In this short paper I will discuss the relationship between Bajiquan 八極拳 and Liuhe daqiang 六合大槍.

My late father Ma Fengtu composed a treatise called Bajiquan Three Character Stanzas (Bajiquan sanzi jing 八極拳三字經) back in November 1953, which opens with the following stanzas:-
八極拳，吳鍾傳；槍中王，慶雲縣；莊科村，樹教範。師張公，禮超凡。

[The art of] Bajiquan,
Was passed down by Wu Zhong;
He was known as 'King of the Spear',
He lived in Zhuangke Village, Qingyun County;
He set the standard.

Taught by Master Zhang,
With exemplary courtesy.[①]

The ‘Bajiquan’ referred to above is an integrated concept, which represents both a martial arts style (liupai 流派) and a school (menpai 門派), and should not be understood to stand for a form of boxing alone. Just like Taijiquan, we should not understand ‘Baji’ as merely designating a form of empty-handed martial arts: when we say ‘Taiji’ or ‘Baji’, we commonly refer to the entire system of martial arts subsumed under that name, which beside boxing techniques also include other weapon forms and practices such as ‘Taijiqiang’ 太極槍 (Taiji spear) and ‘Taijijian’ 太極劍 (Taiji double-edged sword). Indeed, one of Baji’s most salient characteristics is its intimate link to Liuhe daqiang, which complements and is in many ways inseparable from Bajiquan. This is the reason why when my late father wrote the Bajiquan Three Character Stanzas, he clearly set forth Liuhe daqiang’s position in the Baji system in the opening stanzas, stating that the Baji master Wu Zhong was known as ‘king of the spear’ in Zhuangke village in Qingyun county, which tacitly conveys the inseparable relationship between quan (拳 boxing) and qiang (槍 spear) within the Baji system.

Liuhe qiang represents the mainstream spear form in China since the Ming Dynasty. Diverse spear forms have been practiced from the Ming period onwards, but if we look carefully into their origins we will discover that they invariably stemmed from Liuhe. In a word, Liuhe constitutes the core of spear techniques in China. Amongst the rest of the spear forms, some of them are branches that grew from its trunk, others are localized techniques known only within a limited geographical area, while yet others are spear techniques that have lost all applied functions and are useful only on the stage. In any case, the historical genesis of Liuhe qiang is fundamentally clear, and in spite of the complexities involved in its dissemination and inheritance in the Ming and Qing Dynasties, enough evidence survives to guide a devoted inquirer through this entangled web of relationships. Naturally, this is a specialist issue and does not concern us in the present paper.[②] Nevertheless, it is worthwhile to consider the following questions:-

When did Bajiquan become so closely bound up with Liuhe qiang?

And how did the two come to form such an inseparable alliance?

The first Bajiquan master in the Cangzhou area was Wu Zhong, who was famous for his mastery of the spear and bore the epithet ‘divine spear Wu Zhong’ (shengqiang Wu Zhong 神槍吳鐘). From Wu down all subsequent Baji masters liked to advertise their expertise with the spear and were commonly known as ‘the divine spears’. In particular, Luo Tuan’s Baji branch in Cangzhou boasted consecutively such luminaries as ‘divine spear’ Zhang Keming, ‘divine spear’ Li Dazhong, ‘divine spear’ Zhang Jinxing, and the celebrated ‘divine spear’ Li Shuwen. Similarly, my father Ma Fengtu, shishu 師叔[2] Han Huacheng, and uncle Ma Yingtu all set much store by their skills with the spear, and were wellknown in contemporary circles for their expertise in this weapon. Thus in a certain way Bajiquan’s renown was won with the point of the spear and not with the thrust of the elbow. In olden days, when Baji masters held a contest with martial artists of other schools, they commonly fought with a spear rather than engaged in unarmed combat, which they perceived as a lowly, plebeian art. In this way those who dabble in Bajiquan are necessarily conversant with Liuhe daqiang. As to Baji practitioners who do not know the use of the spear, or those who have not been taught its proper techniques, who incessantly ‘make violent leaps and sudden thrusts [with their elbows]’ (蹦撼突擊 benghan tuji) are in reality shallow in their understanding who have given up the ends to pursue the means.

