Presenter: Chen Zhonghua Length: 2 mins Difficulty: 3/5 Language: English   Year: 2026 Location: Guilford, London, UK Practical Method Group
02-Kua to Elbow-London Chen Zhonghua Seminar 20260306Sub. This seminar was designed around fundamentals called Zhujigong (Building the Foundations). 1. ningmaojin 拧毛巾 Twisiting the Towel is to train the front and back/in and out moments that only uses the elbow. 2. Liufengsibi 六封四闭 Six Sealing and Four Closing is to train the rotational movements of the torso that only uses the waist/kua. 3. Tishui 提水 Fetch Water trains the up and down movement of the body which only uses the knee. 4. Zheng Quan 正圈 Positive Circle is the first synthesized move to train the coordination of the whole body. 5. Fanquan 反圈 Negative Circle is the second synthesized move that trains the coordination of the whole body. Fanquan mirror the zhenquan and the first move is on top, while zhengquan the first move is downwards.
“Miscellaneous Poems of the Jihai Year, no. 5.” (《己亥杂诗·其五》)
浩荡离愁白日斜,
Deep sorrow of parting as the pale sun sinks,
吟鞭东指即天涯。
Whip pointing east, I ride to the edge of the sky.
落红不是无情物,
The fallen blossoms are not heartless,
化作春泥更护花。
They return as spring soil, nurturing the flowers still.
— Gong Zizhen (龚自珍, 1792-1841)
Gong Zizhen (龚自珍), a Qing dynasty poet and reformer, wrote these lines in 1839 as he left Beijing. They are words of departure, but not only of sadness. The fragrant blossom has fallen from the branch, yet its story is not finished. It returns to the earth and, in another form, gives something back to the flowers that follow.
I think of a teacher when I read those lines.
A teacher eventually leaves us. The voice becomes a memory, and the hands that made a correction are no longer there. The person who spent a lifetime working to understand an art becomes its history.
But the work does not end. It passes into the students who received it. It appears again in their practice, in the questions they ask, in the corrections they make, and eventually in what they pass on to others.