Holding The Fruit Palm of Baguazhang

The Monkey King is an important hero of Chinese Mythology, especially from the Buddhist tradition. The name of this palm is from Monkey stealing the Peach of Immortality from Heaven. Begin on the edge of the circle in Pushing Palm posture, then turn the palms upward by sinking the elbows down. It is important to make this movement from the elbows. If you make it from the shoulders, you will roll your shoulders forward.

As you lower your elbows and turn your palms upward, bring the hands together so they are touching below the pinkies; the pinkies are not touching each other.

Do not smash the hands with force; they should touch gently or be just a hair’s breadth apart.

Walk and change direction with the Simple Change.

Holding the Fruit Palm as a Mother Palm of Baguazhang

I have practiced Mother Palms from various Baguazhang traditions over the years. All of them are challenging in some manner. This one is just plain difficult for me. The Lowering Palm is deceptive in its simple execution, and it is easy to find your hands rising when they should be on a flat plane. I am forever leaning into the center of the circle when practicing the Pushing Palm or Pushing Millstone Palm. Those are easy corrections, and when you bring your focus back to the posture, they are easy to correct. For some reason, this posture distracts me, and I find corrections harder to make.

I like to give an analogy for each of the palms. Something to trigger your imagination and guide you toward better practice. I don’t have anything for this palm posture. Monkey is trouble. The posture forces your shoulders down, so don’t let them rise, or your hands will separate. Keeping the hands touching and at a consistent distance from the torso is more difficult than it sounds. But as difficult as it is, don’t neglect this posture. For you, it might be easy, and you will find another posture difficult. That is the way of things, and we must preserve though the difficult and easy with equal effort.