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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Online Classes
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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Today we worked on three foundational exercises: twisting towel, six sealing four closing, and fetch water. The concepts we practiced were to fire 3 at once and to fold and open.
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I haven’t heard too many people praising the pandemic, but for me at least, it’s been great. I mean, I’m not fond of wearing my N-95 mask in buildings; it tickles my nose and fogs up my glasses when I talk. But these are minor problems compared to the boost it’s given my tai chi training. Read more
…class was a part of the online Zoom ‘Make it Real’ series of lessons, focusing on the double-positive circle…be sure to check out the posted video this review relates to…
Observations, insights, anecdotes, and some bad jokes about the content and process of GM’s Zoom lesson on the above date.
GM asked for 3 paragraphs on a part of the Zoom lesson, specifically, the topic of ‘do the movement as required by GM, let everything else go’.
Chen Zhonghua’s Practical Method Online Lesson on Sept. 23, 2020. This lesson focused on the 3-count Cloud Hands.
Presenter: Chen Zhonghua Length: 62 min. In: English Year: 2020 Difficulty:1/5 At:Edmonton Chen Zhonghua Taiji Academy
“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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Master Chen Zhonghua’s online lesson on Chen Style Taijiquan Practical Method on Sept. 22, 2020. This lesson focused on the double positive circle. Training steps of locking the arm onto the torso; rotate horizontally, rotate vertically; and rotate three-dimensionally.
Presenter: Chen Zhonghua Length: 65 min. In: English Year: 2020 Difficulty:1/5 At:Edmonton Chen Zhonghua Taiji Academy
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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-so it was just myself, in back of a digital camera, watching GM teach a Zoom class, at 7:30 AM and I thought to myself, ‘Man I have to be careful of what I wish for because sometimes the fates are listening’ Read more
Tuesday Foundations lesson included corrections on Twisting towel, Fetching water, and Six sealing four closing. Shifu emphasized the shoulder going down and also taught a chest opening exercise.
Chen Zhonghua’s Sept. 10, 2020 Online Lesson on Yilu Corrections.
Presenter: Chen Zhonghua Length: 65 min. In: English Year: 2020 Difficulty:2/5 At:Edmonton Chen Zhonghua Taiji Academy
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
Chen Zhonghua’s Online Lesson on Sept. 2, 2020.
Presenter: Chen Zhonghua Length: 73 min. In: English Year: 2020 Difficulty:2/5 At:Edmonton Chen Zhonghua Taiji Academy
Chen Zhonghua’s online lesson on Foundations. This episode is on the Pole-shaking exercise, which is a left-hand negative circle, right hand positive circle moving step combination. The exercise is designed for training without the pole.
Presenter: Chen Zhonghua Length: 73 min. In: English Year: 2020 Difficulty:2/5 At:Edmonton Chen Zhonghua Taiji Academy
Chen Zhonghua taught the important concept of the frontal vertical line in Chen Style Taijiquan Practical Method. This is a must to have. Presenter: Chen Zhonghua Length: 67 min. In: English Year: 2020 Difficulty:4/5 At:Edmonton Chen Zhonghua Taiji Academy
Rotation of front shoulder and front kua in positive circle.
Front shoulder and kua is the rotational vertical axis, which does not move. Read more
Rear shoulder hold on the way out (controlled release)
5 points fighting outward, everything else fights inward
Lock shoulders head, only cave in the chest to drive hand out. Put hand on chest and move it down as hand goes out to train the right intent.
Clear – locked part must be locked, moving part must be moving
Front kua needs to rotate in turn with waist. It looks like it comes up towards the shoulder.
Raise of kua up when coming in, chest pushes down when coming out
Rear shoulder must not move when turning waist. Front kua and shoulder has a large move.
Rotate your spine not your head. Don’t move your eyes. Only a rotation, no movement.
Don’t move hand backwards.
Homework, 6 sealing 4 closing, face on to mirror, don’t let rear shoulder move, but it rotates. 1000x.
Dao shou – to change the orientation of the hand. Coming in, it’s pulling from elbow. Going out, the hand pulls the arm.
Every body part has a role, but which ones are primary and which ones are secondary (only getting out of the way).
Knee up knee down. Like a physically solid structure like a bike and the pedals are the knees. Feels like a foot and a half, but it looks like no move.
6 sealing 4 closing. First one is 70 rear, 30 front. Front becomes long back becomes short. Second one switches the pivot to the rear side of body (rear shoulder/kua axis).
Zoom lecture with Master Chen and Kelvin Ho covering six sealing four closing.
Notes from the Zoom class on the concept of dao shou.
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Notes from the Zoom class on the double negative circle.
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My notes from the Negative Circle procedure lecture.
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My notes from the “Use the Kua to Find the Solid” Zoom lecture.
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Chen Zhonghua’s online lesson on August 11, 2020. This one hour lesson focused on the concept (terminology) of re-calibration in Practical Method.
Presenter: Chen Zhonghua Length: 59 min. In: English Year: 2020 Difficulty:3/5 At:Edmonton Chen Zhonghua Taiji Academy
Notes from August 11, 2020 Zoom class with Master Chen. Topic was http://practicalmethod.com/2015/01/recalibration/.
Every correct move is going to be dangerous. We don’t want to go there, that’s why taiji is so difficult.
Video guidance is now available. Please leave comments and questions at: http://practicalmethod.com/2018/09/iowa-2018-5-online-video-trailer/.
In this video, Master Chen demonstrated how to destroy the opponent’s integrity on contact, and how to aim at the opponent centre.
Video guidance is now available. Please leave your comments and questions at http://practicalmethod.com/2018/08/iowa-2018-4-online-video-trailer/.
In this video, Master Chen demonstrated how to engage with Levi the Bull, who had tremendous amount of power. Master Chen went in without letting Levi detecting and powering up, and didn’t execute the final action until the setup was complete.
Video guidance is now available. Please leave comments and questions at: http://practicalmethod.com/2018/08/iowa-2018-3-online-video-trailer/.
In this video, Master Chen talked about the Taiji trinity: Principle, Concept and Technique. He demonstrated using Six Sealing Four Closing how a technique reflected the concept. In theory, to separate, you must cut something into two halves, how can we still separate yin and yang without pulling our limbs out?
Vidoe guidance is now available. Please leave your comments and questions at http://practicalmethod.com/2018/08/iowa-2018-2-online-video-trailer/.
In this video, Master Chen Zhonghua showed clearly how he made the student feel the power at the student’s chest on the initial contact, then Master Chen switched to a different spot on the student’s body. He used the stick to illustrate that he moved something that the opponent couldn’t see.
Video guidance is now available. Please leave comments and questions at http://practicalmethod.com/2015/03/stretch-in-push-hand-online-video-trailer/.
Master Chen showed clearly how he made the student feel the power at the student’s chest on the initial contact, then Master Chen switched to a different spot on the student’s body. He used the stick to illustrate that he moved something that the opponent couldn’t see.
Please leave comments and questions at the comment section of http://practicalmethod.com/2015/03/stretch-in-push-hand-online-video-trailer/.
Master Chen gave specific corrections to each student at the workshop for one specific move, which is called “sink the waist to press elbow” (煞腰压肘 sha yao ya zhou). Each student exhibited both common and individual mistakes that were corrected by Master Chen. This video provides a large amount of focused material for us to learn to send power to our hands.
See you online at 10 am on Saturday, May 16, 2020 at http://practicalmethod.com/2015/03/power-to-hand-training-online-video-trailer/.
