Baguazhang has always been an art that creates questions. Why walk endlessly around a circle? Why use the palm so much instead of simply making a fist? Why did old teachers warn beginners about the “Three Harms”? And what exactly do phrases such as the Nine Sections and Eight Reversals mean when you are actually practicing?
These questions are not new. Generations of Baguazhang teachers have tried to answer them, sometimes through formal books and sometimes through short sayings passed from teacher to student. This article brings together several of those traditional explanations, especially ideas associated with Dong Haichuan, Li Ziming, Wang Peisheng and Sun Lutang, and then adds my own understanding from decades around Chinese martial arts.
I want to make one thing clear at the beginning. This is not a transcript of four grandmasters sitting together answering modern interview questions. Some teachings come from published texts, some were preserved by disciples, and some famous sayings were passed orally and later written down by subsequent generations. I think that distinction matters. Traditional martial arts become more interesting, not less interesting, when we are honest about how the material reached us.
Why Do Baguazhang Practitioners Keep Walking in Circles?
If someone watches Baguazhang for the first time, circle walking is usually the first thing they notice. Practitioners move continuously around a circle, sometimes holding one palm posture for a long time and sometimes changing palms while switching direction. Because of this characteristic, Baguazhang has also historically been called Turning Palm, and some older writers used the image of walking around a millstone.
Traditional Bagua teaching connects this circular movement with the philosophy of the Yi Jing, or Book of Changes. The old explanation looks at change everywhere: the seasons turn, day becomes night, celestial bodies follow cycles, people are born and age, and circumstances are constantly transforming. Bagua therefore uses the circle not only as a geometric shape but as a physical way to practice the idea of continuous change.
That explanation may sound philosophical, but the exercise becomes very practical when you actually do it. If you walk a circle while maintaining posture, keeping the eyes focused, twisting through the body and controlling every step, the circle forces you to deal with balance while your direction constantly changes. You cannot simply set your stance once and stay there.
The Teaching Attributed to Dong Haichuan
Traditional Baguazhang song formulas attributed to Dong Haichuan repeatedly emphasize that the feet must keep changing and that standing still makes the practitioner vulnerable. Different lineages preserve slightly different wording, but the message is remarkably consistent: Bagua should remain mobile.
I think this is one reason beginners sometimes misunderstand circle walking. They believe walking is merely the warm-up before learning the “real techniques.” In traditional Bagua, the walking itself is one of the real techniques because it changes how the rest of the body learns to function.
When I first spent more time around Baguazhang practitioners, I noticed that very experienced people could make the walking look almost boring. There was no dramatic bouncing or athletic display. Yet the feet kept placing the body at useful angles, and the upper body stayed organized while the direction changed underneath it. That kind of boring-looking skill usually takes a long time.
Li Ziming: Keep Walking for Life
The late Baguazhang master Li Ziming was particularly famous for emphasizing circle walking. Later Chinese accounts of his teaching repeatedly preserve the idea that walking is the foundation from which many other Bagua skills grow and that someone who enters the Bagua tradition should continue circle walking throughout life.
That is a very different attitude from the modern habit of treating basics as something you graduate from. We often think advanced means more techniques, longer forms or stranger-looking movements. Li Ziming’s approach points in the opposite direction: as skill improves, return to the walk and discover more inside it.
The old explanations say years of turning gradually train the whole body so the hands, wrists, elbows, shoulders, waist, hips, knees and feet stop behaving like separate pieces. Whether someone likes the traditional image of the body becoming a freely turning sphere or prefers more modern language about coordination, the training goal is recognizable. The body learns to change direction without falling apart.
Why Is Circle Walking Useful in Fighting?
The traditional tactical answer is simple: do not remain directly where the opponent expects you to remain. Baguazhang is famous for moving away from a direct line, entering from an angle and continuing to change rather than meeting everything head-on.
An old Bagua concept often described in later writings is roughly this: if the opponent does not come, create a reason for him to enter; when he comes, do not simply remain where he aimed. That does not mean endlessly running around somebody in a perfect circle during a fight. The training circle teaches habits of stepping, turning and finding angles that can later appear in less obvious ways.
