I watched the Toronto Workshop 3-4 video today. I got a different understanding on the material presented. Although I was there at the workshop, I didn’t really understand much at the time as I was so new to Taiji. I had no clue on many of the concepts.
Knowledge
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Master Chen mentioned in the last workshop about the concept of 45 degrees. He was referring if there was an incoming energy directing at you at 45 degrees, one way to react would be to push at 45 degrees w.r.t to your body. Doing a rotation would be the same thing.
Here is my understanding after thinking about it:
The outgoing energy will be perpendicular to the incoming force. For the rotation part, a tangent of a circle is always perpendicular to the centre, so it is the same thing.
Earlier today, I was doing some gardening at my backyard. I had to create a flower bed, so I needed to remove some existing grass. I was using this half-circular flat shovel usually used to create a nice edge. At first I was using it perpendicular to the ground, trying to cut through the grass and its roots by hammering it or stepping onto it. It didn’t really work. The shovel wasn’t sharp, and a fair amount of the force going down to the ground was bounced straight up back to my hand. By accident, one of the hits landed at 45 degrees to the ground, and on impact, the shovel slided across horizontally, and it worked much better like a knife this way, and my hand didn’t feel any rebounding force. I believed that this could be explained in physics, however, the more important point was that Master Chen demonstrated something quite similar before.
You push on something in one direction, and since the hand couldn’t get advancement, it went to a different place.
I found this taiji thought during gardening interesting.
Most traditional Chinese martial artists use ‘internal’, i.e. the timed squeezing of their torsos, to STOP or brake the momentum of limb movement. What you do is to START (and brake and stop) the movements of your limbs using the timed pressure in your torso.
This article first appeared in the May/June Issue of Brazil Tai Chi
Magazine (Revista Tai Chi Brasil), and has been translated from
Portuguese to English. Read more
Curriculum 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 |
Current Disciples:
Read more
The hand must have two functions in Chen Style Taijiquan Practical Method.
- Fixer. The hand is used to catch the opponent. In this sense it functions as a hook, rope, or vice. It only needs to apply enough strength to affix the hand on the opponent.
- The hand acts as a CV joint to deliver the power from the body. This power can be a push or a pull.
Common mistakes:
- The hand moves after contacting the opponent, resulting in inability to affix to opponent.
- The hand applies power in an attempt to fight the opponent. This will result in not having enough power. This stops the power from the whole body from going to the opponent.
Three aspects are important.
- The stick/staff must be strong. If it bends, it can not bend in a way that energy stops.
- There must be a pivoting point. The pivoting point must not move.
- The level should be longer than the load.
From: Wilkin Ng Read more
Master Chen,
So I have been practicing the loose step a lot…basically the receiving end is the opposite of the issuing end of the body, if receiving left side then right side is issuing, and of course these are interchangeable. Read more
Shifu,
News you can use. According to an official of Beijing Railway Station, residents can dial 65260000 to book train tickets from between 2 to 20 days ahead of time. Read more
There have been countless works published on the species of martial art, their variety of incarnations and attitudes. It seems pointless to tear a single page from the encyclopaedia of combatives in order to repeat what a hundred authors have repeated before. Often, a lesson hard-learned in life is that what is not the highest question, but rather, why. Why, then, study the martial arts, taijiquan specifically? Read more
This is a 4-DVD set. By Chen Zhonghua 陈中华. Language: English 英文 Year: 2009 年.
Trailers below
Read more
In Chen Style Taijiquan Practical Method, body functions are very important. This means that each part of the body has its own functions. It is not a case of the whole body working as ONE. That phrase might have been used but the meaning is not literal. Read more
Author: Chen Zhonghua Length: 45 minutes Language: English Year: 2010 Chapters: 7
- Foundations.
- Yilu and Cannon Fist
- Applications and Push Hands
- Weapons and aided drills.
During form training, silk reeling or standing meditation, i am really relaxed and try to go deep into myself enjoying the feelings. 3
- First of all, in Chen Style Taijiquan Practical Method, we do not use standing meditation. Read more
At the evening class tonight, I taught the use of a white waxwood staff exercise for shoulder and elbow rotational control. Please see the video here.
Recently, I received a comment on my Chinese language blog that considered one of my posts “too absolute”. Here is the principle in question: Read more
- displace, displacement: to move physically out of position <a floating object displaces water> Read more
Feng Zhiqiang Grandmaster Feng Zhiqiang pushing hands with Wang Fengming in Japan in the 1990s.
This interview we conducted with Chen Zhonghua, is the prepublication version of an article which appeared in the Fall of 2005 issue of TaiChi Magazine. It is offered here as a source for future discussion and feedback, for interests of the readers. Read more
Getting to the workshop location and depart for the airport are the responsibility of the participants.
Some organizers arrange airport pick-ups while others do not. Check the workshop detailed information page for further information or you can contact the workshop organizer for details.
There are no restrictions for meals at workshops. Typically some participants will go for a quick lunch as a group. Whenever Master Chen is present, students are expected to chip in a dollar or two to cover his meal.
There is normally a Saturday evening dinner. This is a more formal dinner. Students also contribute to Master Chen’s dinner expense. It is expected that nothing fancy or costly will be ordered.
- No video taping except by permission from the host. Read more
Participants are not allowed to make any promotions at the workshops. Anything of this nature must go through the host.
