There’s a branch of study of human behavior called proxemics.

Proxemics basically has to do with how much space people prefer to keep between each other.

Talking about how people choose the space between each other may not seem all that interesting, but consider the following examples.

1. You ask a stranger if they have the time and they take one step away from you before they answer.
2. While in a relationship, your significant other periodically does not respond to text or calls for a several days at a time.
3. You walk into your boss’ office. The chair you are supposed to sit in is intentionally placed far away from his desk. You decide to pick up the chair, put it right in front of his desk, and sit down.

One of the most fascinating properties of proxemics (where people situate themselves compared to the people around them) is that the person who controls the space controls the entire situation.

Think about the three examples.

1. The stranger stepping away controlled the distance and gained control of the situation.
2. The significant other, by controlling distance through avoiding communication, controls the relationship.
3. Finally, your boss attempted to control the distance by putting your chair far from his desk. You countered by moving the chair closer to him. Now you are asserting your control of the situation.

The point is that whoever controls distance the most consistently and effectively controls the situation.

This same principle applies to martial arts and is one fundamental secret that any great martial artist understands:

If you control the distance, you control the fight.

How does it work?

The Bagua player controls…

when you are close…

when you are far away…

and to what degree.

When an attacker throws a punch, the Bagua player is out of reach (until he decides to close distance at the most advantageous time to completely destroy the attacker).

Not many arts invest as much time as Bagua does in controlling the space. This training gives the appearance of being untouchable in live self-defense situations, which is a hallmark of a serious Bagua practitioner.

Trouble is, most Bagua players don’t understand how to train this skill so it can be done against multiple opponents, on the fly, in a bad situation. There are a couple of reasons for this.

First, serious combat Bagua instructors are rare.

Second… It’s tough to get a bunch of people who all want to train Bagua at the same place and time (no players, no multiple attacker buddies to work this stuff out on).

Clear Silat is holding it’s annual Bagua intensive workshop October 22-25.

At this seminar, our first two issues will be taken care of:

-There will be a serious combat Bagua instructor (Master Clear).

-There will be a bunch of people who all want to train Bagua at the same place and time.

Go to

https://www.clearsilat.com/workshops#bagua

for more info on the event.

Stay safe,
Jared Voelker

There’s a common myth that it should take months or years to see results from their internal arts training.

…but you wouldn’t buy a car without seeing if you like the way it drives would you?

When it comes to martial arts you should see if you can learn something before you invest lots of time and money.

After all just because a teacher makes good demos doesn’t mean they have skill,

…Just because they have skill doesn’t mean they will teach it…

…just because they are willing to teach doesn’t mean they’re any good at teaching or that their teaching style will fit your learning style.

So, give it a test run.

For example, try the Free Fundamentals of Bagua course.

It contains over 30 lessons (not demos) that teach principles, drills and techniques of Baguazhang.

This isn’t a series of demos showing what WE can do..

This is a test drive that lets you find out exactly what YOU can learn at home.

We even provide forums to help you find training partners, ask questions & get feedback. (many teachers don’t even provide Q&A on videos you’ve paid for)

It’s not as flashy as a demo. …and you’ll have to put in a little work.

If you learn something useful, If you see tangible benefits from the free course, then you’ll be able to get much more out of our paid courses.

They are much more extensive & in depth.

If you don’t get something out of it, that’s ok too. You’re probably better off finding a teacher who fits your learning style better.

…of course we’d like to try and troubleshoot any issues you have in the forums. We are always working on become better teachers.

Either way, you’ll have a pretty good idea of whether our Bagua is for you or not.

Now, there are skills that take years of work and development to get to.

…but even Bagua, as big and complicated as it is, should deliver significant tangible results quickly.

Functional self defense skill is attainable within a year. (If you work hard and do a multiple opponent drills frequently.)

If you’ve been enjoying the free Bagua course then you should check out the Baguazhang intensive. It teaches a whole lot more with much more depth and detail.

For a big list of what’s in this course go here:

https://www.clearmartialarts.com/bagua-online/

…but hurry enrollment closes on Friday.

So, a few folks took issue with yesterday’s post: How to recognize a BS Bagua Video

Some were mad that I criticized Kickboxing. I do think Bagua is vastly superior but I never actually said anything bad about Kickboxing so I’m going to ignore them.

Others, had a better argument. They said,

“Hey, wait a minute. When Bagua’s creator Dong Haichuan taught, he mixed Bagua with whatever his students already knew.

…and each student knew different arts. So all Bagua is mixed with other things. This is part of what makes Bagua great and interesting. Who are you to draw a line between which mixtures are and are not Bagua?”

The above statement IS true.

…but it’s still really easy to draw that line.

Here’s how:

All Bagua does Circle Walking and one very big reason for this is because Bagua specializes in dealing with 4 to 8 attackers.

So, if it’s a Bagua Kickboxing hybrid that uses Circle Walking while sparring to effectively handle 4 – 8 opponents then it’s Bagua.

If it doesn’t use circle walking or it falls apart when you start adding more than 2 or 3 opponents then it’s not Bagua.

There are of course, other core principles and body methods that all Bagua shares but those two are a quick and easy way to get a pretty good idea of whether something is Bagua or not.

This functionality against multiple opponents is so integral to Baguazhang that we begin teaching it on day one.

We find that folks who spend a long time doing forms, standing and exercises, often have major holes in skill and bad habits that must be corrected once they learn the functional side of fighting multiple attackers.

When you start with a functional understanding of fighting multiple opponents it’s much easier to train forms and exercises correctly. That way you avoid the bad habits and progress much faster.

The Bagua Intensive features in depth training in fighting multiple opponents with an emphasis on how to apply different Bagua circles, Spins of all sizes (90 degree up to 720) and much more.

Begin training as soon as you sign up:

https://www.clearmartialarts.com/bagua-online/