A number of Traditional Chinese Medicine practitioners and patients attended Practical Method experience class on Dec. 20, 2019, and some of them tried taiji for the very first time. Among the participants, there was Rachel Yi, who started studying Practical Method in 2016 in China. She is now attending university in Canada, and is continuing to study PM under my taiji brother Si Chan in Winnipeg. We covered some foundation exercises, the first 13 moves of yilu, and some demonstration of applications.
Instructor: Kelvin Ho Length: 23 min Language: English Year: 2019 Difficulty: 1/5 At: Toronto
This video covers:
Twisting the Towel
Fetch Water
Positive Circle
Negative Circle
Do you have a New Year resolution to become healthier in 2020? Taiji may be your answer. On Dec. 29, 2019 at 10 am, you will have a chance to experience what taiji is like and what health benefits it may bring you at the Chen Style Taiji Experience Class to be held at Channels of Wellness Centre. Come try it out for free!
Push Hands Only Version
Full Version
On Dec. 8, 2019, a Practical Method Taiji Push Hands Workshop was held in Toronto. We had 10 participants, and 4 of them were new to Practical Method. Bert Desjardins drove 4.5 hours from Windsor to Toronto to attended this workshop. We also had the pleasure of having Master Liu Xuwei, who teaches Chen Style Taijiquan Small Frame, in attendance. We covered foundations:
- Twisting the Towel – Don’t move the hand, and only use the foot the squeeze out the hand.
- Fetch Water – Don’t move anything, only focus on opening the kua
- Six Sealing Four Closing – Lock the front hand and rear shoulder, push the front shoulder into the line formed by the front hand and rear shoulder.
- Positive Circle – In with elbow, turn with waist, out with hand. No other body part should be moving except the specific leader.
- Negative Circle – In with elbow, drop the hand on the outside, out with hand.
I was invited along with a number of taiji teachers in Toronto to perform at the 2019 Fountain of Youth Qi Event on Nov. 23, 2019. Each teacher first performed a routine of his choice on stage. In the 2nd part of the event, each teacher demonstrated Cloud Hands, Single Whip and White Crane (Goose) Spread Its Wings of his style. Over generations of transmission, there are many variants of these moves. Many thanks to Sharon Liu, Founder of Fountain of Youth Qi for the invitation and organization of such event.
Official Page: http://www.dyysg123.com/206593211320581365232424739178236373103426371.html
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Push hands is an exercise that examines your understanding of the Taiji principle: Separation of Yin and Yang. While form training transforms your body, push hands provides an opportunity for you to apply your Taiji knowledge and skill. It has also become a popular sporting event both in China and abroad. This workshop is suitable for beginners as well as people at different levels of their training. If you have never tried it before, this is a great opportunity for you to do it in a friendly and safe environment.
推手是一种让人检查对太极原理(分阴阳)理解的练习。 套路训练可以改变人的身体结构,而推手则提供了运用太极拳知识和技能的机会。 它已成为国内外流行的体育赛事。 这训练班适合推手初学者及不同程度培训的太极爱好者。 如果您以前从未尝试过推手,那么这是个让你在友好与安全的环境中初次尝试的绝佳机会。
Today, there was a discussion among some of the North American disciples on intent. What is it? What does it mean?
The discussion allowed me to solidfy a couple of things.
In 2019 Iowa Camp, shifu mentioned:
Spencer’s notes:
The camp’s lessons this time were pervaded by the idea of “intention”. Intention in PM is what we call “to lead”. For example, in the positive circle, the elbow in is the “lead” Intention has no meaning in itself, but it changes everything. I am starting to realize this is one of the reasons Master Chen’s form looks so much different than mine and I can never figure out why. Your eyes can only see movement. The act of leading translates to intention, and when intention is used, the action is different. In with elbow, turn at waist, out with hand… You have to be clear about those intentions. Say them aloud! When the intention is clear, you produce a very thin line. From one large thing, you pull out one dot. This is the concept of silk reeling. Read more
Recently at a 2019 Toronto CA workshop hosted by Kevin Ho, Master Chen Zhonghua demonstrated and taught the participants a training drill that requires the starting position to have the rear heel off the floor and both hands in a double push position, chest high. While going over this drill and teaching to the finer more precise details, he offered that we students feel his back leg starting positions with our hands. One hand was to be placed on the ankle while the other on the inside thigh to feel the active tendons and muscles. He suggested that students pull or rake across these two areas to gain a better understanding of the physical requirements for the drill. When I took my turn, pulling across these areas, something registered with me to the feeling of the amount of tension in the leg as well as what precisely for this move was being used to generate such great power, and speed.
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- Gears on either side of spine move in opposite direction
The gears twist on either side of the spine and your intention along with where you are looking can send power in any direction you want. You can also add better control by also changing the percentage of each lever. with straight spine hold with front left kua use right hand across. them Opening kua to right
Power comes from restrictions, stretch to point of rotation, Movement is muscle., no movement is a lever
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When practicing yilu:
- Put myself inside a fixed sized box.
