I'd like to hear your opinions about Pakua International League

[TheBronn]

Hello guys,

I am a practitioner of Pakua. I know very little about my art, all I know is that it is affiliated to the Pakua International League. I'm not really sure about what is the style of Pakua it follows and there are TONS of criticisms to the league online.

I'm considering starting to take my martial arts formation more seriously from now on but I'm not too sure about going too in deep with this style.

I'd love to see some respectful discussion about Pakua, the international league and learn a little more about how to focus my development from now on.

 

[BrendanF]

Hi - just so you are aware, I think there is a forum rule against 'fraud busting'.. so any excessively negative comment toward a school is often avoided for that reason.

With that said.. having had a glance at the website, I would encourage you to take the 'tons of criticisms' very seriously, and continue to research and investigate. If you feel the place you are at is not for you, just leave.

I would strongly recommend both academic research and personally traveling and visiting different groups to get a feel for the different arts and schools. Unfortunately South America is notorious (along with many other countries, my own included) for inventing and faking 'traditional' arts; I have seen it in the traditional Japanese martial arts, as well as others.

A good place to start research on Baguazhang is the Pakua Journal - The Pa Kua Chang Journal - Order

Also - perhaps the 'Internal Arts' forum here would be a better place to ask, or somewhere like Rumsoakedfist

 

[DaveB]

It looks like they are using the name of a well known martial art but teaching their own system. That said the Chinese art is called Pakua Chang (Bagua zhang depending on dialect), and these guys are just calling themselves Pakua, so it might just be a similar name and not a misrepresentation.

I'm always wary of Chinese martial arts schools wearing Japanese karate based uniforms. But it could just be a fashion choice.

 

[Xue Sheng]

By looking at it all I can tell you for sure is that it is not Pakua chang (Baguazhang) I have nothing beyond that.

 

[Tony Dismukes]

Yeah, based on the videos it seems to be a modern eclectic western art with some roots in jujutsu and karate (or perhaps hapkido and TKD). There does not appear to be any connection to the Chinese art of Pakua/Bagua, or to any other Chinese martial art as far as I can tell.

That's not necessarily a problem if you like what you are learning. However if the instructors tell you that you are learning Chinese Pakua Chang, then I would have some concerns about their integrity. The website is pretty vague about what they are really teaching, so I'll give them some benefit of the doubt for now. Perhaps they created their own art and then chose the name for some reason of their own without the intent to deceive.

 

[TheBronn]

tl;dr in the end

Thank you all so far for your help! I'll explain a little bit more about this Pakua that this international league teaches:

I'll first tell you a very abridged version of the legend passed down among students about how the International League was created, followed by the way it's taught and finish asking some other questions.

I am telling an incredibly resumed version of the story and may be mistaken on some points. This what I remember from being told among students and asking a little from my instructors so it might be different from the "official" version.

The legend says Master Magliacano was a practitioner of some other martial art. He once went to Korea to validate some of his certificates of other arts and there he got in touch with Pakua. There, he learned the art the traditional way and received the title of master from I Chan Ming and was named as his only successor.

After he came back home, he tried to teach the art the same way he received from his master but found it to be impossible. He then decided to change the way it would be taught but keeping the objective of teaching Pakua to his disciples. He decided to use a uniform like the kimono, use the colored belts system and to divide the art into masteries to be easier to teach and learn.

The League teaches separating Pakua into 9 different masteries. From these masteries, only 3 are actual combat-focused: martial formation, edged weapons, archery. The other 6 masteries are only focused on the internal aspects of Pakua (and I personally think that at least one is 100% BS - rhythm).

Each belt you gain some knowledge upon the previous one and you start to move and behave in a more fluent and circular fashion than the previous. Up to the 5th belt, you don't move circularly at all. Also, you focus on a different combat form with every belt. You start focusing a lot on ground combat starting on the 4th belt (and many people decide to focus most of their formation on ground combat).

One thing that I really like about this art is that it teaches you to be a "jack of trades, master of none": you learn to fight standing up, kicking, punching, breaking joints, ground combat, aerial kicks, etc. Anything you learn on any other art you can absorb into your fighting style and you can use it on a Pakua combat/class as long as it is compatible with your current belt (on black belt, you can do anything you like). You can adapt yourself to any kind of fighting situation. From my personal experience, most people focus on ground combat after they get to the 4th or 5th belt but a few prefer to still fight standing up. What I see is that you're encouraged to learn with other styles and you can use with your Pakua buddies if you feel like doing so.

