Chen Style Taijiquan and Hunyuan Taiji email: practicalmethod@qq.com

Hong was used to say his Taiji is like a garden. Everybody is welcome to come, have a look and take what he or she wants to take. If you cut a flower, it might last a week. If you can take the seeds, maybe in some years you’ll have your own garden.

Always teach everything, always present things in the same way. If someone understands, it has nothing to do with you. If somebody does not understand, don’t feel guilty: there’s nothing wrong with you and nothing wrong with him/her.

We practiced an empty handed exercise, standing on one leg:

1. one foot stretches backward
2. arms from the armpit stretch forward
3. body goes down (going down is regarded as not moving)

• Train only arm-foot coordination first
• Cave chest in
• Hand and foot do not link to the torso
• Make the moves small. The risk of linking the torso either to the foot or hand increases with large moves
• Once the arm-foot coordination is trained and none of them are linking to the torso, we can add the drop of the body. Add it small
• Torso has a free fall
• Dropping of the body: to drop we have to create space. Holding a book between two hands, if you create space between the hands and the book, the book is going to fall
•  Three independent actions: a three way split. Our problem is we always link into one move
• Analogy: Master Chen can see John and Kelvin on his computer, but they are independent/unrelated to each other
• The separation of the directions not linking, not merging into each other is what Master Chen describes as “Moves must be clear”
• The middle (torso in this case) cannot take sides, it must be independent, like a judge. The judge only applies the principle of the law, he/she does not take sides for neither of the two parts
• The power of hand and foot is totally dependent on how strong (not moving) the centre is
• As a training method we can rock shoulders and legs. They must be independent from the body
• If the middle is not involved, every move is correct
• When the middle is not involved, the hand becomes very powerful. The problem is we always want to move the middle. You realize you need at least 4 people holding you for this move to be useable
• There is always one move in the Form which clearly  demonstrates the concept we are talking about. In this case it is the first move of White Crane (right after Turn Left to BWAPM) in the 13s. But we must be able to find it in every move of the Form
• The move we practiced is the “easy part” and it is already very difficult to apply. The reversed part: don’t move the hands, move the body. This is even more difficult because there is no way to fix the hands while doing Push Hands. The hands are interacting with the opponent. It’s a sensitivity issue: you have to create a split of a second when your hands are not moving and you can move the body
• Taiji is about balance. Balance in the ancient word means scale. Hong uses the concept of Leaver to achieve balance. When you find the pivot, you’re balanced
• 100% not possible does not means it does not happen. It is like you buying a lottery ticket. The probability of winning is so low, you cannot even calculate it. So it is impossible for you to win. But it does not mean it doesn’t happen. We must understand this!