---
title: Bagua Sword (八卦劍) — Baguazhang
---

**八卦劍 (Bāguà Jiàn, "Eight-Trigram Sword")** is the **straight-sword (劍) form of **[**Baguazhang**](https://wulin.openmindspace.org/bagua), set down by [**Sun Lutang (孫祿堂)**](https://wulin.openmindspace.org/sun-lutang) in his *八卦劍學 ("A Study of Bagua Sword," 1927)*. Like the empty-hand art, it is built on the **circle**: its movements are grouped into **eight trigram-sections (八卦)**, and the blade is carried through the same body-turning and circle-walking that drives the [Eight Palms](https://wulin.openmindspace.org/bagua-eight-palms) — *the palm-changes extended through a length of steel.* Its **31 named postures** read as classical jian poetry: sweeping the moon at the horizon, the immortal carrying his sword on his back, the meteor chasing the moon, the flower hidden beneath the leaf.

## What it trains

- **The sword as an extension of the palm** — Bagua's hooking, threading, and changing hands re-expressed through the point and edge of the jian
- **Circle-walking with the blade** — every section is walked, turned, and re-aimed on the circle rather than along a line
- **Light, mobile point-work** — the straight sword lives by its tip; the form floats between its named postures
- **The eight-trigram structure** — each trigram its own short sequence, the whole a circuit of the eight

## The form — eight trigrams (劍譜)

The posture list from Sun Lutang's *八卦劍學* (1927); the English are the wiki's own working glosses.

| # | 卦 Trigram | 式 (中文) | English |
| --- | --- | --- | --- |
| 1 | ☰ Qian | 蟄龍翻身 | the hibernating dragon turns its body |
| 2 | ☰ Qian | 天邊掃月 | sweeping the moon at the horizon |
| 3 | ☰ Qian | 掃地搜根 | sweep the ground to find the roots |
| 4 | ☰ Qian | 白猿托桃 | white ape holds up a peach |
| 5 | ☷ Kun | 日月爭明 | sun and moon vie for brightness |
| 6 | ☷ Kun | 流星赶月 | meteor chases the moon |
| 7 | ☷ Kun | 靑龍返首 | blue dragon turns its head |
| 8 | ☵ Kan | 天邊掃月 | sweeping the moon at the horizon |
| 9 | ☵ Kan | 仙人背劍 | the immortal carries the sword on his back |
| 10 | ☵ Kan | 仙人換影 | the immortal switches places with his shadow |
| 11 | ☲ Li | 日月爭明 | sun and moon vie for brightness |
| 12 | ☲ Li | 白猿偸桃 | white ape steals a peach |
| 13 | ☲ Li | 仙人脫殼 | the immortal sheds his shell |
| 14 | ☳ Zhen | 白蛇伏草 | white snake hides in the grass |
| 15 | ☳ Zhen | 濳龍出水 | the submerged dragon leaves the water |
| 16 | ☳ Zhen | 靑龍探海 | blue dragon searches the sea |
| 17 | ☶ Gen | 黑虎出洞 | black tiger leaves its cave |
| 18 | ☶ Gen | 白蛇吐信 | white snake flicks its tongue |
| 19 | ☶ Gen | 靑龍截路 | blue dragon blocks the road |
| 20 | ☶ Gen | 白猿偸桃 | white ape steals a peach |
| 21 | ☶ Gen | 仙人入洞 | the immortal enters the cave |
| 22 | ☶ Gen | 日月爭明 | sun and moon vie for brightness |
| 23 | ☶ Gen | 流星趕月 | meteor chases the moon |
| 24 | ☴ Xun | 葉裡藏花 | flower hidden beneath the leaf (part 1) |
| 25 | ☴ Xun | 葉裏藏花 | flower hidden beneath the leaf (part 1) |
| 26 | ☴ Xun | 葉裏藏花 | flower hidden beneath the leaf (part 2) |
| 27 | ☴ Xun | 猛虎截路 | fierce tiger blocks the road |
| 28 | ☱ Dui | 㓲膀 | slicing to the arm |
| 29 | ☱ Dui | 回馬劍 | the turning-horse sword |
| 30 | ☱ Dui | 回頭望月 | turn the head to gaze at the moon |
| 31 | ☱ Dui | 仙人釣魚 | the immortal angles for a fish |

## See also

<PageRef space="notes" slug="bagua" text="Bagua (八卦掌) — the style, the circle, and the lineage" />

<PageRef space="notes" slug="bagua-eight-palms" text="八大掌 The Eight Palms — the empty-hand core the sword extends" />

<PageRef space="notes" slug="sun-lutang" text="Sun Lutang (孫祿堂) — author of 八卦劍學" />

<PageRef space="notes" slug="cheng-tinghua" text="Cheng Tinghua (程廷華) — the Cheng-style line Sun's Bagua descends from" />

## Sources

**[1]** **孫祿堂 (Sun Lutang)**, *八卦劍學* (1927) — the posture sequence 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/2015/04/26/bagua-sword/).

**[2]** Video: Sun-style and Cheng-style 八卦劍 demonstrations are indexed on the [Bagua on Film](https://wulin.openmindspace.org/bagua-video) page.