Bagua Zhang Kungfu vs Kickboxing: live sparring with commentary
video
Linji and I do some stand up sparring in the ring. While we are both mixed martial artists, in these rounds, we're both making a concerted effort to represent specific styles we have trained under. Linji is a Japanese mixed martial artist with a background in several Chinese gongfu styles including Bagua Zhang and Taijiquan. He also practices Muay Thai, BJJ, and of course, trains for MMA. In this video, Linji showcases some of his Bagua skills in the context of kickboxing- even though many Bagua techniques are meant to be performed open handed rather than with a closed fist, and much of the martial art is based on grappling concepts. In this video, you can see some of Bagua's hand fighting and trapping techniques at work.
Linji and I have trained together for 6 years, so we tend to predict each other's movement and cancel each other out quite a bit, so this is very much an exercise in adaptation to the familiar.