New Year’s Day Tai Chi at North Mountain Park. Glad to see Jan Gould and Pocheng back to practice. They overcame their health problem and injuries from accident in 2020. A great day to start Tai Chi again. A promising year of 2021. Read more
News
News and other exciting events happening in the Chen Style Taijiquan Practical Method system in the world.
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On December 27, 2020, the Wulian Practical Method Federation (10 locations) held its Year-End Party and Meeting on Daqingshan. Read more
Our Wulian Practical Method team has been working with the Wulian Hospital of Chinese Medicine for over a year now. Today, the hospital and the Wulian Practical Method branch held an official opening ceremony, marking the establishment of Practical Method for all staff in the hospital.
Practical Method demonstration at the Wulian Hospital of Chinese medicine on 20201212 Read more
We raised 10,000 chickens in 2011. They are truly free-range. We had to look for their eggs in the hills.
The Daqingshan Chen Zhonghua Taiji Academy teaches Chen Style Taijiquan Practical Method of GM Hong Junsheng and Hunyuan Taiji of GM Feng Zhiqiang. The Academy was original established in 2006 as Daqingshan International Taiji Training Center. In 2017 it was re-named Daqingshan Chen Zhonghua Taiji Academy (DCTA). Read more
Chen Style Taijiquan Practical Method Ma An Shan Workshop by Chen Xu and Han Rui on Nov. 14, 2020. Read more
Phoenix Morning Practical Method Practice Photos Nov. 7, 2020.
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Practical Method introduction class for the Gutian Police Swat Team on November 6, 2020.
首届古田实用拳法讲座特警课合影20201106
Student Photos of The Dragon’s Abyss on Daqingshan in 2016. Read more
Conservation of Energy
Master Chen used this term in one of his lectures. Here is my understanding:
In an ideal closed 2 energy system, Conservation of Energy means the total energy is the same while the magnitude of kinetic energy and potential energy can vary.
Mathematically, total energy = kinetic energy + potential energy.
Read more
On October 20th, 2020, during an online class Master Chen Zhonghua shared and demonstrated an important action of the knee that has not been disclosed before. Prior to discussing the important action, I shall discuss some important functional and structural aspects of the knee as a means of providing a context to help the reader conceptualize how this recently disclosed information is applied in practice and applications.
In today’s class, the following students received Foundation corrections while the class had the benefit of watching.
- Sven Gusowski – Fetch Water
- Raymond Dickey – Six Sealing Four Closing
- Tomasz Raganowicz – Six Sealing Four Closing
- Fung Chern Hwei – Positive Circle
5th Juxian Practical Method Seminar from Oct. 17th to 18th, 2020.
Instructor: Chen Xu.
Wang Kai, Qiu Yingdong. Read more
Today’s class on Foundations was held on Canadian Thanksgiving.
During this time of the pandemic, I had a very valuable opportunity to attend Shifu Chen Zhonghua’s online class. By listening, seeing and following the instructions given in the class I began to understand the principles of the Taiji practical method and apply them to yilu and push hands. All this time I thought that I understood and could do yilu well, but what I understood was wrong. Read more
I named this the Yilu Project because I have taken some steps to “clean up my yilu”, and this is my baseline for measuring progress or the lack thereof. I have been attending weekly online classes with Master Chen Zhonghua. Having access to consistent corrections on my yilu and foundations is a “once in a lifetime opportunity”! Additionally, I have been getting feedback from my Taiji brother Kelvin, who has a very good eye for details. Feel free to point out mistakes.
Respectfully,
John
There were many corrections and a number of important conceptual points on how to learn.
-We have 2 general types of movements
Action movements are what the particular form is about in order to execute a particular application on an opponent. Must be accurate.
Adjustment movements are to position body parts to be in place to execute the action movement. Accuracy in getting there is less important.
We must know the difference. We tend to not know or show the difference.
-Master Chen repeated the instruction, as he has many, many times, to listen and watch as he explains. Do not attempt to copy while he is explaining. We miss much of the instruction while we attempt to copy. I have heard this so many times, yet I was copying while he spoke in the class this morning.
