Eight Trigrams Palm
八卦掌
Ba Gua Zhang (Pa Kua Chang) means Eight Trigrams Palm. The trigrams or Gua are ancient symbols used to represent all natural phenomena in the classic Chinese ‘Book of Changes’ or Yi Jing. Zhang means palm and designates Ba Gua Zhang as a style of martial art, which emphasizes the use of the open hand instead of the closed fist.
Ba Gua Zhang is based on the theory of continuously changing in response to the situation at hand in order to overcome an opponent with skill rather than brute force. It aims to be a constant negation of the opponents power through continuous spiraling movement, stepping & turning footwork and twisting changes of direction. Strength is then applied with leverage to the weak angle of the opponents force/defense.
