Gongfu Crew S01E06 Baguazhang with Carsten Stausberg

12/01/23 • 56 min

This episode will focus on Baguazhang, one of the three so-called internal styles of Chinese martial arts. Bagua became quite well-known and influental in Beijing during the early Republic. It developed into a number of substyles, some of which took roots in Taiwan. Our guest speaker and new member of the Gongfu Crew, Carsten Stausberg, learned Yizong Bagua from Luo Dexiu over the course of several years in Taiwan. He was kind enough to share his insights into the training method with me.

More info on Carsten and his teaching and training on his Instagram channel (carsten.stausberg) and on YouTube (https://www.youtube.com/@casitor1)

More info on Carsten and his teaching and training on his Instagram channel (carsten.stausberg) and on YouTube (https://www.youtube.com/@casitor1)

Previous Episode

Gongfu Crew S01E05 - Xingyiquan with Byron Jacobs

This episodes deep dives into Xingyiquan, one of the so-called internal martial arts, usually grouped together with Taijiquan and Baguazhang. It was quite influental during the Republican era on the Chinese mainland, where its practitioners were known for their martial skill and fighting prowess.

I had the opportunity to talk to Byron Jacobs, who was fortunate enough to learn from Di Guoyong, himself one of the most renown Xingyi practitioners of Beijing. Byron is also very active in the online martial arts community through his Mushin Martial Culture platform and the Drunken Boxing Podcast. In addition to that, he recently published the well-received book "Dragon Body, Tiger Spirit", a translatation and explanation of the Xingyiquan classic texts. You can find it in the shop on his website:

https://www.mushinmartialculture.com/our-story

Next Episode

Gongfu Crew S01E07 - Bajiquan with Vincent Mei

In this episode we dive into the practice of Bajiquan within the Wutan tradition, founded by Liu Yunqiao in Taiwan. Vincent Mei, who learned the art in Taiwan and is now teaching it in NYC, shared his insights with me. We talk about the approach of training with Wutan, focusing on the specifics of Bajiquan power generation and partner training, as well as the differences between Chinese martial arts and other martial traditions.

For more info on Vincent, including his online teaching efforts, go to https://bajishu.com/

You can also check out his channel wutanusa on Instagram.