To return to our main subject, if indeed the great spear occupied such an exalted position in the Baji system, when did the fusion between Liuhe daqiang and Baji occur? During his life my late father often talked about this problem and offered a number of hypotheses, although he was unable to come to any conclusion due to a lack of reliable historical sources. According to accounts he heard in his native village in his youth, Wu Zhong learned the principles of Liuhe from a certain Mr. Zhang from Yueshang. Before this encounter Wu Zhong already knew the use of the spear, but did not understand the principles of Liuhe spear, particularly ‘the combined combat methods of advance and retreat’ (進退合戰之法 jintui hezhan zhi fa). After he received the teaching from Zhang, he devoted his efforts to studying and mastering Liuhe spear. Eventually, while visiting Beijing and Tianjin he managed to defeat a number of well known spear masters, and earned the nickname ‘divine spear’. Thus, my late father points out very clearly in the Three Character Stanzas that when Mr. Zhang from Yueshang taught Wu Zhong Baji, his teachings included the principles of Liuhe daqiang, and Wu Zhong treated Master Zhang with exemplary reverence and courtesy, and afterwards set up in Zhuangke village, in Qingyun county, a ‘paradigm’ school for teaching Baji and Liuhe.

In fact, with a little care we will also discover that the ancient terms ‘liuhe’ (six harmonies) and ‘baji’ (eight cardinals) have a clear and discernible relationship, especially when they appear in the same martial arts school. Indeed, the founder who originally conferred the name ‘Baji’ on his school of martial arts must have first considered its resonance with ‘Liuhe’, as the latter term appeared much earlier in martial arts nomenclature and was already well-established by that time. In this way, by conceptually fusing Baji and Liuhe and ascertaining their complementary character, he successfully elevated an established and well recognized technical term to a higher philosophical plane. The denomination of Bajiquan was an instance of this transformation, as were the subsequent Taiji, Xingyi, Tongbei, and Bagua. This phenomenon represents a significant stage in the development of classical Chinese martial arts, where a high degree of rationalization occurred. In this connection, I need to point out that the ‘six harmony’ (liuhe) in spear techniques originally meant ‘six combinations of combat’, which refer to six combinations in training that systematically integrate different techniques into fixed routines. To counterpoise liuhe with baji connotes a sense of interdependence between the two terms, and is indeed a touch of genius.[③] On the other hand, the popular interpretation of ‘liuhe’ current in martial arts circles – as a combination of ‘hands, elbows, shoulders, feet, knees, and hips’ – is rather strained and probably only arose in recent times, which has deviated from the original sense of ‘liuhe’ in Ming Dynasty spear use.[④]

Moreover, the fusion of Baji and Liuhe extends beyond the conceptual domain but exists at the technical level. In many ways, the two have an interdependent and complementary character. Simply put, to practise Bajiquan, to study the methods of generating force (勁道 jingdao) in Baji, and to receive the special ‘zhuang kaojing' (樁靠勁) training in Bajiquan, etc., are most beneficial to spear practice, to generating the type of power closest to spear use, which may directly assist in understanding the application of spear techniques and their adaptations in certain antagonistic situations. In this respect my late father once advanced the remark that ‘from Baji liuhe, its power transmits directly without obstacles’, and was fond to use the adage ‘zhulian pihe’ (珠聯璧合 literally, ‘united pearls and merged jade’) to describe the two’s relationship. He also liked to cite Confucius’ teaching, ‘without learning poetry, one lacks the words for language’, [⑤] to stress Baji’s importance for spear practice, saying that without knowledge of Baji one lacks the foundation for spear practice, and that if one does not study the use of the spear after mastering Baji he is akin to ‘riding on an empty saddle and pretending to be on a horse’. In addition, my father often said that between the end of Qing and the beginning of the Republic of China era, he met Li Shuwen on three occasions in Beijing and Tianjin, and in their conversations Li only spoke about spear and never raised a word about boxing, even though he also trained in the latter and that his ‘Bada zhao’ (八大招 Eight great techniques) and ‘Jingang bashi’ (金剛八勢 Nryana eight movements) – which he learnt from Li Ruidong – were very strong and well practised. My father said that it was not Li’s custom to demonstrate Baji in front of an audience, and in public he only performed with the great spear. In a certain sense, therefore, Baji training lays the foundation and is the best preparation for great spear practice.

