2025.11.28 Chen Zhonghua Taijiquan 12th Sydney Workshop Private Training Notes
陈中华太极拳第十二澳洲悉尼讲座笔记安杰 (英文)
Workshop Day 1 28.11.2025
Elbow in
Intention is key and can’t be slightly off. Intent must be as if it is real. Headbutt point crushing into your wrist.
Lean back before drawing in with your elbow to stop the possibility of leaning forward. When you lean back, don’t retreat with mingmen. Mingmen must always be on.
Pull in or push out with triangles i.e. thigh up to kua, inner armpit to kua.
Peng also needs to be based on triangles.
Master Chen “Watch me, I don’t push”. Just keep gaining ground without losing it or retreating. Keep adjusting. It’s not just one move.
Master Chen: “You need to keep adjusting, so they don’t catch your centre (torso)”
All body one piece and walk forward.
Master Chen: “Slam elbow into the wrist (without moving the wrist), like a hammer into the nail.”
Sink down with knees, more like open up in proportion.
No pushing or fighting. Engage then keep adjusting. Your opponent will fall over. If you push, they will resist and adjust. (Just like failing upwards.)
Play around with the height to see what works. Adjust your height to see what fits.
My feeling is that you need to reset your thinking.
Lock forearm and go around with shoulder/upper back.
Day 2 29.11.2025
The only correct action is when you don’t know what’s happening. If you know what’s happening then it’s wrong.
Movement is in a different dimension, that’s why the opponent can’t feel it and it’s how you equalise.
Only bend knees, nothing else. Don’t think about your body, just drop with your knees. Even go up on your toes, balance should be on your big toes. Train your big toes.
Me: I need to bend my knees forward more. Kua should also fill forward and tilt straight ahead. This also applies to spiral punch and all yilu.
Master Chen: “There’s no fighting back, there’s no feeling.”
No interruptions or pushing back
As you expand, come inwards.
Hong said: “No move is bigger than 1 inch.” Just reinforce joint by joint.
Power on the elbow, use more power. The moves are separate lines, first move pulls then separate move cuts the line. Pull with the right elbow then crash with the left elbow. This is called “desynchronised synchronisation”.
Elbow training with power is good to develop this but need to be accurate.
Spiral punch. Hand rotation then drive power with the elbow, then open with armpit. Drive back with thigh then knee in order to connect with the floor.
Taiji is moving in a different dimension.
Screw the elbow in and aim at their centre, 90 degrees on. Aim at their danzhong. Can’t be any slack when you drill your elbow in.
Further from this, if you know where the opponent is coming from, then you don’t wait for them to push, you drill straight away with your elbow into their arms.
Three main threads of Chen style Taiji quan refer to the stick, the rope and the rock. Master Chen explained these as follows: The stick is linking. The rope is de-linking and the rock is hitting, so they are different approaches. Master Hong’s skill was linking and catching the whole of the opponent’s body. The other example was when de-linking a famous Taiji practitioner who was unable to be caught or tied up in his body (can’t recall name). Nobody could catch him.
We practised the shovel step with the arm in and Master Chen also explained that this delinking is a skill that needs to occur during the step. So the arm needs to be delinked from the chest. A good way after experimenting that I found felt better, was by really sucking the chest down into the dantian and the arm felt a lot less restricted after that. If you don’t de-link then it will all be trapped together with the torso.
Master Chen also described this in terms of grabbing someone’s arms and then getting their torso. Master Chen showed how after his arms were grabbed that he could adjust and then ensure that the torso wasn’t grabbed, so he could make additional moves afterwards.
Master Chen said if you’re not being weird, it’s not Taiji.
Don’t push, only adjust.
Day 3 30.11.2025
Taiji moves should be awkward and different; otherwise it’s not Taiji.
Master Chen: “Just be how you are, not tense or soft.”
There are 3 lines, one on each arm/side and one on the torso. The torso line you shouldn’t move. This means there’s a lot of rotation and movements that you have to do in other areas, in order to keep the torso lying straight and facing ahead 90°.
If you don’t keep the torso line on, then you’re always tossing and moving the body as one unit and not separating.
You need to try to copy the way that Master Chen is doing things and try to make it look like you’re doing the same thing.
Three basic movements:
1. elbow moving forwards and backwards
2. the waist rotating but not moving off the position
3. up and down with the knees adjusting but not moving to move the torso on the down. For the up and down, it looks like your knees are moving but they are not. The torso has to keep a straight vertical line.
These moves are similar to a construction crane that can move in all different directions, but it maintains its shape and form. Master Chen said if you lose the shape, then you’re losing everything.
Master Chen also illustrated the way to practise the three foundational exercises using a t-shirt. It’s important the T-shirt is held at exactly the right length. It should have about 15% power left in your movement. Then do the move.
