admin note: content from old website written by long time student
Master Chen Zhonghua October 2007 New York Seminar
1. When there is rotation, there must be no movement.
2. Shifu said that the students who get really good don’t necessarily work hard or can think abstractly. They are humble and really have no ego. Many people believe themselves to be humble but they are not. Shifu said when practicing push hands that it is not “investing in loss” because you always want to gain. It is just not caring if you get pushed out. It is that you change the way of thinking. You don’t believe being pushed out or fall down as loss for failure.
3. You don’t actually ever push someone out. You ensure that you move in ways that in the end they just bounce out.
4. Rotation called cutting. You cut through angles and curves when rotating, meaning across a right angle on a curve. For instance, when your arm is extended, there is an angle in your elbow. You rotate the elbow to cut that angle. The same occurs all over the body. The angles in the elbows, knees, etc. must be maintained for integrity.
5. Generally speaking, I don’t finish a rotation and have to go a little bit more.
6. Make the entire body a series of stretched, concave circles.
7. Body should feel like it is pumped full with air so one is full, stretched and unable
to collapse anywhere.
8. Always try to get over the hump by bringing yourself to 12 o’clock. Then as you
move to 3 o’clock you have gravity with you.
9. Shifu tries to expose corners on opponent’s body. There are many if one
collapses. Remove all corners on ourselves.
Dang/Guas/Torso
1. Shifu says I work too hard. My guas are not that rusty. It’s just that I don’t know where to put my guas. Just like that I don’t know where to put my elbow in relation to my finger even though it is a very small area.
2. Butt does not tilt back as I often do.
3. Visualize an arch from your hamstrings to your back. Maintain that integrity.
4. Dantien/waist modulates the amount of power you issue. Like how a car
transmission modulates the power.
5. Crease in gua area remains open, stretched and never tilts inward collapsing into
the body.
