Dong Haichuan

Dong Haichuan (died 1882) is regarded as a skilful Chinese martial artist and is widely credited as the founder of baguazhang, the eight trigram palm. He was born in Zhu village in Wen'an County, Hebei Province, in either 1797 or 1813, trained from childhood in the martial arts of his village, probably Shaolin based styles, and spent his later years in Beijing, where he taught publicly and where baguazhang became popular. Some traditional teachers see him not as the founder but as the first identified person to pass the art to a wider public, since it had earlier been taught privately inside Taoist schools. His students included Fu Zhensong, Yin Fu, Ma Gui, Cheng Tinghua and Liang Zhenpu.