Wang Peisheng and other twentieth-century teachers also emphasized the relationship between hand contact and circular stepping. Once contact occurs, the feet should help change the relationship instead of leaving the upper body to solve everything alone.
This is something I think people miss when watching Baguazhang forms. The hands look unusual, so everyone watches the hands. But in a real application, the feet often explain why the hands work.
Is Circle Walking Mainly Martial, or Is It Also for Health?
Traditional Baguazhang teachers usually did not separate these two ideas as sharply as we do today. They believed repeated walking, turning, twisting and breathing trained the martial body while also supporting general health. Old descriptions talk about opening the joints, moving qi and blood, stretching the tendons and stimulating the internal organs and meridians.
I would preserve those explanations because they are part of traditional Baguazhang culture, but I would not turn them into modern medical promises. Walking and controlled rotational exercise obviously provide movement, coordination and physical activity, but saying that circle walking specifically prevents diseases or treats internal organs requires evidence beyond traditional martial arts theory.
From my own experience, the most obvious benefit is simpler. Circle walking makes you move in ways normal modern life rarely asks us to move. Most of us sit facing forward, drive facing forward and walk mostly in straight lines. Baguazhang asks the feet, hips, waist, spine and eyes to negotiate direction continuously. That alone makes it an unusual and valuable kind of training.
Why Does Baguazhang Use Palms More Than Fists?
The name Baguazhang literally contains the word “palm,” so it is natural that palm methods are central. Traditional explanations usually give several reasons: reach, versatility, the ability to change hand shape quickly and the large number of ways the palm, fingers, palm heel and edges of the hand can be used.
An open hand can extend farther than a closed fist because the fingers remain extended, although I would not make exaggerated claims that this automatically gives someone several inches of usable fighting advantage in every situation. Distance depends on the entire body, stance and technique, not simply whether the fingers are open.
Older martial writings also sometimes argue that a palm is inherently more powerful than a fist by using simple pressure explanations. I would be careful with that. Different palm strikes use very different contact surfaces, and different punches do too. The physics cannot be reduced to “palm smaller, therefore more pressure.”
The stronger argument for palms is versatility.
What Can the Baguazhang Palm Actually Do?
Traditional Bagua terminology contains a large vocabulary of palm actions: piercing, pushing, supporting, twisting, cutting, chopping, pressing, wrapping, leading, intercepting and many others. The same hand that makes contact can change its function without having to fully withdraw and reform into another shape.
This is important because Baguazhang does not treat the palm as simply a flat-hand version of a punch. The wrist, palm heel, fingers, forearm and elbow can participate as the hand changes direction. A palm that begins by making contact may become a push, a hook, a guiding action or a strike depending on what happens next.
The original teaching also emphasizes that the fingers should not necessarily be stiff and perfectly straight. In many Bagua palm shapes they have a slightly gathered or curved quality, sometimes compared with the shape of roof tiles. The palm heel and wrist remain important, and the strike is supposed to connect back through the shoulder, waist and step.
That last point matters more to me than whether somebody calls the technique a palm or a fist. A weak body connection does not become powerful merely because the hand is open.
Does Baguazhang Need Special Finger or Palm Conditioning?
Traditional practitioners sometimes supplemented normal practice with hand and finger conditioning, including exercises associated with Iron Sand Palm. The purpose was to make the hands more capable of tolerating contact and to develop confidence in palm and finger methods.
I would not tell beginners that they need extreme hand conditioning before they can practice Baguazhang. Correct body mechanics, good palm shape and controlled partner work are far more important at the beginning. Fingers are easy to injure when people become enthusiastic and start poking hard targets simply because an old manual mentions finger strength.
Baguazhang’s palm use should make the art more adaptable, not create a competition to see who can damage his own hands first.
Why Does Baguazhang Warn About the “Three Harms”?
This is one place where we can connect the old oral tradition with a very clear historical text. Sun Lutang’s 1917 book, A Study of Bagua Boxing, has an entire chapter on what he calls the Three Mistakes or Three Harms of beginners.
He lists them as forcing the qi, using awkward or brute strength, and sticking out the chest while lifting the abdomen. The language is old and reflects the medical and martial vocabulary of his period, but the training advice underneath it is still worth examining.
