Esthetics, martial arts and Ba Gua

If you wanted to design a system of exercise that combined both esthetic, martial and practical considerations you couldn't do much better than Ba Gua Zhang. It moves the body through an impressive range of movement, imparts flexibility, coordination and fitnesss. Efficiency is at the heart of its fighting strategy, and meditation is an integral part of the practise. On top of all this Ba Gua is perhaps the most beautiful of martial arts.

In many areas of life esthetics and utility are considered separate, but from some perspectives the two are not just related, but are dependent on each other.

Esthetic sensibilities are influenced by cultural factors. But there may also be deeper biological and evolutionary forces at work. Forces that make a beauty more than decoration, but an important aspect of survival.

An appreciation of beauty is common across human history and society. It is possible to stunned by a piece of art from a completely unfamiliar part of the world, with no prior experience of the culture that gave rise to it.

There are objects of admiration that exist outside the realm of human creativity. Not everyone likes cats, but few people fail to appreciate their smooth grace of movement. Cats don't need lessons in moving beautifully. They move according to their needs, according to their biology. Controlled fluid movement is vital to an animal that lives by stalking.

Perhaps our sense of esthetic is just as biological as cat's grace. It's been developed to guide us towards efficiency in action. We've taken the same principles and applied them to art, architecture and engineering, with varying degrees of success.

Moving around, lets go back to a circular art. Mistaking Ba Gua Zhang for dancing is an easy error. Good Ba Gua must be graceful, it demands both stability and fluid mobility because these are the reqirements of combat.

These traits demonstrate efficiency of movement, and appeal to something deep within our brains. The turns and spins of Ba Gua touch us in the same way as the sweep of a calligrapher's brush, the lines of fine sculpture, or the emotive force of music.

Of course Ba Gua is not simply movement for grace's sake. The rhythms and cadences, the rise and fall follow the logic of the human body, of leverage and deception. But that is another story.