My greatest source of anxiety is that what I'm learning is just plain BS: that it was all created just to fool people out of their money and you don't really learn anything. That being said, I once again ask you guys:

What do you think of this International League? What about this art that they call Pakua? Can this be actually be useful?

I'm a real beginner so I find it really hard to even express my doubts here. Anything else you have to add would be much appreciated.

Thank you for reading this far.

tl;dr: Serious question: is this style bull ****?

 

[Xue Sheng]

Found this

"International School of Pa-Kua, non-profit organization, founded by Master Rogelio Magliacano. The responsible Master Custodian, Rogelio Magliacano has been dedicated to the study of Martial Arts and healing arts from an early age. He got the high-grade black belt in different martial styles he studied before being prepared to begin learning Pa-Kua with Chinese Master I Chan Ming. After an arduous work of learning, Master I Chan Ming named him as his successor and responsible for guarding and continuing the transmission of Pa-Kua knowledge worldwide and openly, making it available to anyone interested in his study .
Founded in 1976"

I cannot tell you if the school is BS or not and I cannot tell you if it will give you what you are after or not. I can tell you I have looked at the site and the videos and there is no Pa-Kua (Pakua/Bagua) there, there is a turning application and if it is bagua it is bad bagua.


Bagua

This does not mean the school is BS, it could be a translation error or a coincidence that it has the name Pakua. But from a Chinese Martial arts view, that is not Bagua/Pakua

 

[Flying Crane]

It is most definitely NOT Pakua/baguazhang, as done in China. Not even remotely. This is absolutely not that system. If they are telling you that it is, they are lying to you. If they just "coincidentally" adopted the same name for their own system, for whatever reasons they may have, well that is something else. For the record, there is precedence for such things. For example, there are at least a couple of White Crane systems that are not related, that were developed separately by different people, and have very different methodologies.

However, Pakua/bagua is a pretty iconic method, and for another system to adopt the same name with no actual connection to it, would raise some eyebrows, to say the least.

What they do may be effective. It most definitely is heavily marketed. Those videos are professionally done while they show very very little. They are clearly trying to present themselves in the best possible way, and I feel it is for marketing.

I would not train with them, even if they had a school nearby, even if their material is effective. It just isn't my cup of tea, and I do feel that the fact that they call their system Pakua is at least misleading, and could be downright deceptive, depending on their intentions.

 

[Kung Fu Wang]

Can you teach Bagua without teaching Bagua Zhang? I don't think you can.

There is always a risk to turn your back into your opponent. If your opponent

- wraps your waist, and
- turn with you,

he can drag you down. People try to take a special angle to avoid that body turn. Bagua guys like to turn a lot. Just wonder what their solution may be?

 

[Tony Dismukes]

tl;dr in the end

Thank you all so far for your help! I'll explain a little bit more about this Pakua that this international league teaches:

I'll first tell you a very abridged version of the legend passed down among students about how the International League was created, followed by the way it's taught and finish asking some other questions.

I am telling an incredibly resumed version of the story and may be mistaken on some points. This what I remember from being told among students and asking a little from my instructors so it might be different from the "official" version.

The legend says Master Magliacano was a practitioner of some other martial art. He once went to Korea to validate some of his certificates of other arts and there he got in touch with Pakua. There, he learned the art the traditional way and received the title of master from I Chan Ming and was named as his only successor.

After he came back home, he tried to teach the art the same way he received from his master but found it to be impossible. He then decided to change the way it would be taught but keeping the objective of teaching Pakua to his disciples. He decided to use a uniform like the kimono, use the colored belts system and to divide the art into masteries to be easier to teach and learn.

The League teaches separating Pakua into 9 different masteries. From these masteries, only 3 are actual combat-focused: martial formation, edged weapons, archery. The other 6 masteries are only focused on the internal aspects of Pakua (and I personally think that at least one is 100% BS - rhythm).

Each belt you gain some knowledge upon the previous one and you start to move and behave in a more fluent and circular fashion than the previous. Up to the 5th belt, you don't move circularly at all. Also, you focus on a different combat form with every belt. You start focusing a lot on ground combat starting on the 4th belt (and many people decide to focus most of their formation on ground combat).

One thing that I really like about this art is that it teaches you to be a "jack of trades, master of none": you learn to fight standing up, kicking, punching, breaking joints, ground combat, aerial kicks, etc. Anything you learn on any other art you can absorb into your fighting style and you can use it on a Pakua combat/class as long as it is compatible with your current belt (on black belt, you can do anything you like). You can adapt yourself to any kind of fighting situation. From my personal experience, most people focus on ground combat after they get to the 4th or 5th belt but a few prefer to still fight standing up. What I see is that you're encouraged to learn with other styles and you can use with your Pakua buddies if you feel like doing so.