As a traditional martial art that has preserved a considerable degree of classical character, the most distinctive feature about Bajiquan is its simplicity and absence of embellishments. Its simplicity is made manifest in two principal ways. First, Baji have a simple structure with only three main sets: Baji xiaojia (八極小架 Baji small set), Bajiquan (八極拳 Baji set), and Baji duijie (八極對接 Baji sparring form). The three are learned sequentially with each focusing on specific aspects of Baji training, and the relation among them is very clear. There is a further ‘Liu zhou tou’ (六肘頭 Six elbows) which is a basic training method used for enhancing hitting and resistance abilities. The ‘Six openings’ (六開 Liukai) and ‘Eight techniques’ (八招 Bazhao) used in closed-door training are also simple, clean, and direct, without unnecessary flowery embellishments. Second, the force employed in Baji (jingdao) is likewise simple, clean, and direct, drawing a clear line between movements and still postures, empty feints and concrete strikes, and is devoid of complicated twists and turns and their accompanying exegesis: so long as a vigorous youth applies his efforts, he will grasp the principles of Baji and reap the benefits of training, and will not be befuddled by empty mysticism. Unfortunately, the development of Chinese martial arts has fallen under the shadow of superficiality in recent years. In this atmosphere, and pushed on by personal ambition and greed, certain individuals have taken the initiative to ‘transform’ the gems in classical Chinese martial arts (including Bajiquan) for their own gain, freely adding branches and leaves and foisting theories from other martial arts styles on to Baji, about which they have not a single sensible word to say, and merely adding froth and theatrics in order to enhance their weak techniques, even going as far as to invent ‘secret ancestral formulas’. It has eluded them that unembellished simplicity is the most sublime form of beauty between heaven and earth! This is particularly true for such a fine specimen of classical martial arts as Baji, whose structure gradually took shape through several centuries of development. In the process it has received improvements by past masters, and has changed here and there in minor details, but in general a single principle has prevailed, which is that the utmost care must be taken not to facilely introduce changes, and thereby be guilty of ‘adding feet while drawing a snake’. Whoever is guilty of such an act is also guilty of destroying a valuable national cultural heritage, guilty of offending our predecessors who have faithfully preserved and passed on Baji, and should be punished for his crime.

Indeed, it is under the premise of simplicity that Baji accomplished its fusion with Liuhe daqiang. Anyone with a rudimentary knowledge of the martial arts knows that the daqiang (great spear) has to have a certain length. If the spear shaft is too thin it becomes soft and cannot be properly wielded, which means it must possess a certain thickness, and requirements of length and thickness necessitate a certain weight. I will not burden my readers here with the manufacturing standard of the daqiang, for those who are interested I refer their attention to Qi Jiguang’s New Book on Military Discipline (紀效新書 jixiao xinshu) and Cheng Chongdou’s Selected Readings on Long Spear Techniques (長槍法選 changqiang faxuan). In the Baji tradition, long shafts not lighter than four or five jin are customarily used for spear practice, while some of the past masters, such as Mr. Zhang Gongcheng and Mr. Li Shuwen, used shafts weighing up to eight jin for daily practice; and my late father employed a wooden staff of about five to six jin even into his seventies. Such long and weighty staffs can scarcely be held without adequate strength in the arms, let alone employing techniques of lan 攔, na 拿, quan 圈, zha 紮 and move up and down with it while making advancing and retreating movements. Of course, staffs used for performance and competition tend to be much lighter, for too great a weight impedes free use of techniques, and without techniques one is no better than ‘a clumsy man tamping a wall, or a labourer chopping fire-wood’ as the old saying goes. On the other hand, it is a well-recognized principle that one should always use heavy equipment in training.

