Locations : Toronto

For information on Toronto Workshops and Classes, please click here.


Presenter: Chen Zhonghua  Length: 5 mins  Difficulty: 3/5  Language: English  
Year: 2024  Location: Toronto Practical Method  

Bie-Toronto 2024 Practical Method Workshop
Access is keyed to your user account. You need to be logged in to buy access.
Please register or log in.

Toronto 2024 Practical Method Workshop.


If you like this video, there is an even greater value in purchasing one of the packages below.
Purchase 202401 Toronto Practical Method Workshop Video Package
NOTE:
  1. Video packages are designed for the convenience of students.
  2. Some packages are in fact classifications of videos.
  3. Some videos in packages might have been published and purchased by you individually.
  4. Average prices of videos in packages are considerably lower than individual videos. The number of videos in the package will increase until the sum of all individual video prices equal to two times or more of the package price.
  5. In view of this, if you have purchased a video that are also included in a package your have purchased, or vice versa, we will not give refunds or equivalents.
  6. All videos in packages are paid videos. They are restricted to your personal viewing and other usage. You do not have copyright of the videos and therefore you do not have permission to give/share with others.
  7. Please note that as a customer/user of the website and/or student of Chen Zhonghua, you have given him and the companies/organizations he represents permission to use videos or photos with you, both personally and commercially.
  8. Making a paid purchase constitutes agreement to the above terms.



 

Presenter: Chen Zhonghua  Length: 3 mins  Difficulty: 3/5  Language: English  
Year: 2024  Location: Toronto Practical Method  

Toronto 2024 Practical Method Workshop.


If you like this video, there is an even greater value in purchasing one of the packages below.
Purchase 202401 Toronto Practical Method Workshop Video Package
NOTE:
  1. Video packages are designed for the convenience of students.
  2. Some packages are in fact classifications of videos.
  3. Some videos in packages might have been published and purchased by you individually.
  4. Average prices of videos in packages are considerably lower than individual videos. The number of videos in the package will increase until the sum of all individual video prices equal to two times or more of the package price.
  5. In view of this, if you have purchased a video that are also included in a package your have purchased, or vice versa, we will not give refunds or equivalents.
  6. All videos in packages are paid videos. They are restricted to your personal viewing and other usage. You do not have copyright of the videos and therefore you do not have permission to give/share with others.
  7. Please note that as a customer/user of the website and/or student of Chen Zhonghua, you have given him and the companies/organizations he represents permission to use videos or photos with you, both personally and commercially.
  8. Making a paid purchase constitutes agreement to the above terms.


 

Single Whip
The right hand beak must be strong.
Line up the beak with the left shoulder.
As the left shoulder goes backward, it drives into the right peak.
Once it is connected, we can further use the left elbow to drive into the right beak.
Read more

20190909_Group1

The Toronto Practical Method workshop will be back on Jan 11 to 14, 2024. If you have not yet attended one, you will be amazed by the magical taiji skills of Master Chen Zhonghua, and his insightful guidance in your taiji journey. He has the missing piece that many people are looking for. If you have been here before, we are looking forward to training with you again.
Read more

Today after practicing 5 yilus with John Upshaw, we trained throwing the rubber band around the waist. Then John mentioned that he was looking for the back of the knee going into the line between the kua and the heel. This reminded me to do the same, and use that to drive the waist. Stepping on the right heel was supposed to cause the waist to turn left, and vice versa. I used this method instead of the previous method of throwing the waist around to cause the rubber band to fly. This allowed my vertical central rod to be more stable. I looked like I was just walking when throwing the rubber band around. Later, we tried putting the rubber band on the side to throw it forward. I was able to throw it forward and upward. Then I realized how I could throw my waist by digging downwards and then upwards, and at the end stretch the knee backwards and stepping the heel down to find the stick to support the kua.

Push hands is an exercise that examines your understanding of the Taiji principle: Separation of Yin and Yang. While form training transforms your body, push hands provides an opportunity for you to apply your Taiji knowledge and skill. It has also become a popular sporting event both in China and abroad. This workshop is suitable for beginners as well as people at different levels of their training. If you have never tried it before, this is a great opportunity for you to do it in a friendly and safe environment.

推手是一种让人检查对太极原理(分阴阳)理解的练习。 套路训练可以改变人的身体结构,而推手则提供了运用太极拳知识和技能的机会。 它已成为国内外流行的体育赛事。 这训练班适合推手初学者及不同程度培训的太极爱好者。 如果您以前从未尝试过推手,那么这是个让你在友好与安全的环境中初次尝试的绝佳机会。

Read more


Kelvin Ho will be running a yilu correction online class starting on Nov. 1, 2022. He has practiced yilu over 38000 times and counting, and has set a record of completing 200 yilus on a single day. He has been awarded by Master Chen Zhonghua the title of Qingshan Instructor since 2019. In this class, he will correct the students’ form in detail by integrating the principle into the form, and providing focused drills to hone the required skill. This class will be meeting twice a week, and is included as part of the yearly program. This class is suitable for people who are able to perform yilu by oneself, and are looking for ways to breakthrough the current plateau and/or to improve his/her yilu overall.