First Harm: Forcing the Qi
Traditional Bagua does not want the practitioner holding the breath and trying to manufacture internal pressure by force. Sun’s writing warns that excessive hardness and forced breathing disturb the chest and interfere with natural training.
In modern practice, I explain this very simply: if somebody is turning the circle with the face red, breath locked and shoulders tense, that is probably not advanced internal power. The breathing should support movement, not become another struggle inside the body.
Second Harm: Awkward or Brute Strength
This is what traditional internal martial arts often call zhuo li, clumsy or stiff force. It does not mean physical strength is bad. Human beings obviously need muscles to move. The warning is against using strength in a way that locks the body and prevents force from passing through the whole structure.
You see this constantly in beginners. The hand tries so hard to be powerful that the shoulder freezes. Once the shoulder freezes, the waist can no longer contribute naturally. Then the person compensates by using even more arm strength.
Bagua wants the opposite process: reduce local resistance so the feet, legs, waist, shoulder and hand can participate together.
Third Harm: Lifting the Chest and Abdomen
Sun Lutang’s old text warns that an incorrectly raised chest and abdomen damage rooting and disturb the body’s centered condition. The traditional explanation uses qi and Dantian language, but mechanically the problem is easy to feel.
If the chest rises and the pelvis loses its relationship with the feet, the body becomes top-heavy. Turning becomes less stable, the breath often rises with the chest and the legs no longer feel connected to the upper body.
That is why Baguazhang training repeatedly returns to natural breathing, centered posture and relaxed structure instead of dramatic stiffness.
Are the “Three Harms” Medical Rules?
I would call them traditional training principles, not medical diagnoses. Sun Lutang’s original book describes consequences in the language of early twentieth-century Chinese martial arts and traditional physiology. Some of those descriptions should not be copied directly into modern medical claims.
The useful part is the training observation: forcing the breath, stiffening the whole body and destroying posture usually make movement worse. You do not need to believe every old physiological explanation to test those three things for yourself.
Stand naturally, breathe normally and move. Then deliberately hold the breath, tighten everything and raise the chest. The difference is not difficult to feel.
What Does “Understanding the Nine Sections” Mean?
Traditional Baguazhang divides the body into connected sections so the practitioner can understand how force travels. The original article calls this the Nine Sections.
The whole body is first understood as three major sections: the head as the upper or tip section, the torso as the middle section and the legs as the root. The upper limbs can then be divided into hand, elbow and shoulder, while the lower limbs are divided into foot, knee and hip.
The terminology varies somewhat between traditional writings, but the important training idea is that force should not appear out of nowhere at the hand. It begins from the root, passes through the middle and reaches the end.
If the root does nothing, the hand becomes isolated. If the middle is blocked, power cannot travel smoothly. If the final section has poor direction, the effort never arrives where the practitioner intended.
This is one of those old ideas that sounds complicated in words but becomes obvious when another person touches you. If your shoulder and waist are disconnected from your palm, your partner can usually feel it immediately.
What Are the Eight Reversals?
The Eight Reversals describe ways Baguazhang deliberately trains habits that differ from common straight-line movement. “Reversal” here does not mean everything everyone else does is wrong. It means Bagua frequently chooses an unconventional solution because its strategy depends on changing angles and refusing to become predictable.
First Reversal: Advance and Retreat Differently
The traditional method emphasizes advancing and retreating in ways that keep the body mobile without making the center of gravity obvious. Instead of one large commitment, the feet can move in coordinated smaller and larger steps so the practitioner stays ready to continue changing.
The important point is not memorizing one exact sequence. It is learning to move without announcing where your balance is going before you get there.
Second Reversal: Enter Straight, Leave on an Angle
Baguazhang can enter relatively directly and then leave through a curved, sideways or turning path. This is one reason Bagua footwork often looks different from arts that repeatedly attack and retreat along the same line.
In practice, the ability to leave on an angle may be more important than the first entry. Anyone can move forward. The difficult part is remaining useful after the first exchange changes everything.
Third Reversal: Do Not Waste Movement
Traditional descriptions contrast Bagua with constant jumping, kicking and unnecessary motion. Instead, the practitioner tries to remain quiet enough to recognize what is actually happening and then move when there is a reason.