Baji is a powerful form of boxing effective in close range combat. Long periods of training in Baji, coupled with other supplementary training methods, are conducive to increasing muscular strength in the arms. Baji lays particular emphasis on the use of explosive force – which can be employed in short and sudden attacks – and overwhelming the opponent with strong attacking movements. This use of force may be adapted to spear practice, and is suitable for wielding a spear both in training and in applied combat situations. Daqiang stresses ‘long motion with quick rhythm’ (勢長節短 shichan gieduan), as exemplified by the dynamics of crossbow, whose arrow lies pregnant with energy while sitting in the mechanism. The parallel here is self-evident and I need not dwell further on this point.

One of the salient and most impressive aspects of Baji performance is daduozi 打跺子, which is also called zhengjiao (震腳 stamping). Youthful performers often stamp their feet with a great deal of force, which has led some observers to comment that Baji can cause concussion. For example, Mr. Xu Zheng (Zhedong) wrote in the introduction to Bajiquan, authored by Liao Jinjie, that ‘I have often seen Baji performers apply too great a force when stamping their feet, which can damage the brain, so I advised them not to stamp so fiercely. Even though Baji practitioners insisted on the importance of stamping, I strongly advised against it.’[⑥] In the 1950s, when Mr. Xu Zheng was teaching at the Northwestern Institute for Nationalities in Lanzhou he frequently visited my house. The institute was not far from my home, and Mr. Xu liked to walk over after dinner to watch me and my brothers train in the open courtyard. On those occasions he was always excited and spoke much, only he had a heavy southern accent and we could barely understand what he said. He once broached this subject with my late father, who just smiled in return and added a few short notes by way of explanation. Afterwards he said to me that Mr. Xu was a literati who had taken to the martial arts, specializing in Taiji, but was too small and slight of built to wield a daqiang, and did not understand the use of duozi, so what purpose would it serve to talk about it? Mr. Xu was a learned scholar with a keen sense of inquiry, but he was not physically very strong. In fact, to a very large extent duozi is a necessary method in the training of daqiang, and represents a stepping movement that is employed in some of the most important techniques in the Liuhe spear – such as ‘white bull drilling its horns’ (白牛轉角 bainiu zhuangjiao), ‘white ape hoisting a sword’ (白猿拖刀 baiyuan tuodao), etc. To put it simply, in certain situations duozi helps to make sudden adjustments in the use of force, changing in an instant the spatial relationship between the protagonist and his opponent, and helps to psychologically threaten the antagonist with an unexpected jolting movement. This is a crucial technique in daqiang practice and must be rehearsed repetitiously over a long period, so that it may be spontaneously employed in combat situations. There is an ancient saying that ‘a thousand ounces of gold cannot buy a sudden commotion, and a sudden commotion sends one to the king of the underworld!’ (千金難買一聲響，一聲響處見閻王！qianjin nanmai yi sheng xiang, yi sheng xiang chujian yanwang) This proverb is hard on the ear but its rationale is unquestionably correct. Naturally, some of the practitioners have not grasped the true principles of Baji and falsely believe they demonstrate their prowess by forcefully da duozi in performance. Obviously, this is incorrect practice and I would like to take this opportunity to point out this mistake to Baji practitioners among my readers.