Further to this Master Chen said that you always should be in the right position. This is a position that is to your advantage. Master Hong would always ask people during their push hands interactions to “stop” all of a sudden and check that position, and make sure it is a good position. You should always be in a good position.
We also did a push hands exercise where you fix the danzhong and you only move the arms separate from the chest. It is important that you only open up the armpits when you’re doing this. Then you have one forward and one back and then entice the opponents. Then do both in One direction at the same time, so either pushing or pulling. The effect of this is to cause them to lock up and you can push them. Later on you don’t wait until the pushing forwards and backwards is done. As soon as you touch, you have the line and you push together on them to lock them up.
3 caps – This refers to three different weights on your body. The first one is a weight on your shoulder which forces your shoulders down. Second one is a weight on your kua which forces the core rotation to go down into the knees and the last one is the rotation of the knees which goes straight to the floor all without moving. So it’s important that the chest movement goes down into your knees the whole way. It doesn’t rise up.
Track and then aim is on at the end. So for six ceiling four closing the hand starts in a position. Then the arc slowly moves until the line is straight and the hand makes one long line with the rear elbow.
Kao move is to push a little bit then get the opponent to lock up. Then switch to pulling against your own chest and bumping them out. This can be done with your chest as one piece or your shoulder as one piece.
Palm covering hands punch 掩手肱捶 is really focused on the pull with the rear elbow. The front and the punching hand only twists slightly, if it can’t reach. You need to pay attention to the line that you’re pulling in and pull the opponent into that line and they just poke themselves with your fist. There is no lifting with the shoulder or extra force in the punch. Master Chen said you need to entice the opponent into landing on your fists – so you can play with them first, move around a bit and then all of a sudden pull them on.
We also practised Three points and moving up and down just using the horizontal (forward) movement of your knees. These 3 points are your bottom, your upper back and your head, they should be flat against the wall.
Kua should point with intent up at the opponent’s middle for a better catch
Master Chen told me: “Don’t worry about training with power. Just keep training yilu and eventually power will come out in the moves.”
Remember to always be honest with yourself and if you think you can do something normally you can’t. You have to have a reference like a wall or camera to confirm if you’re actually doing it properly.
Don’t use strength, only try to find the line.
Actually the elbow doesn’t need to come in until the end when it finds the line. If the elbow comes in too early then it will cause more tension on the shoulder.
Day 4 1.12.2025
Twisting the Towel partner exercise
Find the stick and rope (feeling with your 2 arms). Rotate from the centre. Take up slack first then pull with the rope side. The stick (arm) is one piece and doesn’t move. Also use 虎背熊腰 with this move.
Keep looking for the stick feeling and don’t forget it.
Catch with 3 points then use 3rd hand as a trigger. Set them up then pull the trigger. How do you create the extra hand? Direct up with your kua to give your opponent the same grabbing feeling. After that your opponent is caught, use your free other hand to push them.
虎背熊腰 Lock the shoulder blades down and then fill your back with your spine, so it’s all one ball but also use the kua. Make everything a ball and expand every joint. The kua should come up in order to link down to your feet.
Positive Circle
Whip your head against your foot. The middle is empty and stretched out. If people touch you, they should bounce off. Then add to the next move with the hand going out.
Cut movement. Find the spot where you can use power with your right forearm. Only expand the armpit, everything else should be fixed and not move at all. Then cut.
Master Chen: “It’s on your spine. It’s on your spine. It’s on your spine.”
It has to be on your opponent’s spine for the move to work.
Grind with elbow on the line. Practice against the wall. Any move and it won’t work.
On your spine + tiger back = for anything to work
They go high, you go low. They go low, you go high.
Engage, then lift over with upper back, extend arms only (to push opponent out)
When done perfectly, the moves should be done like a jolt on the opponent, like a bus slamming on the brakes at short notice to give you a jolt. It’s instant and then it disappears.
Master Chen also mentioned the power from the arm should come out through the hu kou 虎口 (tiger’s mouth), similar to a long stick with rounded prong on the end, like those used by the riot squads, it presses against the opponent.
Master Chen: “You’re doing a move, but it’s not Taiji.”
Master Chen also illustrated with a partner the fist covering heart (two parallel arms) 护心拳 when the arms roll and catch the opponent’s arm. You then pull backwards and down in a diagonal direction to drag the opponent to the ground while crushing their arm.
Master Chen “If you are struggling with a stronger opponent and get a little bit of the way with the move to finish it off, you just fall down to the ground with your torso on top of them, like a mudslide.”
Master Chen: Don’t be worried about getting things wrong or doing things the correct way every single time because this will limit your learning development and growth.
Master Chen: “Look at me. You are still moving. It is totally not moving.”
Master Chen: “The opponent (you) can do whatever. I’m just going to do my move. I don’t care.”
Master Chen: “These are not my words. These are exactly what Master Hong said”
Master Chen: “That’s not how you touch, this is how you touch.”
