Chinese Class
45 degrees vs 90 degrees
90 degrees are theoretical.
Knowledge : Thoughts and Understanding
When we do the correct taiji actions, your opponent will always feel your actions are awkward to him. We just do what we train to do.
对手对不上。
Negative Circle
- First adjust, lock the middle finger tip, elbow-in over the top
- 3-way split
- right elbow-in to the left rear
- shoulder down
- right kua and knee point forward but not moving Read more
Two power training exercises on BWAPM
- Touch the opponents arm, jerk with the elbow-in, if we get stuck, turn with waist.
- Next move. Place the left foot on opponent’s knee and grab the opponent’s arm, small elbow-in and small kick to the knee to jerk the opponent.
Examples of fajin:
- We stretch, then we add another stretch, another stretch.. When we can’t take it anymore, it explodes.
- If we have a full jar of marbles, we shove one more marble into it than it can take, the jar breaks.
Master Chen demonstrated Lu, Cai, and Lie with in-with-elbow in “Shake the Pole”. These three belong to the same group.
Lu 捋 – You grab the opponent’s arm, pull him in, and throw him onto the other side. There is no severance of the arm in this case.
Cai 採 – You grab the opponent’s arm, and pull on it quickly to sever it at the shoulder. This is like plucking a flower.
Lie 挒- You grab the opponent’s arm, and pull him in. He hits your body, which provides a stop to the incoming force. This also allows the arm to be severed at the shoulder.
– Elbow/kua relationship. The elbow must touch the kua. Eventually the elbow always aims towards the kua.
– Integrity of the body. Keep the integrity by pulling the shoulders down and the kua up. The two must compress. Master showed this in relation to turning flowers out of the bottom of the sea on the R shoulder and R kua.
– Wavy Spoon/Pencil Illusion. Hold a pencil horizontally and shake it up and down. The pencil is totally firm, but the movement creates an illusion causing us to believe it is soft and wavy. Our body must be totally firm. When you hit it, it is like steel. The movements of the joints cause the illusion of being soft. Read more
– Form 70 High pat on horse. As step back, the R elbow need to keep going inward behind you. There is a second crack with the elbow as your opponent steps away. The elbow is tied to the kua with a rubber band, so there is integrity.
– Form 73 White ape presents the fruit. R in with elbow, rotate on R shoulder-kua line. Rotate on L shoulder-kua line fist stretches longer on the turn. Rotate the kua, hand does not move, the middle has to be tighter than the rest parts of the body. Elbow needs to aim to touch the kua so the moves are deep.
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We practiced one knee up one knee down movement. The move after second Flash the back and before going into the jump.
It is the knee movements caused the kua to open, creating a hole which allows the torso to fall straight down.
The going down motion and the torso rotation are one move. The torso is passively dropping. The hands do not move, and the arms are adjusting accordingly.
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A practice from the east to the west and the north to the south across the globe.
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– Train the elbow – lock the hand and shoulder, only stretch the elbow. This is a small movement. No move on the hand and shoulder.
– Jade Girl Works at Shuttles – the jump is for length, not height.
– Step Back to Double Shake the Feet – the feet are switching. They cannot jump and land together.
– To train the elbow. Lock the shoulder and hand completely, better to ask someone else to hold it, only move the elbow. The movement is very small, like the door hinge. The movement of the elbow is the same as the knee.
– To change the direction of the fingers, we lock the wrist and the hand, move the elbow and the rest part of the body. Once the body is well trained, the movements can be much bigger.
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- Iron Shirt ( 铁布衫) – physical structural act.
- Golden Bell (金钟罩) – same exercise but devoted to the training of timing.
- Buddha’s finger – to poke.
- Eagle claw (鷹爪) – to grasp.
- Vermilion palm – timing based.
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
In today’s class, the following students received partial form corrections. Form corrections are always foundational.
In today’s class we focused on Six Sealing Four Closing.
In today’s lesson there were 47 class participants.
Quick notes from my private lesson with Master Chen – Twisting The Towel
– assuming you know the basics adopt proper training stance with left hand forward and right hand rearward, distance between hands is the length of your opponents elbow to their wrist or hand.
– create 2 horizontal tracts, 1 thru the mid section and 1, in this case with the right hand moving forward, forearm parallel to the ground. Without proper guidance we only create 1 tract.
– the 2 tracks can only be created if if we lock or create a bite, in this case on the left side of the body
– to create the lock or bite we must stretch.
