The 72 Leg Attacks of Ba Gua Zhang are also known as the “Hidden Legs.” Although some people say the Hidden Legs exist as a fixed set of techniques, my own understanding is that they are simply ways of using the legs that are extensions of the Ba Gua circle walking step. In this interpretation, the number 72 is simply a way of saying there are many possible uses of the Hidden Legs in Ba Gua, and that these will unfold naturally if one has practiced the stepping sufficiently. Indeed, in the techniques below, many of these leg attacks seem to simply be variations of each other.

The 72 Hidden Legs presented in this series of posts are excerpted from a small book on Ba Gua that I purchased in China in the 1990’s. I have since lost the book and do not know the author or title, but here is Part 16 of the translation by my good friend, Huang Guo Qi.