Liu Dekuan also handed down the techniques of halberd in six technical
lu. These are known to the other my teacher,Zhu Baozhen.
Go
to: Liu Dekuan linear Baguazhang : some movements
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