Ba Gua Zhang

Ba Gua Zhang (Eight Diagram Palm), commonly known as Ba Gua, is an internal martial art of skill, profound sophistication and depth – one that can create change in all facets of your life: physical, mental, and spiritual.

The internal martial arts like Ba Gua use a slow meditative approach in their fundamental training. The most well-known of the internal arts, Tai Ji Quan – or Tai Chi, gives a good image of what the training is like.

Ba Gua uses similar principles to Tai Chi but cultivates them in a unique way that emphasizes connecting with the innate spiraling forces in the body. The Ba Gua training method is a system that simultaneously unlocks three key aspects of your inherent human potential. With a relatively simple daily practice, Ba Gua:

1. Promotes health and longevity in your body in accordance with the principles of Chinese medicine and Daoist life nourishing practices.
2. Cultivates your spirit, leading you to feel more connected to your true self, authentic reality, and your purpose for being alive.
3. Develops martial skill, which in a broad sense is your ability to maintain the principles that you build in your practice under stress from your environment. Over time, Ba Gua training will build this skill to the level where you can defend yourself effectively in a live combat scenario. But well before that you will start to notice how Ba Gua allows you to meet normal, everyday challenges with more calm determination and adaptability.

Thad Wong, the Ba Gua instructor at Project DAO, is an experienced, patient, and insightful teacher who will work with you to create a customized, sustainable Ba Gua practice that fits into your life. Having navigated the difficulty of establishing his own practice, he will support you through the challenges of that process with empathy and encouragement.

The incredible benefits of Ba Gua can begin to be felt after just a few weeks of investing time, attention and effort into a short daily practice. All of the principles in the art will begin to reveal themselves as Thad guides you through the full depth of the fundamental exercises.