Barefoot Doctor's Taoist martial art of Pa Kua training

Course details

Boost your health & heighten your psychic perception with Pa Kua Chang - the oldest, most esoteric Taoist martial art with the most powerful effect on the psyche and physical state

Increases your strength, agility and grace as you improve the flexibility of your joints and the suppleness of your muscles

Improves your health, boosting vital organ function and lymphatic drainage for increased longevity

Enhances your poise and command, as you learn to move from your center and thrust into your back to activate the back brain

Brings you increased mental acuity, clarity and psychic awareness to see into the past and future, predict and master the world around you in all directions

Makes you damn good-looking - in fact,

your thighs will feel like the Incredible Hulk's, your shoulders and upper arms like Superman, your litheness and suppleness like Catwoman, and your mood fully ebullient even in the face of relatively extreme challenges 

What exactly is Pa Kua? What does it mean? What's involved?

Pa Kua Chang (its full name), means open-hand eight-directions palm strike boxing. It's practiced primarily solo as a form of shadow boxing and is an essential part of my daily routine, I practice it at least twice a day.  Once you know it it's easy to do.

It consists in 'walking the circle', similar to whirling like a Dervish, except done both counterclockwise and clockwise, with a series of eight distinct movement sequences that change your direction. The centrifugal force generated is so powerful it thrusts you into your back despite yourself, without you even having to think about it - and it keeps you there for the whole day.

The eight sequences or 'changes' train your body at a subconscious level in the self-defense technique, massage your vital organs, especially the kidneys, induce flexibility, suppleness, strength, agility, balance and grace. The centrifugal force is also helpful to lymphatic drainage, and it's through this Pau Kua is famous for increasing longevity.

But perhaps most excitingly and enticingly, it enables you to ' see into the future and past', meaning it grants you omniscience, the ability to know everything that ever was, is, and will be. In other words, by thrusting you in to your back and hence activating the back-brain, your conscious mind merges with your subconscious mind and you have total psychic awareness.

It makes you feel instantly better, instantly clearer-minded, instantly more in touch with your internal power source, instantly more centered and grants you instant panoramic perspective

On account of all this, daily practice becomes irresistible and quickly addictive. It's similar to going for a long hearty run each day without having to leave your own back yard, except the sensation during and after is far more profound. For me it opens all my joints stretches me across my back, and makes me feel so spritely I feel as if nothing can stop me or prevent my good fortune. It affords me a daily interlude of viscerally experiencing Tao right at the core of my sphere of existence and activity.

Pa Kua, Taoist practice & the I Ching 

Originating in ancient China, Pa Kua is the oldest of all the Taoist martial arts, the most esoteric, and the most powerful in terms of its effect on the psyche and the physical state, and the efficiency with which these two interact.

One of the main 'switches' or levers crucial to Taoist practice in general is learning to occupy your back and observing and experiencing the moment from the back-brain at all times, rather than be crammed into the front of the body with all its noise and weaknesses, held in thrall to the descriptions and stories going on in the prefrontal lobes. From the back-position you're able to transcendentally bear witness to and accommodate the drama of being human that goes on in the front without being identified or invested in it. Like this you're able to maintain constant clarity, equilibrium and equanimity even during the most stressful passages.

Pa Kua, meaning literally the eight directions (the four cardinal points and the four in-between points). These relate to the eight trigrams upon which the 64 hexagrams of the Taoist oracle, the I Ching (Book of Changes), which between them indicate or foretell how your life will go in at any given juncture.

The Pa Kua also refers to the diagram used in Feng Shui, the art of getting buildings and interiors to conduct chi at optimal levels to ensure good fortune in all aspects of life. Pa Kua Chang is the dance of the I Ching, inferring the bestowal of psychic power to predict, and mastery of the world around you in all directions.

How is Pa Kua similar to/ different from other Taoist disciplines?

Can you simply learn it on its own/if you've not done any other martial arts? Is it a fighting martial art?

Pa Kua deploys the same set of principles as the other Taoist martial arts, the same way of walking, moving the body from the center, the same elongated spine and broadened shoulder-girdle postural alignment and so on. It also focuses on developing chi similarly to Tai Chi and Hsing I.

Normally you'd practice three or four Taoist martial arts as each of them supplies a different emphasis all of which to combine to tell the whole story. Or you could just devote yourself to any one of them and let the whole story tell itself that way over time. Either way, you'd likely prepare for this each day by also practicing various forms of qigong or QIGONGO as I call the routine I do, along with the 'internal alchemy', the underlying central theme of all Taoist practice, no matter what, which develops the immortal aspect of consciousness.

As a fighting or self-defense form it's either practiced empty-handed or using a pair of scythes or broadswords, and once mastered transforms you into a potentially deadly human rotorblades machine. And the circle-walking aside from all the health and psychic development benefits, gives you the ability to always be behind your opponent and hence have the advantage over them at all times.

Barefoot Doctor's Practically Perfect Pa Kua Primer

Length of training, amount of practice each day, how long to learn, what kind of results can I expect?

You learn how to walk the circle. You learn the different arm and palm positions for walking the circle, and you learn the eight 'changes' or sequences in each direction.

What makes learning Pa Kua with Barefoot Doctor unique?

Will I get as much benefit as in a class - how do I incorporate it with other parts of daily practice - qi gong, tai chi, meditation etc?

It can be very hard to learn Pa Kua as there are very few people teaching it and even fewer who make the fun it's meant to be. It's also rare to find a teacher to break down the moves for you.

You'll find my way of showing you the moves easy to follow and get. Doing the training this way is like having private instruction from me and with the ability to rewind and fast-forward you have total command over the material.

If you already do the Tai Chi and QIGONGO so much the better, it'll make your Pa Kua jump alive that much faster - you'll simply tag this to the end of your daily practice. Once you know it you can even get the whole form done in a few minutes when pressed for time simply because the number of circles you walk is entirely discretional - obviously the more the better in terms of beneficial effects, but even just the bare minimum if done daily has enormous impact.

PLEASE NOTE: though the exercises are all gentle and easily doable by people of all ages and states of fitness, aside from obvious injuries or impediments that would make the practice unviable, and the risk of injury is so slight it's almost not worth mentioning, you must nevertheless take full responsibility for yourself in doing the training, and practice the moves exactly as instructed to avoid even that small chance of mishap. If in any doubt whatsoever consult your medical practitioner