Schedule:
Monday: 2 pm Edmonton Time
Tuesday: 7 am Edmonton Time

To purchase this class, please go to: https://en.zhenbudong.cn/product/202211-kelvin-ho-yilu-correction-online-classes-and-videos-mon-and-tues-only/.

For more information about this class, please see:
https://practicalmethod.com/2020/01/practical-method-yilu-class/

Ben Phillips of Toronto became Chen Zhonghua’s 379th disciple in a brief ceremony at the Annual Toronto Practical Method Seminar

This is the first Toronto Practical Method workshop by Master Chen Zhonghua since covid-19 started.  We had a very good turnout, 25 people attended over the 4 days of the workshop.  Participants came from Toronto, Markham, Aurora, Newmarket, Oakville, Georgetown, Ottawa, Michigan, Iowa, Arizona, California.  One of the participants commented:

“Everyone here expressed and interacted freely and deeply, just like a big family.”

In this workshop, we focussed on training with drills, solo and partnered. The drills allowed us to develop gong, and techniques that would be useful in push hands. Many of the drills were video-recorded and will be available for purchase.  We also included one lesson of Hunyuan Qi Gong, and Master Chen said he would begin to integrate more energy work into Practical Method through some Hunyuan Qi Gong training.

The following were intended to remind myself of what happened at the workshop, and they were not to be instructional. However, if you have any questions and need clarification for any part, please feel free to make a comment below.

Day 0
Power or No power? Read more

20190909_Group1

The Toronto Practical Method workshop will be back on Oct 8 to 11, 2022. If you have not yet attended one, you will be amazed by the magical taiji skills of Master Chen Zhonghua, and his insightful guidance in your taiji journey. He has the missing piece that many people are looking for. If you have been here before, we are looking forward to training with you again.
Read more

Kelvin Ho is organizing a free Chen Style Taijiquan Practical Method online (zoom) introductory class (1 session/week for 4 weeks) in July 2022. If you are interested in finding out what Practical Method is about and would like to give this a try. To register, please send an email to kelvin.ho@practicalmethod.ca or wechat to kelvinkwho with your practicalmethod.com account.

Dates:

  1. Saturday, July 2, 2022 Toronto Time 9 am – 10 am Done
  2. Saturday, July 9, 2022 Toronto Time 9 am – 10 am Done
  3. Saturday, July 23, 2022 Toronto Time 9 am – 10 am Done
  4. Saturday, July 30, 2022 Toronto Time 9 am – 10 am Done

To join the zoom class, click the following link:
https://us02web.zoom.us/j/87304810317?pwd=CNcC1IsbFges4zthZtT0z3b8eTA1gO.1

The following video is a sample of how a Practical Method online class is like.

Bevel Gear 2

by Kelvin Ho on 2022/06/04

Today we did an exercise to rotate the torso horizontally from left to right (first gear), while the arm with the elbow straight as a stick rotated in Ni Chan (second gear).  The second gear’s rotation was driven by the first gear. The result was like how the train wheel turned, and the rod attached to the wheels moved along the rotation without changing direction.
Read more

If you are interested in joining this class, please purchase the June package at:

Push hands is an exercise that examines your understanding of the Taiji principle: Separation of Yin and Yang. While form training transforms your body, push hands provides an opportunity for you to apply your Taiji knowledge and skill. It has also become a popular sporting event both in China and abroad. This workshop is suitable for beginners as well as people at different levels of their training. If you have never tried it before, this is a great opportunity for you to do it in a friendly and safe environment.

推手是一种让人检查对太极原理(分阴阳)理解的练习。 套路训练可以改变人的身体结构,而推手则提供了运用太极拳知识和技能的机会。 它已成为国内外流行的体育赛事。 这训练班适合推手初学者及不同程度培训的太极爱好者。 如果您以前从未尝试过推手,那么这是个让你在友好与安全的环境中初次尝试的绝佳机会。

Read more



This video package contains videos from Toronto Push Hands Workshop on April 24, 2022.
In this workshop, we trained foundations, line drills, 2-person drils, and free push hands. Detailed videos on the 2-person drills are included in this video package as listed below.



Purchase 20220424 Toronto Push Hands Workshop Video Package
Access is keyed to your user account. You need to be logged in to buy access.
Please register or log in.

