This video describes the type of moves in the Chen Style Taijiquan Practical Method under the concept of Sink the Waist to Press the Elbow. Taught by Chen Zhonghua and videotaped by Allan Belsheim.
Presenter: Chen Zhonghua Length: 9 min. In: English Year: 2020 Difficulty:1/5 At:Edmonton Chen Zhonghua Taiji Academy
Skype class will be held at http://skype.practicalmethod.ca for this video at 10 am ET on Saturday, July 25, 2020. If you would like to join, please leave a message below.
{ 2 comments… read them below or add one }
0.25 Turning Flower out of the Bottom of the Sea, Fist of Lifting and Blocking, Sink the Waist to Press the Elbow, and the Whip Wrapping around the Body all belong to the same category of movements. These 4 movements share the fact that they all have a core/rod that rotates causing the things attached to the core to go around, like a propellor or a rattle drum.
1:50 The other main type of Practical Method movement (opposite to these 4 movements in discussion) is like having an auger being moved from the outside causing the inside to drill down. This is locking the inside and moving the outside.
2:38 Back to about these 4 movements, we lock the outside, move the inside. The hands in Turning Flower out of the Bottom of the Sea may look like that they are moving, but that is the exact opposite. We have to find a position that we can lock the hands, and use the inside (e.g. waist) to cause the hands to move.
3:33 For Fist of Lifting and Blocking, while the fists go to the left, waist actually turns to the right. The arms need to adjust/adapt to the movement to allow the energy to be transmitted to the fists. There is no structure change to the arm itself, much like how a whip can allow the energy to go to the tip as one flicks the whip at the handle.
5:53 Turning Flower out of the Bottom of the Sea: There is a vertical axis in the middle. Energy is split from the dantian to go to the foot and to the head, i.e. the head can’t go down during this move. With that fixed axis, there is also a stretch wrapping around the axis to cause the right arm to go from top to bottom, and the left arm to go from bottom to top.
7:09 The Whip Wrapping around the Body: We lock the arms at certain position that is not fully open. The power comes from the dantian, radiating out to the fist. The elbows have to come in, while the fists have to go out.
8:24 If we imagine have two gears engaged with each other, and the two gears are rotating. One type of movement is from the core (inside) going outside, the other type is from the outside going into the core (inside). The 4 movements in this video belong to the former type.
These moves are complex and explained clearly by Shifu. The part I particularly appreciated was the explanation of the “flowery old language” used and its true meaning. Thank you.