Yuxin Liu

Six sealing four closing practice.

Lock the triangle of front shoulder, back shoulder and elbow, stretch front hand and back shoulder coming into the line. Front shoulder need come down and armpit need to open so the energy does not leak out.
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Vertical transfer to horizontal. Like tree structure, branches are horizontal, trunk and roots are vertical, roots always try to do down.

Three iron hats keep weighing you down. Head neck level, waist level, knee level.

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Walking obliquely on both sides. Make sure the R elbow is locked into a triangle shape with the body and only rotate from the torso.

Knees do not follow. Fist draping over body (both knees), lean with the back (L knee). The power in the knees is poking into the ground.
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-Pole shaking. Circles. Hand do not come back/reverse. At the beginning when done right, the move is small. Through training, we increase the range. The move overall is synthesized, but each part/move is individual. Arm has no up and down movement. (Arm is in and out). Do the circle horizontally, and the shoulder will get caught, which will be exercised. (tie a knot, then untie). Elbows come in, lock the upper body, bend the knees to go down, then hands go out. Add stepping to increase the range. Later on the moves will merge, and people see the circles. The overall effect is an illusion.
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Free class to public. Introduction.

-Taiji. Yin and yang. Horizontal and vertical-cross-stable. The limbs are tied to the rod. Yin yang relationship is 90 degrees/connected (180 is too distract). How to place two credit cards supporting each other and stable? http://practicalmethod.com/2012/06/space-and-time-online-video/ Vertical is top-bottom line, horizontal is 90 degrees.
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Key words: horizontal and vertical, zig zag

- Block touching coat.

Elbow position. Elbow is too high/out. Moving horizontally is because you are double heavy, is because there is no yin yang separation. Moves only led by fingers are not horizontal. Arms go length wise. The horizontal move has to be a result of the vertical move. All the moves must go over. By pass, go over, curve (no confrontation). The core is always the same, so we do not deviate and we make progress.
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Key words: six sealing four closing, generation and transmission of power.

-When we see Master demonstrates moves using tools such as sticks, rubber cord, tables etc. we should act it out, replicate it word for word. It is not just a teaching method; it is how we should actually do it.

-To experience what not moving is. Block touching coat, arm out, chest not responding, the inside never moved.

-Six sealing four closing. Someone holds two sides of your armpit, stretch the armpit to open, only use the armpit. The chest does not move with the arm, power bypass the chest. 1. two hands find the track, have the overall movement. 2. what is fajin. Find the zone. On a certain point, one part accelerates, one part does not follow/move (it is locked/still). We practiced torso staying still, only use the elbow to drive the hand with fajin (shoulder does not get involved either), hands stay on the track. Only when we can rotate the torso, we can add the rotation. Movements make you lose power, rotation is not a movement.
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Key words: Elbow kua position. Thresholds. Fire schedule.

-Ground dragon is bow and arrow move. There is no up and down movements. Anchor the L foot, pull so hard and large the body gets low, split left and right so wide that the body goes down. Twist from kua to go forward without getting up.

-Movements need stay large for a long time until everything inside is all exercised. Find the edge and every move you stretch a little bit more to increase the quality. It will appear you are pretending at the beginning. Training becomes more insubstantial.
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Lean with back. Turn to the left, stretch the R armpit and R elbow. Keeping that stretch, R elbow does not come close to the body, but draw a circle outwards, R fist is locked to the temple/forehead. Turn and create the stretch from R elbow to L toes, straight line. 6 o’clock to 12 o’clock is the longest line. It is easy to over turn here, losing the line of stretch. (center of the body feels expanding). Pivot on L toes, turn L heel out, without dropping L knee. R kua does not fold or close, it is open, twisted and stretched. Look towards L toes.
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-Learning method. Learning is like you have a size 24 bike chain and try to fit on a size 24.5 bike. When you fit the front, the back will not fit; when you fit the back, the front will fall. It is never complete. We have to keep going back and forth until real physical changes happen, until the body is stretched out. Making both sides right is the training. Master has talked about this a few times, such as, we have to learn to advance with flaws, the process of forge, how to get the head and the chest position right, learn to compromise.
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-Lever

First class. Second closing. Fulcrum is central axis. Power on the back heel. Load is on the front hand.

Second class. Brush the knee. Closing the gap, L forearm and L thigh, L shoulder and L kua compressing to each other. The fulcrum is the hand.
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-Today we started with a ‘simple’ move of locking the forearm and only use the rotation of the waist/torso to propel the forearm to go forward.
The forearm is dead. First it is one piece. Second, it is in a tight tube, so no sway sideways. Third is the arm itself does not have power. In this way, there is yin yang separation.
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Today we finished going through the first 13 moves of Yilu.

There are way more details than this, but here are some notes especially useful for myself.

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Form 9 Walking obliquely on both sides.

Stay on the 45 degree line.

