Some time ago, a facebook friend suggested that I research the Quijong form Eight Brocades, as it might be of help to me with my breathing and relaxation. Given that I currently have some time on my hands, and I have been looking for a regular workout that sorts these needs, I thought I would do just that.
The form goes by a number of different names: Eight Brocades, Eight Section Brocade, Eight Pieces of Brocade, for example. There appear to be many different ways of doing it, and in different sequences, but the eight elements are all obviously of similar origins. It is historically a very old form, maybe 1000 year or more.
One historical account has it that Marshal Yue Fei molded it from a longer form in the mid 1100s from concern for his warriors. The Song Dynasty (960-1279) was a tough tie in Chinese History with many wars. Yue Fei was a poor boy with a childhood filled with turmoil and poverty. He entered the army at nine and rapidly rose within the ranks and by twenty-six he was a general.
There are so many different versions of the form, especially when looking at videos, it was hard to find one that was easy to understand, so I decided to pick one that was text based and used older illustrations, so that I would need to work it out from first principles. I went for:
Eight Section Brocade- baduanjin
There is an accompanying video that the author said included most of the elements, but even then that varied from the text in terms of sequence and some of the interpretation. What I want to do here is document what I am doing for each of the sequences, under their given names and then show the final version of the form at the end.
After reading the text description and working outr my own version, I then modified what I was doing to remove any major errors (I hope). I am not going to give the actual descriptions and associated "good for" descriptions, as these are all included in the above link. However I will say that I do believe given time, this will be of benefit to me not just for breathing and relaxation, but potentially in other ways too. If you get this for,. hope you enjoyed reading and stay on to take a look at the videos.
Two Hands Hold up the Heavens
Drawing the bow to shoot the hawk
Separating Heaven And Earth
Wise Owl Gazes Backwards
Punching with an angry Gaze
Big Bear Turns from Side to Side
Touching Toes then Bending Backwards
Bouncing on the Toes
Eight Brocades (all eight elements)
Hope you found this interesting, if you got this far, thank you for looking ☺☺☺
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