“Rotation is changing direction without changing direction”
What kind of confusing statement is that?
Learning taijiquan is a feat in resolving conflicts.
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Kelvin Ho
Master Chen Zhonghua started with a story about the history of China and Chen Style Taijiquan. Before the first Qin emperor defeated 6 other kings and united China, there was the period of Spring and Autumn 春秋 (which has nothing to do with the two seasons). Back then, there were 800 states, each had their own cultures, and they all flourished. Today, there are different levels of governments in China: Federal, Provincial, and County. The Chinese government wanted to get rid of the county level government, but they couldn’t done. Each county turned out to map back to the old states. The Chinese government had full election for village officials, but there are large families at the county levels, with full election, these large families will gain control at the county level goverments. These families managed to get around the one-child policy themselves.
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A leader is someone or something that others follow. If a number of people have to go through a tunnel that is only large enough to fit a person through at a time, the first person who goes through it is the leader, whom the rest of the people just follow. If multiple people try to go through the tunnel at the same time, there will be a jam, and no one can come out the other end. Read more
- Smart phone
- Tripod
- Notebook
The first two items allow your camera to be set at the appropriate height, distance and angle for the teacher/instructor to have an optimal view to provide feedback to the student. These items can be replaced with other equipment that can provide equivalent adjustment of the camera. The 3rd item facilitates note taking (don’t forget to post your notes too at the website).
Today, shifu emphasized on how to learn. The first thing about learning is to listen to instructions and then to copy. Some people tried to copy without listening to the full instructions, and that won’t be a success copy either.
To copy, it’s to do everything exactly the same by definition.
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On Monday, Sep 28, 2020, Master Chen Zhonghua instructed on the move “Turning Flowers and Playing with Sleeves” from Cannon Fist during the online class. The requirement was to jump off the left foot, rotate 360 degrees in the air, and land on the right foot. I had so much difficulty doing it during class. I was tossing all over the place. Master Chen said he would check on us again a week later. This was the benefit of having such a regular class. Read more
Master Chen started today’s class with a story and a method people used to remember things precisely.
The story was about how the Secretary was corrected by an old person on the details of an event. The Secretary referred his speech to a document. However, it turned out that the document was incorrect, and the audio recording had the truth as pointed out by the old person. In today’s society, we rely on a lot of documents instead of trying to remember things in our heads. If the documents were actually recorded in correctly, we would have the facts incorrect.
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Chinese Class
Master Chen Zhonghua introduced Wild Horse Parts Its Mane as a foundation exercise. If space is available, we can do it as a line drill.
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We started with the various foundations. Master Chen Zhonghua mentioned that we must be able to copy the external shape first, e.g. he must be able to recognize which foundation we were attempting to do. If we were doing the yilu, others must recognize that we were doing a Chen Style Yilu, and then a Practical Method Yilu.
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“Make it real” Series
Exercise 1
Open the kua to cause a horizontal rotation. Lock the top by using one hand to the hold the wrist on the other side. Stretch the fingers. Where the middle finger is pointing at changes as the rotation caused by the kua happens.
Open the right kua to turn left.
Open the left kua to turn right.
Don’t let the left knee point down when opening the left kua.
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We started with double positive circle.
We used a rubber cord to tie to elbow to the waist, so that the elbow does not move by itself.
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Due to Covid-19, cities are locked down and travel is restricted. Practical Method workshops by Master Chen Zhonghua have been cancelled sihce Mar 2020. When there are new problems, there are new solutions. Master Chen Zhonghua is now offering Zoom online classes, which fill a large part of the gap when workshops are not possible. In fact, I would say that we get to interact with and learn from him more often than ever. Read more
Today, Master Chen corrected the following students’ partial yilu:
- Karen Mattox
- Gerry Gebhart
- Albert Chung
Single Whip
Master Chen used the foot shovelling out in single whip as an example to talk about the concept of using a stick to pry open something. We shove the stick into a crack, then the front end of the stick cannot move anymore and stays in the same place. We can then make the crack bigger by prying with the stick. The key is that the one of the stick is not moving. As we pry, we may meet resistence, we can add a longitudinal rotation as we pry, it will allow the stick to go over the resistence. Regarding the single whip, we want to make sure that the toes do not point up as we shovel so that we can apply the longitudinal rotation on the entire left leg. As we shovel the left foot, the weight must stay on the right foot. As we shift over to half horse stance, the longitudinal rotation on the left leg occurs at the same time. Read more
Six Sealing Four Closing 六封四闭
Grandmaster Hong Junsheng studied the names of each move. He looked into the origin of these names, and how the pronounciation might have changed when the information was passed down based on the dialect of the region. The dialects in China can be so different that people from one region might not understand people from another region at all.
