A look at Bagua

 http://isshin-concentration.blogspot.com/2016/04/bagua-or-older-name-paqua-it-still-is.html\\

Joe Swift The name is always 八卦掌, the romanizations of baguazhang or paqua chang are beside the point LOL! 

Jim Keenan Before 1977, I had never see 卦 romanized as "qua". As far as I know, there is no romanization that represents the Mandarin sound "G" with a "Q". I wonder if "Paqua" is Black Belt magazine's fault? In 1977, they ran an article about me and bagua. Before the article ran, they sent me a draft, asking me to fix any errors. They had spelled "Pakua" (Wade-Giles) uniformly as "Paqua". I went through and dutifully crossed out the misspellings, put in the correct romanization, and sent it back to them. Needless to say, when the article came out, the misspellings had been preserved.

Jim made 3 different translations for me.

沖縄国際平和研究所
April 18, 2015 ·
草木で覆い隠された洞窟の中に、火を放つ米兵。火炎放射器は壕内に潜む日本兵を攻撃するのに役立つ兵器のひとつだった。（伊江島 1945年）
 

One of the best weapons yet devised to flush the little men out of their caves. This photo, taken at Ie Island, shows a Marine shooting the searing blast of the flame thrower into a cave that is hidden by the underbrush.
 

The Black 米兵 in the cave which covered with the grass. It was one of the weapons that could be useful to attack the Japanese soldiers in the bunker. (ie, 1945)
 

One of the best weapons yet devised to flush the little men out of their caves. This photo, taken at Ie Island, shows a Marine shooting the searing blast of the flame thrower into a cave that is hidden by the underbrush.


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Hmmm,

When I started there were only 8 empty hand kata within my Isshinryu system. Too soon I was on my own, but there was no internet back then, nobody to tell me I could not do anything.

So I just studied with many friends and remembered and practiced everything I was shown. I was trained that a black belt did not say I cannot do something, instead just tried. I was shown and I remembered.

Now while I may have learned over 200 forms, I didn’t attempt to teach them. They were just my own study. Along the way I studied with a gifted Kung Fu instructor who was in the same shoes, Though in his case he had over 500 forms he was trying to stay on top of. His answer was each day of the week he worked on a different set of forms.

Now that does not mean you don’t specialize on your own system first. Rather these are subsidiary studies. Then again Isshinryu did not have the Pinan kata, and I never paid that any attention.

Consider Seiean. When I started Isshinryu it was the first kata study. I have given it the most time over the decades. But then I learned a Shorin version, then the Shotokan Hangetsu, the Goju Seisan, the Uechi seisan. Much the same with many of my kata. Just practice, I never had any problem keeping them separate or remembering them.

They were interesting studies. I could judge practitioners more fairly as I knew what they were attempting to do. I picked up many neat variations of movement to work against because of those studies.

They were subsidiary studies, and in time I did set many of them aside, useful in their day, but doing so I did not forget. I remember when I visited George Mattson’s Uechi dojo, on a day he was not there, and when I had the chance I was allowed to try their Seisan practice. Got some interesting looks because I could do the form.    The same occurred in a Goju School when I jumped in a Sanseiryu practice and kept up with them.

That did not mean I was anything competent in those systems, I was not attempting that. Rather I learned something in the process.

When it came to my Tai Chi studies, and then later Chinese form studies, why those forms lengths made all Okinawan Systems look like kindergarten, Which of course they were not.