八卦掌的基本內容是八母掌，也稱老八掌，即單換掌、雙換掌、順勢掌、背身掌、翻身掌、磨身掌、三穿掌和回身掌。各地流傳內容不完全相同，有以獅、鹿、蛇、鷂、龍、熊、鳳、猴八形代表的，也有用雙掩掌、搖身掌、穿掌、挑掌等作為基本八掌的內容。其中每一掌都可以衍化出很多掌法，素有一掌生八掌、八八六十四掌之說。
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.
八卦掌有單練、對練和散打等形式。根據老拳譜記載，八卦掌拳係尚有十八趟羅漢手、七十二暗腳、七十二截腿，但目前很少傳習。
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、槍、劍、戟等，練法仍體現隨走隨變、械隨身走、身隨步換、勢勢相連的特點。另外，還有鴛鴦鉞、雞爪銳、風火輪、判官筆等短小的雙器械，這在其他拳種中較為少見。
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.