八卦掌的基本内容是八母掌，也称老八掌，即单换掌、双换掌、顺势掌、背身掌、翻身掌、磨身掌、三穿掌和回身掌。各地流传内容不完全相同，有以狮、鹿、蛇、鹞、龙、熊、凤、猴八形代表的，也有用双掩掌、摇身掌、穿掌、挑掌等作为基本八掌的内容。其中每一掌都可以衍化出很多掌法，素有一掌生八掌、八八六十四掌之说。
The basic contents of Bagua Zhang is Bamu Zhang or Laobazhang(old-style eight palms)：single changing palm，double changing palm，smooth palm，reverse-body palm，fanshen(body-flipping) palm，moshen(body-attaching) palm，sanchan palm，and turning palm.The content in different area is different.Some are represented by lion，deer，snake，willet，dragon，bear，phoenix and monkey and some are represented by double-bumping palm，yaoshen(body-shaking) palm，thrusting palm，snapping palm etc.Every palm technique can be developed into lots of palm techniques，just like people's saying，one palm technique is developed into eight palms and eight is developed into sixty four palm techniques.
八卦掌有单练、对练和散打等形式。根据老拳谱记载，八卦掌拳系尚有十八趟罗汉手、七十二暗脚、七十二截腿，但目前很少传习。
Eight-trigram Palm(Bagua Zhang)has forms of single-hand，one-off-one and San da.According to“Laoquan Pu record”,there are eighteen Arhat Hand，seventy two feet and seventy two interceptive legs，but these are hardly learned.
八卦掌所用器械，有刀、枪、剑、戟等，练法仍体现随走随变、械随身走、身随步换、势势相连的特点。另外，还有鸳鸯钺、鸡爪锐、风火轮、判官笔等短小的双器械，这在其他拳种中较为少见。
Bagua(eight trigrams) system of Kungfu involves weapons skills such as knife，spear，sword and halberd.Its techniques are characterized by change with walking，weapon following body，body changing with steps，postures connecting with each other.In addition，the system also involves various paired short weapons such as mandarin duck battle-axes，rooster claw ruies，wind-fire wheels and Hell-judge's brushes which are quite rare as compared with other systems.