My greatest source of anxiety is that what I'm learning is just plain BS: that it was all created just to fool people out of their money and you don't really learn anything. That being said, I once again ask you guys:

What do you think of this International League? What about this art that they call Pakua? Can this be actually be useful?

I'm a real beginner so I find it really hard to even express my doubts here. Anything else you have to add would be much appreciated.

Thank you for reading this far.

tl;dr: Serious question: is this style bull ****?

I found their YouTube page and went through all the available videos. Based on those, what I'm seeing is:

An unarmed style that looks sort of like a blend of Tae Kwon Do and Hapkido, practiced slowly and softly and (for the striking portions) at an unrealistic distance. I've seen much worse and I've also seen much better.

The yoga looked good and the acrobatics looked fun. The rhythm class looked to essentially be Tae Bo with more group interaction. Might be a good workout, but not much use for combative training.

The little bit of groundwork I saw was not very good. It's about the level I expect from people who imitate something they saw in a BJJ video without actually ever studying BJJ.

The weapons work looked questionable to me, but I'd like to see more of the actual instruction before expressing more of an opinion.

I did find about 15 seconds or so in one of the videos of something that might have been part of an actual Pakua form. None of the rest of it has any resemblance or connection to Chinese Pakua/Bagua that I can tell.

Of course, I can do only comment on what's in the videos. That appears to be a combination of demos and highlights of group practice in classes and semInars. Perhaps if I saw some actual instruction I might modify my opinions.

Bottom line, if you're looking for an authentic traditional Chinese martial art, go elsewhere. If you're looking for a fun physical activity with a martial flair, it might be just your cup of tea. If you're looking to learn how to fight ... well, I have seen worse. Depending on what's available in your area, you might very well be able to do better.

 

[TheBronn]

For clarification purposes, I'll from here on refer to the International League Method as Pakua and to the traditional chinese method I'll refer as Ba Gua.

However, Pakua/bagua is a pretty iconic method, and for another system to adopt the same name with no actual connection to it, would raise some eyebrows, to say the least.

From what I've seen of Ba Gua makes me want to learn as much of it as I possily can. The problem is that I need to work with what I have.

Pakua does use the Ba Gua symbol and the circularity of the form on it's teachings. I have seen quite a lot of it being used. The problem is that it is only used from blue belt (6th one) onward. The first belts are introductory stages to prevent the students from getting hurt.

I do agree that you have a point here, though.

Can you teach Bagua without teaching Bagua Zhang? I don't think you can.

I loved the video you linked. I will surely pay more attention to how much of Bagua does Pakua use. I'm still only a beginner so I can't really say much but I have seen the more graduated students and masters turning quite a lot during practice but as I said before, most people like to focus on ground fight after they get to the more advanced stages. This is something that makes me profoundly irritated at Pakua.

Tonight I'll have a serious talk with my master. I'll talk some more about this later.


Tony Dismukes' reply was the longest one and covered several topics so I'll divide his response into topics and respond to each one separately:

An unarmed style that looks sort of like a blend of Tae Kwon Do and Hapkido, practiced slowly and softly and (for the striking portions) at an unrealistic distance. I've seen much worse and I've also seen much better.
The yoga looked good and the acrobatics looked fun. The rhythm class looked to essentially be Tae Bo with more group interaction. Might be a good workout, but not much use for combative training.

It does incorporate teachings from other styles like I mentioned on my first response here. Pakua follows the philosophy of "if it can be used against you, it can be used by you". I see that this does creates something very troubling since it kinda stray away from the original circularity and fluidity of Ba Gua. As I said before on this very topic: it is something that troubles me since it becomes something very different from Ba Gua.

The unrealistic distance thing is because you really don't get into close combat at the first levels, specially with kids. On higher levels (after about 6 months of training) you're practicing at a normal, realistic and effective distance.

As for the other masteries, it is what I said before: only 3 of the 9 different masteries are combat oriented. The other ones are more on the internal/fun side of things. I personally think that the rhythm mastery is stupid though.

I did find about 15 seconds or so in one of the videos of something that might have been part of an actual Pakua form. None of the rest of it has any resemblance or connection to Chinese Pakua/Bagua that I can tell.

Fully circular movement only starts on the 6th belt. I will ask more about why does our style focus so much on other kinds of combat instead of the traditional Ba Gua way of doing things, like I've seen on this video:

.

