One of my corrections from Sifu during a private lesson in 2015 was on separation of hand from my head. For instance, when out with hand in Single Whip, as I placed emphasis on the stretches when my hand went out, my head would follow…this would occur at varying degrees, yet that isn’t relevant because any deviation of the head changes everything as I will get to soon.
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Short lesson by Master Chen Zhonghua:
By Patrick Hanratty
**Due to my computer crashing these notes have been recompiled using my original written notes, which are somewhat incomplete. As such there are some blank spaces, which I’ve indicated with an asterisk. I would very much appreciate anyone filling in those blanks, as I don’t feel confident enough to do so myself.
Taking notes at workshops is a useful tool for making progress, and going over them as soon as possible (at the end of the day and after the workshop) helps to internalize the most salient points. Furthermore, sharing notes, as well as potentially helping other students in their practice, can also engender a need for the note taker to test the accuracy of their personal understanding of Master Chen’s teaching. A testing strategy that I have recently adopted is to imagine that I have to explain my understanding to other students through practical demonstration. Read more
Today, we focused on the details of 3 foundation exercises:
- Twisting the Towel
- Fetch Water
- Six Sealing Four Closing
- Ken Lang joined the class for the first time. He started learning about twisting the towel. He has been doing taiji for 10 years, and went to study at Chen Village for 6 weeks. His initial impression was that the Practical Method elbow-in was similar to what he learned in Chen Village. His teacher there was Master Chen Zhaosen.
- We reviewed twisting the towel, and how the hand is to be connected to the foot, and how to push the foot against the ground to squeeze out the hand.
- We did an exercise with one person pushing the other person’s hand up the arm, and how to prevent the shoulder being popped up, and how to stretch through the back to the rear foot to find the connection.
- We practiced taking out the space.
- I told Bruce during push hands, at this point, make it a focus to simply maintain the desired posture regardless of what the opponents does to him.
Video in Chinese: http://v.youku.com/v_show/id_XNjkwODU2OTE2.html
Notes:
- Master Chen when answering the question focused on Practical Method itself, and left it to the audience to do the comparison, as he couldn’t represent the other art.
- Practical Method’s core is rotation. Spiral and silk reeling is rotation plus distance.
- We can never do true rotation. It’s impossible for us to do 360 degree rotation. We can perform a lever action. A lever action is a part of a rotation.
- Form training is to create levers in our bodies.
- Grandmaster Hong Junsheng has the 10-word saying “Out with hand no elbow, in with elbow no hand”. Lin Ketong calls it 10-word mantra.
- This mantra actually describes the lever action.
Bruce Robinson Notes:
Exercise to lock Knee whilst doing 1st move of cloud hands
• In Single whip posture advised by Kelvin Ho to stretch out both arms as far as possible & elbows are to face down, front hand stretched out (to vermillion palm) fingers extended & rear hand forms beak
1. Yilu tips on “Lower Cloud Hands”
– Lower Cloud Hands on first 4 movements:
a. the left hand movement should be clear and accurate – either positive circle or negative circle;
b. ensure the movement is complete without short cut.
This is mostly audio instruction for a class on Daqingshan. For student not familiar with the form, please get Hunyuan Qigong Online Video
Presenter: Chen Zhonghua Length: 10 min. In: English Year: 2016 Difficulty:1/5 At:Daqingshan
This is the first time I attended the Ottawa Workshop. Great group! Thanks Rachelle, James, and Daniel for organizing the workshop, and Rachelle for my stay at her place. Here are my notes:
- Move the feet. When we train, we fix the feet. When you push hands, we move the feet. Our feet are often not mobile enough, we must force ourselves to move them, e.g. getting in changes the pivot.
- The only way to connect is not to connect. Connection means moving and non-moving parts have a relationship. Read more
At the Ottawa Nov. 12-13, 2016 workshop, Master Chen Zhonghua talked about when doing twisting the towel or six sealing four closing, our hands and elbows must stay on the same line. Where was that line exactly? We often just imagined where that line was. He told us to use a physical object to guide us, and he used a stick to show us. In today’s class in Toronto, we started with twisting the towel and covered what I learned at the Ottawa workshop. We went on to use the railing at the community centre to do the six sealing four closing exercise.
I don’t know if it’s accurate, but I tried my best to record all I’ve heard and saw in the two-day workshop.
- Change “一” shape structure to ” V ” shape to get a 3D structure
- If there’s a V shape structure with ABC points as joints. A Taiji movement would be:
A as a hinge. It doesn’t move at all, but able to rotate.