- Pull against the sides of the box coming into dantian.
- Push against the sides of the box going out of dantian.
Instructor: | Master Chen Zhonghua |
Date: | Mar 7-10, 2020 |
I was asked to write a post about my overall experience with Practical Method up to this point, so I’ll try my best to put those experiences into words. My first live experience with Practical Method was during the Toronto seminar with Master Chen Zhonghua in March of 2019. Since then I’ve had the opportunity to train on and off with both Kelvin Ho and Hugo Cascoduro (depending on my work schedule), with most of this post addressing the live push hands and applications portion of the training.
Push Hands was demonstrated at 2019 Canadian Cultural and Martial Arts Festival
Yilu Performance at 2019 Canadian Cultural and Martial Arts Festival
Kelvin Ho performed Taiji sword at 2019 Canadian Cultural and Martial Arts Festival on June 8, 2019.
I am teaching Chen Style Taijiquan Practical Method at Martial Arts Club @ York University. This is an introductory course, which will cover a taste of foundations, form, application drills and push hands.
Class Info:
Date: Wednesdays, June 5-26, 2019
Time: 6:30 pm to 7:30 pm
Location: Room 202 of Vanier College (#56 on the map)
If you are interested, please contact Huy Huynh at huynh.h@live.com.
This week, I found myself able to drill the opponent down causing him to eventually fall vertically to the ground. Read more
Presenter: Kelvin Ho Length: 28 min. In: English Year: 2018 Difficulty:1/5 At:Toronto
The following are highlights of my workshop notes workshop March 2 to 5th. I have tried to organize them into categories so I could better relate them. I did not capture everything
Workshop notes:
All Questions Should be asked in order to bring clarity: Hear It , See it, Feel It – the 3 questions you want answered
Principle – Yin and Yang separation life – I want to be good
Concept – all moves are indirect education
Action – convert into action use
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We are here because we’re humans, not animals.
Everything is like loose sand. Among the sand, some things might have a spark. There’s nothing wrong with sand, and nothing wrong with other ways of moving, such as other forms of martial arts or football. It just depends on what you want. Master Chen is looking for the sparks in the sand.
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My attempt to recount what Master Chen said the morning of 3/2/2019 at the Toronto workshop
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#Foundation instructions
3 count positive circle
-maintain equal size in all 3 counts
-initially how you feel and shape doesn’t matter
-count 1 & 3 is easy, 2nd is difficult
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Day 0
Fetch Water
- Put my front knee against the bench.
- My front knee should be on top of my front heel.
- Make my fetch water action much, much, much bigger. Only when there is size, it becomes useful. My action is way too small, Master Chen told me the same at the last workshop as well. I have not changed yet.
- Once I am done with stretching the top, while not moving the front kua, knee, foot, move the rear foot to increase size.
- Whatever I do, the front knee is not moving.
- Train the whole yilu with one specific part not moving.
Kelvin Ho was invited to perform at Yee Hong Chinese New Year Celebration on Feb. 12, 2019.
In Kelvin Ho’s article “Opponents stop moving when I move” written Dec 24 2018; I was one of the opponent’s who was not moving when he came in. I agree with his statement ‘there was no feedback/trigger’. I felt like a deer in the headlights when he came in. The definition says:
“Someone caught in a state of paralyzing surprise, fear, or bewilderment. Likened to the tendency of deer to freeze in place in front of an oncoming vehicle”.
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During practice on Dec. 23, 2018, we were practicing how to move in after making contact with the opponent. The particular exercise involved the two right forearms touching at one point. One person attempted his best to prevent the opponent from coming in, including moving his arm around. Everyone did this exercise against the others one by one. One student observed that when I showed how to move in, the opponent always appeared to have stopped his arm movement as soon as I started to move in. Others would struggle to fight at the upper body or the arm with the opponent. I found that being an interesting observation. Another student commented that he didn’t react or do any subsequent action when I moved in because there was no feedback/trigger to tell him to do anything, and he would just “watch” me coming in. I further demonstrated what they tended to do, which was to push his hand/arm forwarded as they moved the body forward, in which case, the opponent would respond immediately and stop me from coming in possibly using different methods. There should be no push at any time. Read more
Recently, I had a dream where I used my thigh to push down the opponent at his thigh. Shifu came over and mentioned something that I didn’t quite understand. I then practiced that move with another student named Benz, and I got that move in the dream. When I woke up, I realized that I learned something.
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Master Chen has stated before fajin is everything is in the correct place, add speed. How do we add speed?
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The ability to lock the opponent is an important one we need to continuously to improve on in Practical Method. In order to send the opponent to the floor in what seemingly an effortless manner (in reality, it is not really effortless), we always need to lock the opponent first. However, more often than not, especially at the beginning of our learning, we use a lot of brute force to keep the opponent in certain position. However, locking the opponent simply means disallowing him or her to move. As long as the opponent is not moving, the objective is achieved. Read more