#1: Basic Bagua Zhang Piercing Palm 穿掌 Chuan Zhang
Fist let me show you what it is:
High level, some of the things to think about:
- Hand on top pushes down
- Hand from bottom pushes up
- Really feel that grind every inch of the way
- Lead hand height is between your mouth and eyebrows (practice with a mirror if you can)
- Rear hand position is below the front elbow
- Both hands should be in the center of your body
Benefits
- Skin conditioning
- When your arm is twisted out to the max, it forces the two bones in your arm to grind, this massages your arm internally and provides feedback to your body
- Strength training as hard as you want to push your arms against each other
Other thoughts:
- Feeling is similar to Xingyi’s crossing fist (Earth element)
Combining piercing palm with stances:
- Start in natural standing posture
- Do it in horse stance
- Do it in [Crouching] Tiger Stance
- Do it in Tiger Stance with a Half Step
- Do it in Tiger Stance with a Full Step
- Do multiple piercing palm strikes (1 to 3) against a Half Step or a Full Step
#2: Basic Bagua Zhang Change Palm 換掌 Huan Zhang
Again, let me first show you what it is:
High level considerations:
- This is a slightly harder than piercing palm
- Need to spend a lot of time to find where your max twist-out is (I paused in the video to demonstrate, but no need to pause as long as you know where it is)
- Spend time to figure out how much “turn” so you can complete the cycle
Combining changing palm with stances:
- Start in natural standing posture
- Do it in horse stance
- Do it from left Coiling Dragon Stance to right Coiling Dragon Stance and repeat back and forth
- Do it on a circle after 葉下藏花 Ye Xia Cang Hua / Hidden Flower Under the Leaf
This is one of the MOST IMPORTANT foundational building blocks of Bagua Zhang!
Every single palm change ends with this move as it transitions to whatever you do next.
If you can’t get the timing right, do it more!