Supporting Palm of Baguazhang

The Supporting Palm is a classic posture in Baguazhang practice. In some schools, the only Mother Palm practiced is the Supporting Palm.

Start from Holding The Fruit Palm and then push your palms away from you in the direction of your thumbs. This will be slightly more than 45 degrees, but less than 90 degrees from the plane of your shoulders.

Keep your palms upright. You may find that it is harder to keep one palm facing up than the other, or that one palm turns over slightly when you change direction. Imagine that you are holding a ball or a cup of hot tea in each hand as you walk the circle.

Walk and change direction as before.

Supporting Palm as a Mother Palm of Baguazhang

The Great Accomplishment Boxing traditions have between five and eight arm positions for their Wuji standing practice. One of these positions is with the arms extended out to the side of the body with the palms facing down. As you progress in your practice, you use this position to practice a Mud Walking practice that is very similar to Baguazhang’s sliding step. In that practice, you imagine supporting yourself on a post or rail as you walk.

The Supporting Palm of Baguazhang is the opposite of that image. In this practice you want to imagine you are Dong Haichuan at the Su Wen Palace, with tea servings in each hand. You are walking through the crowd, being careful not to spill the tea as you deliver it to the prince.

There is another serving tea practice from the Baguazhang tradition. In this practice you stand in a horse posture while rotating your arms over your head and behind your back with the palm always facing up. I will introduce it in a later video lesson.