This package includes the following 5 videos (total value of $8):
  "Redirect the incoming force to the rear foot 20220424"Online Video
  "Open the armpit 20220424"Online Video
  "Getting In 20220424" Online Video
  "Sink the waist, press the elbow 20220424" Online Video
  "White Crane Spreads Its Wings 20220424" Online Video

NOTE:
  1. Video packages are designed for the convenience of students.
  2. Some packages are in fact classifications of videos.
  3. Some videos in packages might have been published and purchased by you individually.
  4. Average prices of videos in packages are considerably lower than individual videos. The number of videos in the package will increase until the sum of all individual video prices equal to two times or more of the package price.
  5. In view of this, if you have purchased a video that are also included in a package your have purchased, or vice versa, we will not give refunds or equivalents.
  6. All videos in packages are paid videos. They are restricted to your personal viewing and other usage. You do not have copyright of the videos and therefore you do not have permission to give/share with others.
  7. Please note that as a customer/user of the website and/or student of Chen Zhonghua, you have given him and the companies/organizations he represents permission to use videos or photos with you, both personally and commercially.
  8. Making a paid purchase constitutes agreement to the above terms.

Push hands is an exercise that examines your understanding of the Taiji principle: Separation of Yin and Yang. While form training transforms your body, push hands provides an opportunity for you to apply your Taiji knowledge and skill. It has also become a popular sporting event both in China and abroad. This workshop is suitable for beginners as well as people at different levels of their training. If you have never tried it before, this is a great opportunity for you to do it in a friendly and safe environment.

推手是一种让人检查对太极原理(分阴阳)理解的练习。 套路训练可以改变人的身体结构,而推手则提供了运用太极拳知识和技能的机会。 它已成为国内外流行的体育赛事。 这训练班适合推手初学者及不同程度培训的太极爱好者。 如果您以前从未尝试过推手,那么这是个让你在友好与安全的环境中初次尝试的绝佳机会。

Read more

Increase speed in the same direction.

Six Sealing Four Closing – First break the elbow, if that fails, yank the whole arm off the shoulder.

Machine gun exercise – Twisting the towel

Do first 13 with speed, one move at a time.

When you practice intensively, don’t go overboard. Take a break before continuing.

This is a new free community event to be hosted on the three selected Saturdays of July, August and September in 2021. It introduces tai chi as a morning exercise to start the day off. It also celebrates the re-opening of our cities in Ontario.
Read more

Starting on July 7, 2021 – 8 classes
Wednesdays: 6:45 pm to 7:45 pm
Saturdays: 3:30 pm to 4:30 pm
Location: Near Markham Civic Centre
Content: Taiji foundations and the Practical Method 13-form
For more information, please see https://5lovehd.com/wap/hwtemp.asp?id=616


Read more

2020 was a very different year. The world suffered from covid-19, everyone had to experience a lot of changes. Master Chen Zhonghua used to hold workshops all over the world non-stop throughout the year, which was inevitably halted, but Practical Method seeked to adapt and developed an online teaching platform with the latest technology. From a set of random classes to regularly scheduled classes by the beginning of 2021, the participating students made rapid progress and benefited a lot from them. This was largely due to being able to have more timely access to Master Chen Zhonghua and his instructors for guidance. The pandemic created an opportunity to allow a new level of Practical Method to soar to a higher level in the new year. Read more

Fetch water with the rubber cord

  • Step on one end of the cord to lock it on the ground, pull it with the rear hand.
  • Train opening of the front kua.
  • Find the appropriate strength in the rubber cord to be strong enough that we cannot use the hands/arms to stretch it, but weak enough that we can use the kua to stretch it. Read more

The video showed 3 moves of the Practical Method Straight Sword form, namely, Left cut wrist, Right cut wrist and Sweep down one thousand soldiers. Read more

Today, Master Chen corrected the following students’ partial yilu:

  1. Karen Mattox
  2. Gerry Gebhart
  3. 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.
Read more

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 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.

ChenStyleTaijiPracticalMethodBannerWithRedLogo

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.

Read more


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

Read more

Cancelled-877x432
We are sorry to announce that this workshop will be cancelled due to covid-19.
Read more

Read more

SwitchingInPositiveCircle

In this video, Master Chen covered the 3 main axes in the body, and how we could switch among them without tossing in the positive circle, and the analogy of a lever with different pivots. We discussed about the shoulder last week at Shoulder Movements in Positive Circle, we will continue this week regarding switching with the lower half of the body.

See you at 10 am ET on Saturday, April 11, 2020 at http://practicalmethod.com/2014/06/switching-in-the-positive-circle-online-video-trailer/

Summary

Basically, once again I will combine the 4-day seminar into a summary by grouping what I call related items. It was a great environment to get corrections from others or better understanding of push hand drills. Great bunch of people.
Read more

Energy Alignment 2

by Kelvin Ho on 2020/01/13

Energy path is the pathway that energy travels on. There are both a physical path and a virtual path for a given setup. For any three points in the body, they can form a triangle (unless they all fall into one straight line). For this discussion, let’s use right hand, left kua and left foot as the three points. As similarly discussed in this previous article, while the right hand and left kua form one physical (solid) line, and the left kua and left foot form another physical (solid) line, the right hand and left foot form a virtual (invisible) line. While the actual energy travels along the two physical lines, it can be viewed as if it travels on the virtual line.
Read more