– push dow on the thigh muscle, open the kua and stretch in opposite directions, this is the lock or bite it cannot move.
– right hand can now begin moving forward.
– open the right kua and drop the right shoulder to cause compression, this will force the elbow in toward the dantien.
– the hand can now mov forward in a straight line, extend through the index finger.
– when the hand reaches a certain point in travel we must lock the shoulder and allow extension to continue by opening the elbow. to do this we must actiivate the small muscle on the inside of the elbow, This is very difficult and requires much training
– throughout the exercise the spine must be pulled up or stretched.
– when the right hand reaches full extension the process can now be reversed with the left hand moving forward.
-two things I have been thinking about my practice in the past couple of days: 1. the new task of ‘resetting’ my body, given me by GM, is more profound than it seems, 2. the process of how you learn is as at least as important as what you learn
1.
-the task GM has given me may be the most difficult one I’ve ever been given
-not only does it encompass a complete re-working, re-tooling, re-creation of my entire physical self it implicitly tasks me to begin to practice PM all-day long, not jibengong all day long, but finding ways to subtly inject elements of training into every action
-my body awareness and sensitivity will have to go up more than a notch, a quantum leap would be more descriptive, and my ability to accept and work with my cognitive-emotional states will have to ratchet up a notch also
-the task is to ‘re-set’ my body so that it produces expanding Peng (redundant?) energy without any observable or perhaps measurable tension in any body tissues, esp. the contractile muscles, ligaments and tendons
-this is proving to be extremely challenging and is of course affected by my psycho-emotional states, try relaxing contractile tissues while in pain (emotional or physical)
2.
-in keeping with working on my assigned task I noticed that the class last night at the Edmonton studio was remarkable in a couple of ways
-firstly, we had a visitor, GM’s newest disciple Sooyeon Zachrias, who was a most delightful addition to our practice group
-secondly, I found myself fondly remembering my experiences at TigerClaw Gung Fu School in the ’70’s when I trained & and competed in kickboxing, we had a pretty informal competition class atmosphere and we regularly teased and joked with each other and the teachers/coaches
-our group last night was ‘playing’ with each other, there was joking, and teasing and relaxed informality
– we were all laughing out loud, but respectful, nothing out of line or intended to be anything but supportive
– Sooyeon Zachrias mentioned how she was enjoying the training experience with others as mostly she only attends workshops in MapleRidge, thank you Sooyeon for reminding me that the time I share with my brothers and sisters in this art gives me something different from the hrs and hrs I spend working on PM alone
-not saying every class has to be a stand up session or that no laughter means its not a good class, I am trying to say that the moments we share in class are precious
– we all have the physical pains of trying to grind away the rough parts of our joints and the psychological pain of removing from our souls anything that fails to make room for Peng
-hope this is an okay subject to post on PM website
-learning to live a breath at a time
Mise en place (French pronunciation: [mi zɑ̃ ˈplas]) is a French culinary phrase that means “putting in place” or “everything in its place”. It refers to the setup required before cooking, and is often used in professional kitchens to refer to organizing and arranging the ingredients, the components that a cook will require for the menu items that are expected to be prepared during a shift.
Master Chen often has referred to “the set up” before applying power…before doing “your move”. What are the ingredients (components) of your set up? What needs to be in place before you do your move/apply power? Please add ingredients!!!
So we were doing lots and lots of six sealings four closings exercises at the end of the Vienna Workshop. I was leading the group and counting. Then, at #476 something in my hip cracked open. A rush of pure energy run through my body and I felt like a conductor between heaven and earth, and then … Read more
I am 64 years old and have been on long-term disability for over 10 years due to a form of arthritis called Ankylosing Spondylitis (AS). I previously studied and practiced several external martial arts and they all eventually made my AS symptoms worse. I have had the disease my whole life but only diagnosed in the ’80’s. It became so bad at one point I was bed ridden for almost 2 years. It causes difficult symptoms in multiple body systems. I have had to get steroids injected into my eyes a few times to bring down inflammation. The disease primarily fuses the spinal vertebrae together, which of course reduces, restricts and eventually collapses the vertebral separations so they cannot move normally, or at all. I have tried physio, multiple drug therapies, meditation and exercise all with no or next to no improvement in my symptoms.
Read more
The main goal of Taiji is the transmission of power. But what does this mean? In technical terms it refers to the conversion of power from one form to another. Read more
by Kim Allbritain
| The following is a brief account as to how I became involved with Chen Taiji in the first place. The first 20 years or so…….. Read more |
