I started learning Chen Style Taijiquan Practical Method in 2005. I learned a rough version of the yilu within nine months. I am a persistent person that continuously seeks progress. As the years have gone by I have missed essential details that are in the form, even though many people would not recognize those missing pieces. Let face it, a form with 81 postures in which each posture has several movements/stretches/rotations in it is a huge undertaking!
The pandemic precipitated Kelvin Ho and I training every morning through video conferencing. In fact, I bought a 54 inch TV, so with my head phones on, it has the near experience that we are training next to each other. We first did this 8 years ago as a means of increasing the number of yilus we did and to encourage each other to be consistent. I have always seen Kelvin as a committed Taiji practitioner with an excellent eye for details. A month into training with one another in the mornings, it became evident to me that his yilu was much clearer and cleaner than mine. His eye for details allowed him to be more precise and later on found out he obtained and/or retained obvious and subtle details that I missed. I brought this up and some how, I don’t remember the details of the conversation, “go figure”, we agreed on him correcting my entire yilu.
My personal logic was I would go through the corrections rather fast, given the fact I have done well over 12,000 yilus and over the course of the past 15 years. That logic couldn’t have been more wrong. Kelvin’s ability to break down each posture is remarkable! Most of the posture corrections took over an hour!!! It’s important to note the longer you do this more restrictions are placed within the form. Master Chen Zhonghua told me, the higher level you get, the more difficult it becomes. What Kelvin put me through was specific, detailed and very hard work…and very worthwhile! I have no doubts that with continued help from Kelvin on my yilu, I will emerge from this pandemic with a much clearer and cleaner form. So, with Kelvin assisting Master Chen in teaching the online courses next month, I encourage everyone who is into Practical Method Taijiquan to participate. Even though I sponsored Kelvin’s discipleship to Master Chen, I openly recognize his ability to see and get what I missed. I will be participating whenever possible, and most definitely will register to participate.