This does not mean Bagua is passive. It means movement should be purposeful.
Fourth Reversal: Favor the Palm
As discussed earlier, Baguazhang traditionally places much greater emphasis on palm methods than many neighboring systems. That choice changes the way the hand connects, changes and controls space.
Fifth Reversal: Power Starts From the Root
This reversal is closely connected with the Nine Sections. The strike should not begin at the fingertips. It begins lower in the structure and travels outward through the connected body.
This is one of the most important ideas in the entire list. Without it, the unusual Bagua hand shapes become decoration.
Sixth Reversal: Use the Open Hand as a Flexible Weapon
Older lists sometimes repeat the contrast between fists and palms in slightly different ways. I would preserve that repetition because traditional martial arts teaching often circles around the same principle from more than one direction.
The palm is valued not only because it can strike but because it can change function rapidly after contact.
Seventh Reversal: Think Beyond Front and Back
Baguazhang trains the practitioner to consider multiple directions rather than treating combat as a simple front-facing exchange. Turning footwork should allow the body to respond toward the sides, corners and rear without requiring a complete reset first.
This is one reason the art’s relationship with the Eight Trigrams makes intuitive sense even to people who do not study the Yi Jing deeply. The practitioner is constantly asking, “What other direction is available?”
Eighth Reversal: The Body Turns With the Palms and Steps
Baguazhang does not want the hands, body and feet operating independently. When the palm changes, the feet and torso should support that change. When the body turns, the palms should not remain behind as though they belong to somebody else.
The original teaching describes switching, rotating and following the palms with the steps. To me, the deeper lesson is simple: do not let one part of the body finish the job alone.
What Famous Baguazhang Teachers Keep Returning To
When I compare these old teachings, one thing stands out. The masters may use different language, but they repeatedly return to a small group of ideas: keep moving, stay connected, do not force the breath, avoid clumsy strength, let the feet control position and do not allow the hands to become separated from the rest of the body.
Dong Haichuan’s inherited song tradition places huge importance on changing footwork. Li Ziming kept emphasizing walking. Sun Lutang warned beginners about forced qi and awkward strength. Wang Peisheng’s practical teaching continued to connect hand contact with circular stepping. These are different teachers from different periods, yet the same basic Bagua personality keeps appearing.
That matters to me more than trying to prove that every lineage performs exactly the same palm change. Traditional Chinese martial arts often vary on the surface. What tells you whether two branches still share the same art is often the principle underneath the movement.
My Own View After Years Around Traditional Martial Arts
The longer I have practiced Chinese martial arts, the less impressed I am by the number of techniques someone knows. Baguazhang is a perfect example. You can collect many palm changes, animal forms, weapons and combinations, yet still miss the thing that makes Bagua feel like Bagua.
If the feet stop whenever the hands become busy, something is missing. If the shoulders become rigid every time power is needed, something is missing. If the practitioner can perform beautiful circle walking alone but loses every trace of the circle the moment another person touches him, something is missing.
This is why I understand Li Ziming’s insistence on continuing to walk much better now than I would have when I was younger. At twenty years old, repeating the same circle can feel like you are not learning enough. After decades of training, you begin to realize that the same circle keeps showing you different mistakes as you change.
Final Thoughts
Baguazhang’s old Q&A teachings are valuable because they answer practical questions without separating martial technique from training philosophy. Why walk in circles? Because Bagua develops change through the feet and angles. Why palms? Because the open hand provides many ways to strike, connect and change. Why avoid the Three Harms? Because forced breathing, awkward tension and poor posture interfere with the connected body Bagua is trying to build.
The Nine Sections explain how the body should transmit force. The Eight Reversals explain why Bagua movement often looks unusual compared with more straightforward martial arts. And the teachings passed down around Dong Haichuan, Li Ziming, Sun Lutang and Wang Peisheng remind us that none of these ideas were meant to remain beautiful sentences in a book.
They have to be walked.
For me, that is still the simplest way to understand Baguazhang. The art talks endlessly about change, but the change begins with something very ordinary: put one foot down correctly, take the next step, keep the body connected, and do it again long enough that the circle begins changing you.
