Online Lesson with Master Chen 30th Nov 2020 – Yuxin Liu

– Once you learn the choreography, your ability is highly dependent on the rhythm.

– Whenever you are doing a true rotation, there is no backward moves. It is like you are pushing a wheel barrel 45 degree up the hill. Every time you stop, you have to put a wedge to jam the wheel. So you can keep going. Whenever you let go or go back, you will roll down the hill. Example is Cloud Hands. You advance, jam and then advance and jam. We use the elbow to jam so the hand is free to do the next move.
My understanding is the jam is the anchor, every move there is an anchoring point. Elbow and kua are used to anchor. In this way you can keep coiling and never lose the power. It is like you have an anti-reversing lock. https://www.shiyongquanfa.cn/archives/118607

– Learning Taiji is like learning a language. We need to expose ourselves to the original correct way as much as we can.

– Steve showed a tool he made. It is a tube fixed on a pole where he has to adjust shoulder chest and kua to poke the arm through. When we do one thing right, we pull other things into wrong position. In learning stage we have to allow other parts to adapt. This is a process of smelter or forge. We have to go back and forth many times to adjust. An example is when we try to hollow the chest, we tend to lose the right head position, the head can be leaning forward. At the beginning we need to allow that to happen, and then go back to train the head, then you might lose the chest position.

– After 62 Elbow Strike, there is a position called center pose. In our system is is a transitional pose to White Crane Spreads Its Wings, which is easily to be missed. There is a pause here and it need to be expressed.

– How to make the chest and shoulders smaller/disappear. We fold them into each other. There are two directions.
One is horizontal. Shoulders folding into the chest. Chest hollowing. When the chest is small, the back is stretched and big. Example: Six Sealing Four Closing. The chest is small, kua is big, elbow stay in. Wrong way: Elbows protruding, arms open, shoulders and chest big. Twisting the towel and Upper Cloud Hands. The chest is squeezing through into one shoulder, then to the other. Step Back to Double Shake Feet. The chest is gone, the back is stretched.
Two is vertical. Example is Fetch Water, the shoulders go up and down to reduce the size of the chest.

– Middle Cloud Hands. The left shoulder-kua line is the pivot. The right shoulder drop down to the right kua, causing a rotation. Or the rotation causes the shoulder to drop, like a spiral goes downward.

– For most of the people, the chest is a board. We can train to isolate one dot in the center of the chest called Tanzhong. Sway the arms back, Tanzhong reaches forward; sway the arms forward, Tanzhong becomes the lowest point.