My suprise Ba Gua class.

Today, after my typical LJK, Lameco, and Capoeira classes, I attended a special Ba Gua class taught by Tony Costa. I completely forgot that this class was today. There was another one yesterday that I couldn't go to so I guess I just put it out of my mind.

Anyway, it was very cool. It centers around being balanced and using the energy to evade that than just trying to out-muscle someone. We started by just walking around in a circle concentrating on placing all our weight on one foot at a time. Then we moved in to evading a punch and just using the other persons momentum to simply move them out of the way. After that we learned how to get out of a wrist grab. It was amazing. Using almost no force and moving very slowly with a certain motion worked every single time. Us little girls even had big guys holding as hard as they could and it took very little effort to escape. He calls the technique "butter". 

While we were walking around in our circle in this particular style, which is more difficult that you would think. He stops by me and says "You're a dancer, aren't you." Now, I'm not sure if he said that because I was doing it particularly well? Or, if he could tell I was fighting walking with turnout, of which we were trying to do the opposite.  Either way, I'll take it as a compliment that he could see in my body movement that I am a dancer. :)

We were learning more simple and evasive techniques, but this is what it looks like more advanced . Notice how little energy they are expending to knock the other guy over. And also note that they are not simply complying, they are actually being sent to the ground. 

(Not the best video but I couldn't really find a good one)