-Not one move in PM Taiji is like any other in life or sports. We must see that the moves are unique to PM Taiji. MC does not move like an average person, but the average person, as in we his students, THINK we move like MC. He has said to me specifically in other zoom classes that I make a good copy of the moves, but he can see that I do not really do the essence of the moves. We tend to compare to other movements and other sports, but PM is different from those moves. I must say that I make many of these comparisons. I would say my whole education has been based on building on comparisons and it is a very difficult thing for me to not compare PM to other human activities. I can see now that recalibration must happen without these comparisons.
The actions need to be precise/ accurate. There is only one way to do it right. The adaptation you can get away with it. Read more
Bevel gears are gears where the rod or the rotating shafts intersect.
The shafts are often mounted 90 degrees apart, but can be designed to work at other angles as well.
They are used for power transmission between intersecting shafts.
This allows a vertical rotation to be converted to a horizontal rotation.
- movement by doing or pretending vs movement as result of physical structure & rotation
- if you think you are executing correctly, you are not
- get into position>lock & rotate
- rotation does not normally create displacement in space
- core must be totally independent from other body parts
- when moving body must be locked
- reorientation is not considered movement
- initially all body part move together
- two body parts can move if they are independent
- ultimately there are 18 body parts
On 7. Oct 2020’s online class, Master Chen talked about the first 2 layers of the positive circle.
The 1. layer is horizontal, with only the hand going back and forth.
The position of the hand should be slightly higher than the shoulder, and much higher than the elbow. ← →
The 2. layer adds a vertical dimension to the circle (to the above action), by moving up and down.
This up-and-down-movement can only come from the shoulder & kua.
The dropping of the front kua takes the front hand elbow with it (downwards), the dropping of the rear kua takes the front arm with it (sideways).
The rear foot pushes into the dantian. The power is from the dantian. ↓↑
Combined, the horizontal ← → and vertical ↓↑ action will display these two layers and the hand will appear to be moving, although it is not.
Today we completed a set of Foundations led by Kelvin Ho. Master Chen provided instructions on Double Negative Circle (symmetric, and alternating) as well as Turning Flowers and Playing with Sleeves from Erlu.
– We have to ignore the details and do the Taiji we want to do. To copy without any technical things. Then add the details.
– When we add the details, we tend to forget the overall thing.
– This is the same as forgetting where we are in the form when instructing. We need to be more fluent with the whole thing.
“The movements of the body are in the Dantian and nothing leaves the dantian. Only power gets out of the Dantian.”
The quote above from Master Chen Zhonghua and his assigning me to write on the dantian sent me on a journey of understanding…and to be forthright, I got stuck. I over thought things and I had difficulties “getting the ball rolling” or rather the dantian article. So being an educated person, I did what students do, and gathered up my information from the online lecture and from past videos from Master Chen Zhonghua.
Beauty is a chrysanthemum bud opening up until it reaches it’s maximum, then withers away. If it gets disrupted, it withers away prematurely. Beauty in taiji is being fully expressed. We can’t be deficient, not reaching our maximum; nor can we be over extended…
The Central Vertical Line
The central vertical line (CVL) is an internal stretch that exists between the bau hui to the hui yin. I have heard Master Chen refer to this as a “rod” in the body. It should be present whether we’re doing foundations, form or push hands.
When I’m starting with students that need to strengthen the CVL, I have them do a guided imagery drill. The guided imagery was taught to me by Richard Johnson when I attended a week long workshop with Master Chen in 2011. I adopted the guided imagery and added a partner component as a means of enhancing the physical understanding and strengthening the central vertical line.
Today Master Chen covered the Double Positive Circle and 29. Upper Cloud Hands in Yilu.
Double Positive Circle Read more
In learning Taiji, Master Chen would often say that we create power with size and restriction. He would also say that we must develop the ability to separate every single part of our body. This includes left and right, top and bottom, front and back, and inside and outside. Read more
I entered into class late and saw everyone doing double positive circles. He instructed us to do it in a higher stance with our elbows attached to our waist. Read more
Today Master Chen covered the Double Positive Circle.
