Early in his life, Gao Yi Sheng (founder of Gao
Style Bagua Zhang) broke his leg in an accident involving a cart. The leg was
not properly set and he walked with a cane for the rest of his life, because of
this he developed this "Bagua Cane" form. "Gao style
BaGuaZhang Cane (literally "Civilized Crutch") The cane was known to
be the everyday weapon of choice of Gao style BaGuaZhang founder Gao
Yisheng." Bagua Journal.
I suspect this is why most of
the lineages of Gao bagua use a lot of striking and less throwing even though
Gao's bagua is derived from Cheng Style bagua which has a strong emphasis on
throwing. There is a lot of evidence that subsequent generations of Gao
bagua practitioners have revitalized the throwing component of the system through
Shuai Jiao or other throwing practices. Gao needed a cane for walking in everyday
life, so much so that he created a weapons form for it, indicates to me the
injury was serious and probably affected his martial arts. My own experience
with throwing tells me that throws (at least high amplitude throws) may have
been difficult for him and he probably would not have emphasized this in his
teaching. Anecdotally, he used a palm strike to kill a taiji teacher in
the park during a fight (not a throw). Also, many of his direct students were strikers as well, Wu Meng Xia,
Zhang Jun Feng, An JiHai, etc.
