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Xing Yi Quan's Bear Form. The Embodiment of Close Quarters Brutality and Belligerence by Kevin Wikse.

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A grizzly bear erupting from its cave, representing Xing Yi Quan’s Bear Form and close-range authority, featured on the Martial Arts Repository by Kevin Wikse. I’ll be leaving Portland, Oregon in the next couple of days. Southern California is technically on the horizon, but the foreseeable future belongs to Idaho. For those paying attention, my time in Portland was productive—though not without its curiosities. Which brings me to a necessary travel advisory. During my stay, I observed a number of strange, glittery frogs crushed deep into the cracks of the asphalt, as though they’d been run over by an 18-wheeler with a personal vendetta. The highest concentration appeared near the ICE deportation center—an objectively bizarre location for amphibian activity, unless the city has recently revised its zoning laws to include ritual mishaps. Portland might want to revisit its cleaning and sanitation policies. Those streets are slick, and not in a charming, rain-soaked, noir sort of way. ...
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Yin Style Baguazhang Lion System by Kevin Wikse

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The Lion system of Yin Style Baguazhang, which is transmitted directly from Dong Hai Chuan, Yin Fu, Men Baozhen, then to Dr. Xie Peipi (who passed away in 2003), and finally to He Jinbao, is the most aggressive and structurally dominant animal system within the broader Eight Animal Shape framework of Yin Style. The Lion system is the foundation of the “combat structure” known as the Interlocking  Palm, representing the principle of strike and advance. The Lion shape embodies direct, unrelenting force, ferocity, integrity, and overwhelming bio-kinetic momentum. The Lion shape builds the practitioner into a living avalanche.  *He Jinbao demonstrating Yin Style Baguazhang. “Strike, strike, and strike again. Anything is a valid target. There is nothing within the human physical condition that the Lion Palm cannot obliterate.”  Let's break down the Lion Shape of Dr. Xie Peiqi’s Yin Fu style Baguazhang from his specific lineage’s perspective: Internal Mechanics and Strategy: Th...
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Baguazhang: The Dragon & Pheonix Fighting Set by Kevin Wikse.

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  Suppose there was just one fighting set from Yin Fu Baguazhang that captured the martial strategies, heavy-handed applications, and an array of compound circular blocks and deflections with the appropriate speed, fluidity, and savagery, which would, across the board, benefit people of all physicalities. In that case, the Dragon & Phoenix, without question, that fighting set.  Dragon & Phoenix is a battle of two siblings. First-born son Dragon. First-born daughter Phoenix. Eldest brother and sister, and embodiments of the primordial forces of thunder and wind who forever seek dominance and favor from their father, who is the sky and all of heaven. Dragon and Phoenix fighting set is both a clash and a flow of Yin and Yang energies, with a leaning towards an overall Yang force. Dragon, the source of thunder, is the oldest Son, most like his father, Lion. Phoenix, the wind source, is the Yang of the Yin forces, the oldest daughter and a daddy's girl.  Dragon and Pho...
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Baguazhang: Phoenix & Wind by Kevin Wikse.

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*Peng /Phoenix (At the time of this piece's initial writing, I was attempting to differentiate between the Phoenix of Chinese culture and the European conception of the Phoenix).  The quality of Wind or Xun trigram is that of sustained pervasive influence, insomuch a degree of omnipresence can be tangibly grasped. Further notable associations with Wind, or Xun trigram, include vastness and expansion, but also a feeling of remote distance and dissociation from attachments. This phenomenon manifests as Peng or King of Birds in the physical dimension and Chinese cultural context. Peng is an elusive but paradoxically continuously present animal, largely beyond emotional expressions. Peng's aloof personality should not be mistaken for an uncaring or selfish nature. Peng is supremely benign and virtuous but is virtuous and kind because that is what Peng is, not to "act" benignly or noblely. Serene, in the face of violence, Peng responds to evil by natural law. Once harmony ...
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Baguazhang: Yin Fu Fighting sets by Kevin Wikse.

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  The fighting sets of Yin Fu Style Baguazhnag, most notably the infamous "piercing palms," serve as a bridge for individuals with little to no prior combat experience to practice Yin Fu Baguazhang's martial strategies and health-building exercises, especially circle-walking, before the more specialized aspects of Yin style Baguazhang which generally required a student to have a solid foundation in martial arts to begin with.  Yin Fu Style Baguzhang's fighting sets are mainly separate from the art's esoteric I-Ching connections. These are fighting forms, and while the student does assume a "posture" or "body" such as Lion, Dragon (by far the most well known), Pheonix or even Bear, these postures, in this context, are stripped down in essence, purely transmitting kinetic chains of movement and acting as delivery systems for the martial payload.  That is not to say the advanced, esoteric methods of Yin Fun Baguazhang founded on the I-Ching are le...
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Baguazhang: Bagua circle walking leaves my mark by Kevin Wikse.

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  On and off, from 2016 to 2019, I regularly (when I was in Idaho) practiced long hours of Bagua circle walking around a specific tree in Settler's Park, Meridian, Idaho. Here we are, four years later, and the circle I walked still shows up.  Looks like a crop circle... - Kevin Wikse Vimana Vajra Baguazhang
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Baguazhang: The Eight Attack of the Bear by Kevin Wikse.

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The "Eight Attacks of the Bear" is an intermediate set of Vimana Varja Baguazhang, which develops full-body shocking and jarring effects through explosive short-power attacks, jamming, and sudden redirection of forces. Building off the unrelenting and primarily linear-based attacks of Lion's pure yang energy, the Eight Attacks of the Bear introduces attacks of heavy, sinking, and collapsing yin-style power paired with a yang mindset and attitude.  Bear expresses Gen, or the Mountain gua, of the I-Ching. The Eight Attacks of the Bear set teaches heavy-handed offense and defense methods. Bear seeks to concuss and rattle the attacker with careening shots from jagged upward and downward angles. Other tactics include jamming the opponent's attacks by aggressively occupying their space, projecting them backward with braced force as a bird crashes into a window, and a defense that redirects attacks but also sucks energy in, pulverizes it like a woodchipper.  The Eight Attac...
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