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Master Chen demonstrated the foundation exercise Moving-Step Shake the pole, which is the positive and negative circle. He held a real pole to begin with to show the idea behind the foundation exercise. He locked his fron hand, which was holding the pole as a pivot. The rear hand moved the pole. Read more
Master Chen Zhonghua’s Toronto Workshop March 2020-4
Presenter: Chen Zhonghua Length: 9 min. In: English Year: 2020 Difficulty:2/5 At: Toronto, Canada
Master Chen performed a magic trick. No one saw what he did. Once he told us, we could then see it. Would you like to see it too?
Master Chen corrected a few people’s partial yilu today. Each person should remember himself/herself the stopping point, and so it can be continued from that point in future lessons when it is that person’s turn for correction again.
To stretch, we need to so find anchors on the two ends.
Empty means solid, it means power.
We need to find a line in ourselves. Master Chen showed Tinh Thai a version of fetch water that line up her rear elbow with the front hand. We need to make sure that the front shoulder is not in the way.
If we want to have grip in the hands, we need to have grip in the teeth and in the toes.
Six Sealing Four Closing
- Hands don’t move. Create a line between the front hand and rear foot. Read more
Moving Step Positive Circle
- Hold your head up, tuck the chin.
- Each body part performs its own duty. Don’t merge together.
- Factory workers work, not everyone does the same job, but at the same time.
- Example: Move the feet back and forth by themselves, keep the central axis upright, move your hand out and elbow in.
- The waist must go backward while the hand goes forward.
Master Chen Zhonghua’s Toronto Workshop March 2020-3
Presenter: Chen Zhonghua Length: 9 min. In: English Year: 2020 Difficulty:2/5 At: Toronto, Canada
Movement is yin, and structure is yang. Master Chen demonstrated what that meant in this video. There were also other discussions on yin-yang theory, which requires constant practice and understanding.
Morning Session
1-2-3 in general means that we must have a method, and there is a procedure.
We have to listen with our eyes. We can’t just close our eyes and say that we are listening.
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Master Chen Zhonghua’s Toronto Workshop March 2020-1
Presenter: Chen Zhonghua Length: 13 min. In: English Year: 2020 Difficulty:2/5 At: Toronto, Canada
In this video, Master Chen explained what it meant to have a tiger’s back and a bear’s waist, and how to practice it correctly. The close-up view allowed us to see his body movements, and how he corrected the students’ mistakes. It allows the body to be more structured, and the arms to move more freely, and not affect the body by mistake.
We will practice cave in the chest and round the back in the Power Hour Class on Saturday, August 15, 2020 at 8 am ET. http://voov.practicalmethod.ca
We are sorry to announce that this workshop will be cancelled due to covid-19.
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Chen Zhonghua explains where the power is in the form of the first 13 movements of the Yilu form.
Presenter: Chen Zhonghua Length: 7 min. In: English Year: 2020 Difficulty:4/5 At:Edmonton Chen Zhonghua Taiji Academy
Webex class will be held at http://webex.practicalmethod.ca for this video at 10 am ET on Saturday, Aug 1, 2020 to practice these moves together. If you would like to join, please leave a message below.
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.
Zhuang Ying started on Feb 2, 2020, and learned move 5 to 15 and most of the foundations over weekly video-conferencing sessions.
Mark Hanley started in Oct 2016, and has done over 2800 yilus.
Liu Yaokun started on Feb 2, 2020, and learned move 5 to 15 and most of the foundations over weekly video-conferencing sessions.
Peng Li started on Feb 2, 2020, and learned move 5 to 15 and most of the foundations over weekly video-conferencing sessions.
