Introduction to Bentonville, AR workshop and Thursday 3 Feb 2011 evening notes

by Richard Johnson on 2011/02/03

Shifu Chen asked me to post my notes, unedited, to our web site. This is not because I am such a great note taker, but it is part of transmitting the knowledge of Taijiquan.

During the last days for our workshop this year, Shifu Chen discussed the so-called secret transmission of Taijiquan. He said in order for a teacher to pass on what he had learned from his teacher, part of the transmission was physically being able to feel what the teacher was doing and then being able to do it. He said another part of this was a theoretical, understanding the whats and hows of the teacher’s actions. Without all aspects of the training the transmission would be incomplete.

Shifu Chen gave an example of a poor transmission. The teacher says, ” Taijiquan is like a wheel.” The student interprets that as, “Taijiquan is agile.” While it is true that Taijiquan is agile, this diminishes many aspects of the theoretical transmission, Taijiquan is like a wheel.

Shifu Chen said that his teacher, Hong Junsheng, told him that he used the same exact words that Chen Fake used to instruct him. Shifu Chen also uses the same words, and for those of use who do not have functional Chinese, he spends time telling us the exact Chinese terms and explaining their meaning.

I hope Shifu Chen will correct any serious errors on my part. I will strive to do better in the future with both my students and my notes in transmitting exactly what I have received.

Without further ado, my notes, which are broken up into sessions to limit the number of topics discussed. I hope this will facilitate comments and questions.

Thursday Evening

Use a 3-point contact with the opponent.

Longer – yin-yang stretch

Fix a point

Demarcation line, body goes opposite directions linearly and rotationally. Eventually this can be anywhere.

This is the separation of yin and yang.

Richard Johnson

{ 1 comment… read it below or add one }

Richard Johnson February 12, 2011 at 9:21 am

As requested, I have begun to post my notes from the recent Bentonville, AR workshop. The few lines I wrote from each session represents about 3 hours of instruction, so the notes are dreadfully incomplete. i am not sure of what use they could be to anyone, but perhaps they will introduce you to or remind you of topics you have worked on with Shifu Chen. Perhaps they will bring up questions that will bring new understanding. Good luck and practice hard.

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