Baguazhang
01 · Historical Records
Dong accepted disciples and taught his art in the capital region during the Xianfeng and Tongzhi reigns of the Qing dynasty. The founder of Liu-style Bagua palm, Liu Baozhen, was a native of Gu'an County south of the capital; he practiced martial arts from childhood and excelled at chuo jiao (poking-foot) kicking, with high attainment and deep skill. In the late Qing he served as a mounted courier in Shuntian Prefecture; with extraordinary leg strength and superb kicking technique, he was known as “Flying Leg Liu.”
02 · Core Techniques & Process
Bagua palm, originally named “turning palm” (zhuanzhang), is a school of traditional martial arts created by Dong Haichuan, a native of Zhujiawu Village in Wen'an County, Hebei Province. Gu'an County lies in the capital region, adjacent to Wen'an. During the Tongzhi reign of the Qing dynasty, Dong Haichuan's Bagua palm rose to prominence in the martial world; Liu Baozhen also took Dong Haichuan as his teacher to study Bagua palm, becoming especially expert in the long, heavy Bagua turning sabre, and so earned world fame as “Flying Sabre Liu.” Bagua palm takes the eight major stance methods as its turning-palm practice and gathers the eight circling-hand methods into one, with circling and walking-turning as its basic line of movement and changing palm techniques as its technical core. Liu-style Bagua palm is distinguished by speed: fast steps, fast body, fast hands, fast eyes. The footwork is fast without being floaty, light and lively yet steady, going with the flow of movement; it takes the mud-step and swing-and-drop as its substance, and hooking, hanging, treading, and intercepting as its function. The hand techniques are fast, yet interlocked link by link, emphasizing pushing, supporting, sweeping, and leading, together with tearing, digging, seizing, and binding. The body method is fast, yet speed does not make it rigid; it emphasizes twisting, rotating, drilling, and turning. The eye method is fast, but this does not mean glancing left and right; it emphasizes the eagle's gaze and the tiger's stare. Liu Baozhen's transmitters Guo Mengsen (Ziping), Liu Zhiqing, Ren Zhicheng, Xiao Haibo, and others all made their contributions to the development of Bagua palm. Bagua palm takes the eight major stance methods as its turning-palm practice and gathers the eight circling-hand methods into one, with circling and walking-turning as its basic line of movement and changing palm techniques as its technical core; this formulation was established when Dong Haichuan rose to prominence in the martial world during the Tongzhi reign of the Qing dynasty, and was subsequently elaborated by various masters into distinct schools.
Liu Baozhen, the flying leg and flying knife
The founder Liu Baozhen of the Liu school, a native of Gu'an south of the capital, was famed for his kicking before he turned to Dong Haichuan's bagua and became celebrated for the long, heavy turning sabre.
The eight-trigram turning sabre
The eight-trigram turning sabre is long and heavy, played by circling to deflect the opponent's advance — the signature weapon set of Liu Baozhen's line.
Mud-step and hooking as body and function
Its steps are fast without floating, light yet steady; the mud-step, swing, hook and drop form the body, with hooking, hanging, stepping and intercepting as their use.
Pushing, carrying, tearing, sweeping and binding
Fast but interlocked handwork built on pushing, supporting, sweeping and leading, aided by tearing, hooking, seizing and binding.
Twisting body and eagle-eyed gaze
The body turns fast without becoming stiff, using twisting, rotation and drilling; the gaze is neither wandering left nor right but fixed like an eagle's or tiger's.
Liu Baozhen's descendants
Guo Mengsen, Liu Zhiqing, Ren Zhicheng and Xiao Haibo, among Liu Baozhen's inheritors, all advanced bagua palm and form the backbone of the Gu'an line.
03 · Regional Records & Related Items
Liu-style Bagua palm is centered on Gu'an County, Hebei Province. Gu'an lies in the capital region adjacent to Wen'an and was the first stop in the northward transmission of Dong Haichuan's Bagua palm. During the Republican era, wrestling grounds and martial arts halls were dense in the Gu'an area, and the villages established many “martial societies” (wushe); with the transmitters of Liu Baozhen's line as their mainstay, these also absorbed Xingyi, Baji, and Tongbei boxing, forming a local martial culture of mixed schools and friendly exchange. Today the Gu'an County Institute of Cultural Relics and Intangible Cultural Heritage (Gu'an County Museum) serves as the project's protecting institution.
Other submitting regions for the same item: Baguazhang · Baguazhang.
04 · Cultural Value & Contemporary Safeguarding
Liu-style Bagua palm establishes itself on “speed” — fast steps, fast body, fast hands, fast eyes — forming its own distinct path, in contrast to the weighty solemnity of the schools transmitted by Yin Fu and Cheng Tinghua. Beyond the turning-palm practice, the Gu'an line places particular emphasis on the long, heavy Bagua turning sabre, preserving Liu Baozhen's old nickname of “Flying Sabre Liu” and its associated routines, making it a rare sabre transmission in the region south of the capital. Since the Republican era most of the former martial arts halls have disappeared, and the surviving transmission relies chiefly on oral teaching within Liu Baozhen's family line and among his disciples.
05 · Associated Representative Bearers
Representative bearers recorded under this item, organized by national nomination batch:
- Ren Wenzhu 03-1210
- Sun Zhijun 04-1735
- Liu Jingru 05-2547
06 · Authoritative Sources & Bibliography
Sources
China Intangible Cultural Heritage Network (ihchina.cn)
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