Baji Quan

Baji Quan ( 八極拳 or 八极拳 ), the boxing of the eight extremities or of the eight directions, is named after the way force is distributed through the body. The names Kaimen Baji Quan ( 開門八極拳) and Yueshan Baji Quan (岳山八極拳) are also found.

This style has its origins in Cang county (CangXian 滄縣) in Hebei province (河北), a county famous throughout China for the practice of martial arts and for the blunt character of its inhabitants.

A local saying bears witness to it: "If you go to CangXian to fight and the men are in the fields, the women will be glad to take up your challenge".

The first Baji Quan practitioner of whom any trace remains is a certain Wu Zhong ( 吳鐘 1712-1802), a young Muslim from the village of MengCun ( 孟村), to whom a Taoist monk (Lai – 癩) and his disciple (Pi – 癖) are said to have taught Baji Quan, Pigua Zhang and the handling of the great spear.

Wu Zhong passed his teaching on to other members of his family, as well as to certain inhabitants of MengCun. Wu Zhong’s official heirs were his daughter Wu Rong and his nephew Wu Yong.

In the following generation of practitioners we find in particular the mention of Wu Kai, son of Wu Yong, Li DaZhong (李大忠) and ZhangKeming ( 張克明), all three originally from LuoTuan, a neighbouring village.

Like Liu YunQiao, other masters of Baji Quan came to settle in Taiwan during the 1950s, which subsequently became an important centre for the development of this style.

Among the other great Taiwanese masters, mention should be made of Huang GuoZhen (黃國真), renowned for his teaching of Bagua Zhang ( 八卦掌 ), XingYi Quan（形意拳) and Baji Quan.

Huang GuoZhen is the son of Huang BoNian (黃柏年1880-1954), nicknamed "Huang of the fast hands", a famous master of XingYi Quan and Bagua Zhang of the early 20th century and the author of several reference works on these two styles.

Huang BoNian taught Xing Yi Quan for a few years at the central school of Nanjing, and it was in that institution that Huang GuoZhen received the essential part of his martial arts training. At the time of the communist revolution, Huang GuoZhen settled in Taipei to take up an important post in the local police.

Although Huang GuoZhen and Liu YunQiao had the opportunity to meet during their active period, their respective systems were somewhat different, because towards the end of his life Li ShuWen reorganised his teaching of BajiQuan, which gave a particular character to the style subsequently transmitted by Liu YunQiao.

Huang GuoZhen counted Master Jung YungHwan (鄭榮煥) among his students. At present there exist different styles of Baji Quan, formed over the course of its transmission by the various families of practitioners. Among these can be distinguished, among others:

• the Baji of the Wu family ( 呉氏八極拳), taught at MengCun by the descendants of Wu Zhong.
• the Baji of the imperial palace ( 大内八極拳), stemming from the teaching of Liu YunQiao.
• the Baji of the Qiang family ( 強氏八極拳), stemming from the teaching of Wang ZhangXi. – the Baji of the Ji family ( 季氏八極拳), likewise stemming from the teaching of Wang ZhangXi and whose current representative (Ji ZhaoHua 季昭華) was also a student of Liu YunQiao. – the Baji of the Li family ( 李氏八極拳), taught at LuoTuan by the descendants of Li DaZhong.
• the Baji of the Huo family, or Baji Quan of ChangChun ( 霍氏八極拳 or 長春八極拳 ), stemming from the teaching of Huo DianGe.
• the Baji of NanJing (南京八極拳), introduced at the Central School of martial arts of NanJing by a group of students of Zhang JingXing, from whom Huang GuoZhen descends.