More important, Baji stresses the need to ‘draw slow postures (架子 jiazi) and hit quick punches’ (慢拉架子，快打拳 man la jiazi, kuai daquan). In a broad sense the jiazi here refers to all the postures, but more specifically it means the Baji xiaojia set. Xiaojia has a rather small number of movements but its structure is extremely taut; it demands the practitioner not to rush through the motion and to execute each movement with great clarity, which has to be slowly and patiently ‘drawn’ out. Each movement should be executed with the proper power, and each posture should be made with precision, circulating one’s breath as one goes through the routine, so that the qi is complete and full force is manifest, like a cloudless blue sky or a spotless window, or sitting down leisurely to read Liu Gongqun’s calligraphy, such as shence junbei 神策軍碑. Undoubtedly, as far as spear practice is concerned, this is an extremely important method of training that is beneficial to both physical and mental wellbeing. There are many important elements in spear practice, but as Mr. Ma Fengtu said there is none more important than ‘stillness’: 'Once the daqiang is held in the hand, the first thing to do is to still one’s qi. There is an ancient adage which says that “whenever a momentous event occurs one must always manifest a still qi”, this also holds true for use of the spear. Lone practice requires stillness, a two-person set practice requires stillness, and agonistic practice involving real attack and defence requires even more stillness, for proper techniques cannot be employed when stillness is absent, and when one’s hand does not follow his heart he is likely to suffer losses. In the past when people practiced with spears, it often happened that one of the antagonists lost as soon as he made a movement with his spear. There are many reasons for this but the most important is impatience and too great a desire for victory.’[⑦]

There are many other technical similarities between Bajiquan and Liuhe daqiang that cannot be exhausted in this short paper. I believe to truly inherit a traditional martial art, the most important criterion is to clarify its basic principles, to understand its integral structure, and progress step by step through devoted study and practice. During this process it is most important to simultaneously deepen one’s cultivation, understanding, and techniques. Only then can one hope to slowly penetrate into the depths of its core until he finally attains its essence. If one becomes filled with pride after learning only a few sets, and starts making up new combinations in order to flaunt his knowledge, or deludes himself into thinking he has mastered the art, I believe this is symptomatic of lack of true understanding – or at best a very superficial understanding – and has grossly underestimated the value and profundity of historical martial arts. Traditional martial arts share common features with any other type of traditional culture, one of which is that martial arts ‘sets’ were created under particular historical circumstances and possess a certain formulaic quality. Such quality is in itself a cultural heritage and should be regarded as a manifestation of a given society’s inner cultural pattern. As inheritors of culture we are not at liberty to introduce changes, and must not add or delete according to our whims, for doing so would create confusion and lead to the art becoming deformed, falling into decline, and finally condemned to death all but in name. The misfortune of contemporary Chinese martial arts lies in the fact that the official body openly promotes ‘self-selected sets’, and determines the standard of such superficial creations of purely performative value on the basis of ‘regulations’, even giving additional scores to those sets which are deemed to be ‘good’. In this way Chinese martial arts have become a jigsaw puzzle that can be assembled and dissembled according to one’s wishes, or a pliable pile of mud which can be freely manipulated into any shape. With the help of an anachronistic name and a cover of mysticism, any garbled creations may be elevated to the pedestal of ‘traditional martial arts’. At present, although there is a revival in interest in traditional martial arts, their future is besieged by a host of problems, and they are yet to be rescued from the on-going crisis. From my personal point of view, to protect and pass on our true martial arts heritage, the first thing we need to do is address this problem, by imposing restrictive measures to prevent counterfeits from posing as ‘authentic’ historical martial arts, and raising the relevant department’s ability to verify the genuine articles, which in addition should be cautioned to proceed with care. Otherwise, the future of traditional martial arts is bleak and worrying, and Bajiquan’s present predicament is a case in point.
[1] In one sense, ‘liuhe’ or ‘six harmony’ refers to the different spatial directions and may be taken to embrace the entire universe; it can also mean ‘under the heaven’, or be equated with the phenomenal world of experience. In martial arts nomenclature, and in particular when the term is used in the context of spear practice, ‘liuhe’ traditionally means ‘six combined methods of combat’.
[2] ‘Shi shu’ is an honorific title for a person who studied with the same teacher of one’s master.
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[①] Wu Zhong, also known as Hongsheng, was a Muslim from Zhuangke village, Qingyun county, who lived during the emperors Kangxi and Yong Zhen’s reigns. He was the first person to teach Bajiquan in Hebei and Shandong provinces. Wu Zhong learnt Bajiquan and liuhe daqiang from Zhang Yueshan, who was a private martial artist from jiaozuo yueshan 焦作月山 Monastery in Henan, and is alluded to as ‘Master Zhang’ in the Three Character Stanzas. Qingyun county was originally part of Cangzhou city in Hebei province, but is now part of Dezhou city in Shandong province.