I can say that we really don't do much of this in Pakua. Or me at least haven't got much of this so far. The stance is different on the first levels but it does get to the traditional Ga Bua stance on red or black belt if I'm not mistaken.

If you're looking to learn how to fight ... well, I have seen worse. Depending on what's available in your area, you might very well be able to do better.

I have serious doubt about this! lol

We have gyms where you can learn BJJ, TaekWonDo, Karate, Judo, Muai Thay and other kinds of famous arts. I just don't like how much you're trapped to the sports side of these other arts instead of the fighting that I like. Not being able to punch on BJJ, judo and TKD, not going to the ground on Karate and Muai Thay are just a couple of things that I dislike about other methods.

I think in the end I actually really like Pakua but am just irritated by how much we have drafted away from Ba Gua. I like the freedom Pakua preachs but hate how little care is given to the origins it claims to have.

I'll try to start to focus more on learning Ba Gua instead of the mess Pakua has become. Maybe in the future I'll stop practicing Pakua at all and then become a full Ba Gua student but for the time being, I guess I'll stick with it.

Also, there is always some MMA gym around that I can go when I want to practice some serious fighting instead of the more introspective art/mess that Pakua has become.

 

[Flying Crane]

One problem is that skilled and knowledgeable bagua instructors are somewhat rare. You don't find them in every city. This is one reason why a group like this might get away with calling their system Pakua. There is often no authentic bagua nearby with which to compare it.

Of course that is one benefit of the internet: it is easier to get some Information and figure out when something might not be what it claims to be.

 

[Ironbear24]

Pa'kua means something different in Hawaiian. I missunderstood.

 

[Tony Dismukes]

The unrealistic distance thing is because you really don't get into close combat at the first levels, specially with kids. On higher levels (after about 6 months of training) you're practicing at a normal, realistic and effective distance.

I don't know how your rank system works, but in the videos I saw plenty of people wearing black belts and practicing striking drills from an unrealistic distance. Maybe regular training is different from what the videos show.

 

[TaiChiTJ]

They certainly know how to produce lots of fancy feel-good visual productions.

 

[Flying Crane]

They certainly know how to produce lots of fancy feel-good visual productions.

Yeah, this is exactly what I was referring to earlier. Honestly, it makes me think of a mega-church. Not my cup of tea.

 

[marques]

I did 1 formal Pakua (Internatinal League) training, plus several hours of sparring with Pakua guys. One of them was brown belt at the moment and both of them were afraid of contact, after many years of training! I admit they improved in that aspect after a few hours, but they were resourceless in any situation, anyway. And I was just restarting training after years of little to no training.

Not saying they were BS, but I felt they were more on acrobatics and "mysticism" than on the martial side / fighting. More a bit of everything than Chinese Bagua (which I only knew from books).

Not saying what you are doing is BS because every school or instructor or student is different, sometimes hugelly different, regardless a similar ranking. The way to know whether what you're learning is good is training / sparring with other guys with same training time or rank and take your conclusions. You said Pakua cover many things, no speciality. If so, you could visit an MMA club. They spar frequently, apparently, so it could be an easy and reliable check. Of course, MMA is just an exemple.

 

[TheBronn]

I did 1 formal Pakua (Internatinal League) training, plus several hours of sparring with Pakua guys. One of them was brown belt at the moment and both of them were afraid of contact, after many years of training! I admit they improved in that aspect after a few hours, but they were resourceless in any situation, anyway. And I was just restarting training after years of little to no training.

Weird. The International League doesn't have brown belts. It's white → yellow → orange → green → grey → blue → red → black.

Maybe it was from a different league?

 

[Tez3]

Not being able to punch on BJJ, judo and TKD, not going to the ground on Karate and Muai Thay are just a couple of things that I dislike about other methods.

You can dislike them all you like but the fact remains that BJJ and Judo are grappling styles, there shouldn't be punching in them, why would there be. Muay Thai is a stand up style, they aren't going to change that to please people like you, some karate styles do have grappling incorporated in them, karate is a generic name you have to look to the specific style for further information. TKD has punches and strikes, it's not all kicking.

You can do these styles or you don't but there's nothing to dislike about them, that would be silly, what you mean is they aren't for you.

As for going to an MMA gym for serious fighting you will be disappointed, it's all about the training, they don't fight in the gym.

 

[marques]

Weird. The International League doesn't have brown belts. It's white → yellow → orange → green → grey → blue → red → black.

Maybe it was from a different league?

Thanks for remaking this. I was wrong. After checking it (Facebook photos) at that time one was grey and the other blue. But is is definitively the same organisation (Pakua.com). Good point @TheBronn .