- We have to keep in mind one thing: Master Chen only pick up universal things. He chooses one person and corrects his/her move, but everybody is doing the same mistake
- We continued with Knee up and down (Xi Zou Shang Xia)
- Body like a cylinder on the sand. When you dig the sand under the cylinder, it drops without effort. Like a rock sinking into the water
- The movement of the knees must create a vacuum in the kua. The body drops because of this vacuum. The body has a free fall
- Body too synchronise: It means there is no vacuum. You are driving the body into the empty spot. No, it has to fall
- It’s like you are drunk, somebody’s holding you and he or she let go
- Peng means you always have control. We are training a free fall in this exercise
- If you go sideways it means you still have power on the body. If you only drop, the body has no power. It’s a vertical drop
- Lead with the knee
- No movement on the shoulder. No acting. Shoulder has no intention
- The shift of the lead is very important. By doing this you are in a position where you are always using indirect power. If you use indirect power, your opponent cannot engage you
- The problem is our lead is 90% of time on the shoulder
- Master Chen demonstrated Brush the Knee with Doug. You want to apply Six Sealing and Four Closing, but it doesn’t work. You shift the lead to the knee. As you drop you continue to stretch. This is gravity power, your opponent cannot stop you. We should find a partner and train that. I tried this one yesterday with a partner. He described a feeling of a wall falling on him
- To apply this move is very difficult. In push hands we are so busy, to switch the lead to the knees and kua is virtually impossible
- Train the drop in Brush the Knee incrementally. This way we reduce the possibility of tossing. With a big step (like in the Form) the possibility of tossing increases
- You are squeezing all the space out. There is no space left for your opponent
- Knee up and down: the knee goes down in front of you. It creates a round hole. If the knee drops sideways there is only a horizontal dimension
- If the kua is not open, the body is sluggish
- We need to have a big range, otherwise our movements are shallow. Movements must be deep
- Two barriers on the body. 1) horizontal: splits the body into two halves (upper and lower body). 2) vertical: splits the body into two halves (left and right). Your body is divided into 4 quarters. Your opponent only has access to one quarter (front). Do not let your opponent to have access to your lower body. It is like you pushing a tree. You cannot push a tree because you don’t have access to the roots
- We took a move out of the Form, the move after the last Flash the Back, before the jump on the 45 degrees line.
- The arms only appear to move because of the up and down movement of the knees
- The feet should never move. This is only possible if the kua and the knees are open. When you don’t have the range in the kua, you can move the feet. But it’s a rotation on the heel
- The elbow is forever tied with a rubber cord to the kua. If you see the elbow moving, it is always from the kua. I remember what Master Chen told me last year: “The elbow is the kua”
