Bagua and Silat

[Paul T England]

Hi,

Did Bagua develop from Silat????

Many Silat teachers seem to also teach bagua nad I have seen several video of silat people doing circle walking. The circel walking does not look the same but this could be for several reasons.

[count]

No.

[scholar]

Definitely not.

[Paul T England]

Ok, so did silat borrow from bagua?

[count]

No.




Now should we discuss if things develop through divergence or diffusion?







Both are excellent styles with similarities and differences.

[Surf Taut]

Hmmm, ...see my post under Bagua & Aikido

[scholar]

Originally posted by Paul T England
Ok, so did silat borrow from bagua?

I think it is more a case of parallel evolution. The human body can only move so many ways, so if a motion is effective for generating leverage, many unrelated styles will likely have similar looking techniques if they have a need to generate that leverage.

Lots of East Asian martial arts are related if you go back far enough, but I don't think Silat and Bagua are. Bagua as a separate art is only 150 years old, and although the Taoist styles Dong drew from are undoubtedly much older, they are certainly indigenous to China.

[count]

Originally posted by scholar
I think it is more a case of parallel evolution. The human body can only move so many ways, so if a motion is effective for generating leverage, many unrelated styles will likely have similar looking techniques if they have a need to generate that leverage.

Lots of East Asian martial arts are related if you go back far enough, but I don't think Silat and Bagua are. Bagua as a separate art is only 150 years old, and although the Taoist styles Dong drew from are undoubtedly much older, they are certainly indigenous to China.

Divergence than. I'm not sure there are that many parallels. Maybe someone who has learned both, like Buddy, would comment. But if that's the case I would comment, what took them so long?

Taoist arts? Are you writing about circle walking? Or were you guessing at some martial arts?

[scholar]

Yah, I'll agree that any parallels between Bagua and Silat are probably only cosmetic. T'ai Chi and Karate of all things have a few similar looking moves (at least Wu style) as they both apparently draw from a common stock of White Crane influence, even if was many hundreds of years ago. I can't see a way that Bagua and Silat could have any significant influence on each other that is more than a few decades old.

By "Taoist" I mean the theoretical foundation of what Dong drew on. The eight trigrams are from the Taoist stock of imagery, the yin and yang palm changes are also from the I Ching's full and empty theory. Circle walking could be Buddhist or Taoist, I suppose.

[count]

Originally posted by scholar
Yah, I'll agree that any parallels between Bagua and Silat are probably only cosmetic. T'ai Chi and Karate of all things have a few similar looking moves (at least Wu style) as they both apparently draw from a common stock of White Crane influence, even if was many hundreds of years ago. I can't see a way that Bagua and Silat could have any significant influence on each other that is more than a few decades old.

By "Taoist" I mean the theoretical foundation of what Dong drew on. The eight trigrams are from the Taoist stock of imagery, the yin and yang palm changes are also from the I Ching's full and empty theory. Circle walking could be Buddhist or Taoist, I suppose.

I'm out the door for class right now so I have to hit this later. But I will say that I doubt Dong made any connection physically or philosophically with the 8 trigrams or the i-ching. Even the name, baguazhang, comes after Dong's time.

[scholar]

Originally posted by count
... Even the name, baguazhang, comes after Dong's time.

Ah, I didn't know that. I thought after he formulated the art he took it to Beijing under that name. There is a similar question with when the name "T'ai Chi Ch'uan" was first used and by whom.

Would you say that there is a yin/yang emphasis in Bagua's palm techniques? There is one in the T'ai Chi I practise, and I had just assumed it came from Bagua, but what you are saying may make me reassess that.

[Buddy]

Uncle Bill DeThouars studied a version of bagua in Java. First time I saw puter kapala I thought--bagua head throw.

[phantom]

I thought kuntao has some pa kua in it?

[count]

OK, I give up!
Kuntao Silat is really monkey kung fu and Tai Chi is really squatting longfist..

Now, everybody duck before the purist silat and tai chi guys show up.

[scotty1]

Tai chi is squatting longfist?