B as a connection between two arms. Its track will not change because A and C are restricted. And will move towards the different direction of A.
C as the only free moving part. But its track must be pre-defined before it moves, and need to be related to A.
Practical Method Phoenix, AZ Workshop October 1, 2016 – October 2, 2016
by Chris Liu on 10/4/2016
When I discovered the Practical Method, I started watching a lot of Master Chen’s videos. This led me to read more in depth about Taiji and its rooted philosophy in Taoism. I watched, and read, and thought about it every day for over a year then one day, I finally believed I was ready to meet Master Chen. Read more
1st Place Gold Medal
During the Toronto workshop today, Master Chen asked me to write about taking the group photo before we start the activities for the day from now on.
Master Chen’s disciple Ping Wei recently wrote an article regarding how to rotate the Kua and create a stable center (pivot point). The idea is simple: the center will never be stable if you try to control it by only one Kua, you have to have good control of both Kua, and move them both at the same time.
Such a simple idea doesn’t take a genius to understand. So that I read the article, got the idea, and I thought I got it.
Fresh new Mr. accountant John and I had a catch up today and celebrated. Despite his absence, he has been keeping up with the basics and was able to develop new moves on the basketball court. Yeah, he sent a guy rolling across the court when pushed from behind. I am impressed! And, John didn’t know what had happened except for not moving!
Part I (13 corrections)
- deeper and wider stance in general
- always think of elbows first in general
- Opening move
- Keep the left hand fixed in space
- Turn the left elbow as much as you can
- Keep right hand higher than its elbow
- Imagine holding someone’s arm at two points
- Keep the left hand fixed in space
- Buddha’s warrior attendant pounds mortar
- right-hand comes up straight
- do not move centre or body
- Read more
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Chen Zhonghua correcting Todd Elihu at the 2016 Iowa Workshop.
When the elbow comes in, the finger must aim onto person. Actually, every move must aim onto person.
- When locked at one or two points, utilize another set of points beyond the initial set of points to go over/break out.
- Isolation exercise #1: partner holds your arm at the wrist and shoulder. You squeeze the muscles on the body-side of the where he has his hand on your shoulder, then extend the fingers. Each move must be independent from one another. Switch back and forth. Read more
Six sealing four closing: Must be like inside a round cylinder. Muscle must rotate around bone. Don’t move. Hand must be like inside tube and body must adjust to be aimed correctly. Hand out, elbow in can only be done if front lat goes down to the rear arch and front kua rotates to curve up to connect to the rear shoulder. Pull elbow back to be in alignment. Step in a little bit with just the lower body to fill space. Don’t push. If one part is off it throws the entire body out of alignment.- 18 posts in the body… they cannot collapse into each other. Read more
Iowa 2016 day 1;
Align backward , never fight forward… feet are too close together, arms are as well. Shoulder needs to stay in the kua.
Full front kua in the line, align the arm . Then open the rear kua… the front kua,is always the filler, the rear kua is always the stretcher…
The end of every move must be totally straight. ” stay on the line”
Day two.
Many years ago when I was just learning Yilu, I had questions about how the “Second Closing” (the move after fetch water) was done properly. I was just imitating the movement, the hand was waving from one place to another place. I had no idea where was the energy alignment in that particular move. Master Chen explained “Second Closing” with its application and tried on me. He turned and I was on the ground. It was that simple. I didn’t know, I could not figure out how Master Chen did. But I did know how powerful the “Second Closing” was.
Workshop Practical Method Chen Style Taichi Quan push hands by Grandmaster Joseph Chen Zhonghua
De Glind 26-27april 2014, Netherlands
These notes are partly chronological and based on how I percieved them. I kept as close as I could to Master Chen’s exact words.
Day one
The workshop started with an introduction. Underlying the art of Practical Method Taiji Chen Style are thirteen dimensions. These thirteen dimensions are divided in two levels. Eight dimensions are related to the air; five are related to the floor.
Most Important: Nobody can see, what Chen Laoshi is doing (except Chen Xu), when he is throwing a stone in the water and waves are appearing, everyone is asking, how to make such waves (form of the waves, etc.), but he just throws the stone- first 13 moves: shovel out, waist cannot go forward, has to be zero, only can go down, to push out
- shovel out means to bypass
- your opponent is strong in different dimensions, you always wrapping around him
- all forward moves you have to lock yourself down
- movements must be led by the piece were I and you don`t touch, move as one piece, like one wall going at you, which part is leading is very different
- Read more