- The kick. Make sure the weight is fully on the R leg. The back is totally locked while doing the kick. Stretch from the back of the leg, push the knee into the kua-heel line. Use the middle part of the bottom of the foot targeting the knee. Heel lands without any moves in the upper body.
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- Correction on Six Sealing Four Closing.
My front kua was popping up, but need more horizontal stretch. Also need go bigger.
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- Negative Circle.
First count, shoulder needs to go down and the elbow needs to go over to come in. Hand does not move.
Turn with the waist. The torso is a cylinder and has three sections: shoulder, waist and kua. Only rotate the waist (the middle section of the cylinder), fix the top and bottom to create the stretch.
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- We use linear straight moves to create moves that are not linear. Example: How the crane works and how the airplane takes off.
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- Training method by restriction. In early stage, we separate the arms from the torso and train the arms only. Then we train the kua only by keeping other parts of the body not moving. Once the arms are in position, then it is locked. Only move the kua. Now the shoulder elbow and torso are called not moving. Otherwise the movements of the kua will be cancelled by the movements of other parts. We want the parts we don’t restrict to get all the training.
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Today everyone practiced some moves and Master Chen gave corrections.

- Three Hats.
Top hat is on top of the head. Imagine weighing 20 pounds so the neck will have to be stiff and straight. When you push up, it is too heavy, the body is actually pushed down. Read more

-Kelvin reviewed the details of Buddha’s warrior attendant pounds the mortar, here is some of the key points.
1. Mid fingers in line with the center of the chest. Read more

- Punch to the Ground. Before Chen Fake time, it was called 栽捶（zai chui）, means plant the hammer. It was changed to hit/punch later on.

- Kick with the Heels. There are three lines. The vertical line from the head to the standing heel. The line between two hands. And the line from the two kuas to the kicking heel. All three lines need to be fully stretched out, where there is a pause and it is a fixed posture. If you cannot fully stretch, at least make a stop. For older people it is more important to train the balance and stability. Read more

- Once you learn the choreography, your ability is highly dependent on the rhythm.

- Whenever you are doing a true rotation, there is no backward moves. It is like you are pushing a wheel barrel 45 degree up the hill. Every time you stop, you have to put a wedge to jam the wheel. So you can keep going. Whenever you let go or go back, you will roll down the hill. Example is Cloud Hands. You advance, jam and then advance and jam. We use the elbow to jam so the hand is free to do the next move.
My understanding is the jam is the anchor, every move there is an anchoring point. Elbow and kua are used to anchor. In this way you can keep coiling and never lose the power. It is like you have an anti-reversing lock. https://www.shiyongquanfa.cn/archives/118607
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- Positive Circle.
There are three sections. In each section, the lead needs to be clear. 1. In with elbow. Once the arm is in position, it does not move anymore. 2. Turn with the kua/waist. Only rotate the shoulder-kua line, do not move the arm on its own. Shoulder need stay in position without any displacement, no popping, no swaying sideways. 3. Out with hand. The power is on the back foot/kua. The kicking of the back foot into the ground propels the rest part of the body to go forward. Get onto your tippy toes to push, there will be a stretch through the inner thigh. The torso opens up. Read more

- Front trick and rear trick.
When you have movement, you have no power. Fight without movements. Arms are placed in position and locked. The waist causes horizontal movements and the knees cause up and down movements. Power from the waist and the feet.
The middle does not move, so the arms are powered by (react with) the back foot kicking into the ground. Same as the power points of White Crane Spreads Its Wings. Read more

- Clarity. At the beginning we learn the moves like following a printed instructional book. So we only learn the fixed posture, and the transition does not matter. This is called to trace the movements. No flow and as big as possible. Each move we pause like someone is taking a picture of your posture. Through years of practice the flow comes, without losing the frame.

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- First Cloud Hands. 1.Three counts. Follow the steps and procedure. 2. First count, in with elbow need to be very clear. 3. On the second count, open the front kua and turn with the waist. Do it big. 3. On the second count, lock the kua and two knees, only rotate. 4. On the third count, only back kua folds, pivoting on the front kua. 5. Open the front kua – Lock the front kua – Squeeze the back kua to the front kua. Master Chen used first form Pound the Mortar as example to explain how the front kua locked can create power. The sixth move, center of chest is locked, only step up from the kua.

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- Levels. On level one, we learn the choreography. On level two, we coordinate the moves. On level three, we learn the energy alignment and are able to manipulate.
If you are in level three, all the moves are from the core, the baihui to huiyin vertical line. Everything else is passive, they only adjust. It is the vertical line ties everything together. You can train exaggerating the moves of the torso, without compromising the structure.

- Moves go bigger so all the corners are open.
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The move is six sealing four closing like, but the training focus is different. Focusing on converting the power from the torso to the fingertip by rotation. Read more

-Movements come from the kua, not the shoulders.

-The learning stage. At the beginning, you trace the picture. That is playing/performing Taiji. Later, we need to implement Taiji principles. We have to actually do and practice Taiji. The moves need to fundamentally change.
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Cross hand
First only open the hands without any other movements. Then push the shoulders to open/propel the arms. Read more