Wudang Eight Extremes Fist

武当三丰派八极拳

Eight Extremes Fist (bajiquan 八极拳) is a traditional Chinese martial art centered on powerful hand and elbow strikes, quick footwork, and rooted stances. It is a close-range, striking-based art focused mostly on hands with occasional kicks, joint locks, and throws. The style is quite dynamic and militaristic, making it one of the most exciting forms to drill as a class. We spent a lot of time on this one.

The Eight Extremes refers on the one hand to striking with the entire body – the fists, elbows, knees, and shoulders. In another reading it refers to striking in all eight directions – front, back, left, right, and the four diagonals. Probably most importantly in our style the eight extremes also refer to the eight principal techniques – pointing 顶, leaning 靠, planting 载, smashing 砸, wrapping 缠, pressing 推, chopping 砍, and lifting 提.

According to the oral tradition, more mythological than historical, Bajiquan was a secret Daoist martial art created during the Yuan dynasty that developed in the Ming and flourished in the Qing (始于元、兴于明、盛于清), when a wandering Daoist monk named Lai Lan Tian 癞蓝天 opened the lineage and passed the art to a Hui Muslim spear master named Wu Zong 吴宗 (1712-1802) from Meng village 猛村 in present day Shandong province.  From Meng village the art split off into a handful of lineages. Our Daoist uncle Master Bing brought this style to Wudang in the early 1990’s. Morphologically, the form we do is identical to the standardized Central Guoshu Institute 中央国术馆 Baji form as codified by Han Hua Chen 韩化臣 (1886-1937) in the 1920’s, reflective of the Luotuan village 罗疃村 branch of traditional Bajiquan.  However the way we learned it in under master Yuan in Wudang, Baji has been more or less fused with the Wudang northern style to create a sort of creole art where we are doing Baji movements with northern longfist principles.  

The style is centered around the eight techniques 八极八法 mentioned above, the theoretical backdrop of the form.  Baji is seen as the the aggressive complement to the passivity of Taijiquan, as captured in the saying,

文有太级安天下， The Literary uses Taiji to pacify all under heaven, 

武有八级定乾坤。  The Martial uses Baji to stabilize Yin and Yang.

Curriculum 目录

We learned this style in 2010, beginning with basic stances and strikes then moving on to the 47 step 式 form which we drilled endlessly.

八极拳基本功 Eight extremes fist basics

1. 硬功 Conditioning

2. 手法 Hand techniques

3. 肘法 Elbow methods

4. 腿法 Kicking methods

套路 Forms

1. 八极拳谱 Eight Extremes Fist Manual

散手 Partner Training

1. 八极拳对打 Eight extremes fist partner training