[②] Many different styles of Liuhe spear were practiced in the Ming Dynasty, the most famous being the Yang family, the Sha family, and the Ma family styles, which display distinct technical characteristics and have different specifications for the dimension and material of the spear. Of the extant historic spear manuals the best known and most complete is the Yang family spear manual preserved in the tenth chapter – ‘On the short methods of long weapons’ (長兵短用說 changbin duanyong shuo) – of New Book on Military Discipline (紀效新書 jixiao xinshu), which was written by the celebrated general Qi Jiguang. Yang family style Liuhe-spear is also called ‘Pear blossom spear’ (梨花槍 lihua qiang), whose name is frequently met with in Chinese popular culture. The various spear techniques contained in Selected Readings on Long Spear Techniques (長槍法選 Changqiang faxuan), written by the Anhui native Cheng Chong-dou in the late Ming, and Records of Arms Shoubei lu 手臂錄), composed by Wu Shu in the late Ming and early Qing period, are basically similar in contents, and may be identified as falling under the Liuhe-spear umbrella. The Liuhe-spear preserved in the Baji system belongs to the Yang-family style. Even though some of its techniques and terms have changed over time, in principle it has remained faithful to the original teachings. Among traditional martial arts schools and styles in China, the Liuhe qiang in the Baji system is the most complete form and has best preserved the characteristics of classical martial arts. However, most contemporary practitioners of Bajiquan tend to focus on bare-handed techniques and know very little about the use of the spear, sometimes even making up new methods and skills which have no bearing to the historical Liuhe techniques.

[③] The six ‘combinations of combat’ refer to six routines in spear practice which integrates various offence and defence techniques. These methods were employed in military training in the Ming period, which incorporate the principal elements in attack and defence in spear-use. For the sequence of these combinations I refer the readers’ attention to Chapter 10 in New Book in Military Discipline (戚繼光 Qi Jiguang).

[④] Private martial artists have different interpretations of the term ‘Liuhe’ 六合 (six harmony); one such explanation divides ‘six harmony’ into ‘inner three harmony’ (nei sanhe 內三合) and ‘outer three harmony’ (wai sanhe 外三合), and some martial artists even named the style(s) they practiced Liuhe. Looking at it within a temporal framework, it seems quite clear that all subsequent use of ‘liuhe’ derived from ‘Liuhe daqiang’, and its increasing use in ‘lay’ martial arts circle should be seen as a result of the popularization of military martial arts.

[⑤] Confucius made the statement ‘without learning poetry, one lacks the words for language’ (不學詩，無以言 bu xue shi, nan yi yan) while educating his son, Kong Li. The sense of it is that without a good command of poetry one does not know how to speak. See Yang, Bojun, lun yu zhe zhu: ji shi bian di shi liu 論語譯註：季氏篇第十六, Zhonghua Publication, 1965, p. 185. Ma Fengtu used this paradigm to stress the importance of Bajiquan training as a foundation for learning Liuhe daqiang.

[⑥] Xu Zheng (1898-1967), aka. Zhe Dong, was a native of Changzhou in Jiangsu province. He was a well-known author who published widely on topics related to martial arts history and the study of Taijiquan, including Taijiquan kaoxin lu (太極拳考信錄 Records of Inquiries into Taijiquan), guoji lunlue (國技論略 On the National Techniques), etc. See Xu Zheng die wen ji: Xu Zheng jian ie (徐震佚文集：徐震简介 Xu Zheng’s Selected Writings: Brief Introduction to Xu Zheng), Shanxi Scientific Technology Publication (shanxi kexue jishu chubanshe), 2006.

[⑦] Quoted from Ma, Fengtu, Recorded Sayings on Martial Arts: On Spear (Quan yu lu: lun qiang), unpublished manuscript.