---
title: The Eight Palms (八大掌) — Baguazhang
---
**八大掌 (Bā Dà Zhǎng, "the Eight Great Palms"** — also **老八掌, "the Old Eight Palms," or 八母掌, "the Eight Mother Palms")** is the **core curriculum of **[**Baguazhang**](https://wulin.openmindspace.org/bagua). Bagua has no long fixed line like the other arts; its "form" is the **circle** — the practitioner walks a circle and, at each change of direction, performs one of **eight ways of turning the body and changing the palm**. Those eight changes are the Eight Palms, and they map to the **eight trigrams (八卦)** the art is named for. The two simplest — the **single change (單換掌)** and **double change (雙換掌)** — are the root; the rest elaborate.
## The eight trigram-palms (孫祿堂 system)
**Sun Lutang (孫祿堂)** — who learned Bagua from [**Cheng Tinghua (程廷華)**](https://wulin.openmindspace.org/cheng-tinghua) — organises the eight as a **trigram → animal → palm** correspondence, each its own short circle-walking sequence:
| 卦 Trigram | 動物 Animal | 掌 Palm | Gloss |
| --- | --- | --- | --- |
| 乾 ☰ Qian | 獅 Lion | 獅子掌 | Lion Palm |
| 坤 ☷ Kun | 麟 Qilin | 返身掌 | Turning-Body Palm |
| 坎 ☵ Kan | 蛇 Snake | 順勢掌 | Following-the-Momentum Palm |
| 離 ☲ Li | 鷂 Hawk | 臥掌 | Crouching Palm |
| 震 ☳ Zhen | 龍 Dragon | 平托掌 | Level-Propping Palm |
| 艮 ☶ Gen | 熊 Bear | 背身掌 | Behind-the-Body Palm |
| 巽 ☴ Xun | 鳳 Phoenix | 風輪掌 | Pinwheel Palm |
| 兌 ☱ Dui | 猴 Monkey | 抱掌 | Embracing Palm |
## The two root changes (拳譜)
The single and double palm changes, as set down in Sun Lutang's *八卦拳學* (1916); the recurring 靑龍轉身 → 縮尾 → 返首 → 黑虎出洞 tetrad is the standard "enter the circle" preamble. English are the wiki's own working glosses.
### 單換掌 — Single Palm Change (兩儀, "the two poles")
| # | 式 (中文) | English |
| --- | --- | --- |
| 1 | 靑龍轉身 | Blue dragon turns its body |
| 2 | 靑龍縮尾 | Blue dragon draws in its tail |
| 3 | 靑龍返首 | Blue dragon turns its head |
| 4 | 黑虎出洞 | Black tiger leaves its cave |
| 5 | 右式靑龍轉身 | Blue dragon turns its body (switching to the rightward circle) |
### 雙換掌 — Double Palm Change (四象, "the four images")
| # | 式 (中文) | English |
| --- | --- | --- |
| 1 | 右式靑龍轉身 | Blue dragon turns its body (right) |
| 2 | 靑龍縮尾 | Blue dragon draws in its tail |
| 3 | 靑龍返首 | Blue dragon turns its head |
| 4 | 右式黑虎出洞 | Black tiger leaves its cave (right) |
| 5 | 鷂子鑽天 | Hawk drills into the sky |
| 6 | 白蛇伏草 | White snake hides in the grass |
| 7 | 右式黑虎出洞 | Black tiger leaves its cave (right) |
| 8 | 靑龍轉身 | Blue dragon turns its body |
**The Cheng-style "Old Eight Palms."** The classical **程派 (Cheng Tinghua)** naming lists the eight by their body-turning method rather than by trigram-animal: **單換掌** (single change) · **雙換掌** (double change) · **順式掌** (following palm) · **背身掌** (behind-body palm) · **翻身掌** (turning-over palm) · **磨身掌** (grinding-body palm) · **三穿掌** (three-threading palm) · **回身掌** (turning-back palm). The three common to *every* Bagua line — **單換掌, 雙換掌, 順式掌** — are called the **三母掌 (Three Mother Palms)**. Each teacher orders and names the rest a little differently.
## See also
## Sources
**[1]** **孫祿堂 (Sun Lutang)**, *八卦拳學* (1916) — the trigram → animal → palm system and the single/double-change sequences reproduced here under fair-use citation, with the wiki's own glosses. Public domain by age (Sun d. 1933). Open bilingual edition: [Brennan Translation](https://brennantranslation.wordpress.com/2015/04/30/the-bagua-manual-of-sun-lutang/).
**[2]** Cross-references: **陳微明 (Chen Weiming)**, *八卦掌擒拿圖* (1937, Sun-line) and **尹玉章 (Yin Yuzhang)**, *八卦掌簡編* (1932, Yin Fu line) — both on Brennan — corroborate the palm-change names across lineages. The Cheng-style 老八掌 name-list follows the *八卦掌* article on [Chinese Wikipedia](https://zh.wikipedia.org/wiki/%E5%85%AB%E5%8D%A6%E6%8E%8C) (CC BY-SA).
**[3]** Video: 程派八卦掌 老八掌 demonstrations (Liu Jingru 劉敬儒, Sun Zhijun 孫志君) are indexed on the [Bagua on Film](https://wulin.openmindspace.org/bagua-video) page.