Yuxin Liu

Kua exercise: 1. Use front kua to draw the circle. Upper body and arms are locked in position, one piece, no move, only use and exaggerate kua movement. You can fold forward and lean back, feet can move to make it even bigger. 2. Use back kua as a hinge/pivot. Front knee can be lifted, lock upper body, arms and front leg as one piece, tight, hinge from the back kua.

All the moves in Chen Style Taijiquan are designed to make your opponent fall onto the back of the head hitting a rock.
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Closed circuit. Ball bearing. Body part, passive/inactive like a sandbag not a basketball. Being charged.

Six sealing and four closing can explain everything. Training model (small element): kua drives the arm. Lock the shape of the arm, arm parallel to the floow, use kua to propel the elbow transferring to the hand. Push into the front foot or back foot, the arm is positive circle or negative circle. Hand elbow shoulder is on a table, no turning of the hand. Arm is like the bifolding door. Clear one on one transmission. Kua pumps upward to the shoulder, shoulder stays down, it goes to the elbow. T, vertical to horizontal. By passing the shoulder, kua is connected directly to the elbow then to the hand. Elbow is a dot. Hong chopped his shoulders off. Upper dantian needs be clear and light. Like a bridge, from a square, chop the corners off, form an arc. Transfer of energy, cannot get stuck on the shoulders. When done right, you are always with the flow and the opponent is always against the flow.
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Train the scissors as an ability/skill. Two way split, in both elbow and armpit, 2 dots. In use or push hands, it is paper cut model, with one side being fixed, like an opponent holding you and you cannot move. Like the crab pincers.

Train the elbow. Thread through the needle, push into pull. Pass the demarcation line/dot. We always move after going through the hole. Before that, it is a push. Elbow has to pass the line, go over.
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3 beats. Cloud hands. When it is 3, the middle is stable and not affected, 2 is swollen but time is taken.

Stepping in six sealing four closing, avoid double heavy, arms go vertical and stepping is horizontal.

Dantian fits tight in a pipe with a lot of tension, no slack/tossing/large protrusion. Example: fist draping over body. The torso is switching inside a pipe, you have to turn over the joints. Foot and oppo arm stretch, the arm is rotating in the shape/frame. Forearm no move can only rotate in a pipe, twist the waist to create the stretch. To twist, you have to lock and move the rest, to create the helix. No twist, no power. It is the yin yang separation. And we continue to create tension on top of the other without releasing/losing any, until the jar explodes. Fundamental moves are a circle.
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Elbow pressing into the shoulder-hand line, is the same result as, fix the elbow and extend the hand. In both cases, the arm becomes straight. We want to lock the hands, and the body does 90%-100% of the moves. Our moves create size. Master used a stick to show how to lock one side and create size.

Punch covering hand. On the punch, without changing the shape, squeeze the fist tight suddenly. It can also be palm, stretch the fingers suddenly.

Going over is a concept. It is not about directions, but about to the other side. Means extend yourself, no blocking or confrontation. It is stretching.
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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