Master Chen Zhonghua’s Private lesson for Roy Croucher on Oct. 13, 2020. Presenter: Chen Zhonghua Length: 47 min. In: English Year: 2020 Difficulty:1/5 At:Edmonton Chen Zhonghua Taiji Academy 埃德蒙顿陈中华太极馆
Read moreMaster Chen Zhon ghua’s Oct. 13, 2020 private lesson for Anton Phipps. This lesson used the applications of the first 13 moves of the Practical Method to illustrate how the moves are to be done.
Presenter: Chen Zhonghua Length: 58 min. In: English Year: 2020 Difficulty:3/5 At:Edmonton Chen Zhonghua Taiji Academy 埃德蒙顿陈中华太极馆
Master Chen Zhonghua’s online lesson on 2020.10.13. This lesson is on foundations. Master Chen taught how to focus on the kua while doing the positive circle. Presenter: Chen Zhonghua Length: 63 min. In: English Year: 2020 Difficulty:1/5 At:Edmonton Chen Zhonghua Taiji Academy 埃德蒙顿陈中华太极馆
Read moreToday’s class on Foundations was held on Canadian Thanksgiving.
The subject of the lesson was foundations/positive circle.
Master Chen provided some history of China and the development of taijiquan. He also related a story about how the Practical Method foundations were developed. Read more
Master Chen Zhonghua started with a story about the history of China and Chen Style Taijiquan. Before the first Qin emperor defeated 6 other kings and united China, there was the period of Spring and Autumn 春秋 (which has nothing to do with the two seasons). Back then, there were 800 states, each had their own cultures, and they all flourished. Today, there are different levels of governments in China: Federal, Provincial, and County. The Chinese government wanted to get rid of the county level government, but they couldn’t done. Each county turned out to map back to the old states. The Chinese government had full election for village officials, but there are large families at the county levels, with full election, these large families will gain control at the county level goverments. These families managed to get around the one-child policy themselves.
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Master Chen Zhonghua’s online lesson on Chen Style Taijiquan Practical Method on Oct. 12, 2020. This lesson was on how to use large moves of the kua to create a positive circle. Presenter: Chen Zhonghua Length: 48 min. In: English Year: 2020 Difficulty:1/5 At:Edmonton Chen Zhonghua Taiji Academy
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Master Chen Zhonghua’s Toronto Workshop March 2020-5
Presenter: Chen Zhonghua Length: 9 min. In: English Year: 2020 Difficulty:4/5 At: Toronto, Canada
Master Chen Zhonghua explans the Practical Method signature move: Fist Drape Over Body. This move requies coordination of the entire body. Master Chen gave Kelvin Ho a lot of detailed corrections.
Presenter: Kelvin Ho Length: 25 min. In: English Year: 2020 Difficulty:3/5 At: Toronto and Iowa
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Once again Master Chen found it necessary to tell us how to learn. Many of us were practicing as he was teaching. And of course, I was one of them. He was giving each of us a private lesson and we should have been listening intently. At that point, practicing was just a distraction. Yes, practicing is totally necessary, but not when the teacher is telling us the important things that other teachers would call secrets and probably wouldn’t even teach. If we’re at all smart, we’ll take advantage of the wonderful opportunity Master Chen is providing. Read more
During this time of the pandemic, I had a very valuable opportunity to attend Shifu Chen Zhonghua’s online class. By listening, seeing and following the instructions given in the class I began to understand the principles of the Taiji practical method and apply them to yilu and push hands. All this time I thought that I understood and could do yilu well, but what I understood was wrong. Read more
I named this the Yilu Project because I have taken some steps to “clean up my yilu”, and this is my baseline for measuring progress or the lack thereof. I have been attending weekly online classes with Master Chen Zhonghua. Having access to consistent corrections on my yilu and foundations is a “once in a lifetime opportunity”! Additionally, I have been getting feedback from my Taiji brother Kelvin, who has a very good eye for details. Feel free to point out mistakes.
Respectfully,
John
…learning about adaptation vs. action…screwdrivers only engage one way…
There were many corrections and a number of important conceptual points on how to learn.
-We have 2 general types of movements
Action movements are what the particular form is about in order to execute a particular application on an opponent. Must be accurate.
Adjustment movements are to position body parts to be in place to execute the action movement. Accuracy in getting there is less important.
We must know the difference. We tend to not know or show the difference.
-Master Chen repeated the instruction, as he has many, many times, to listen and watch as he explains. Do not attempt to copy while he is explaining. We miss much of the instruction while we attempt to copy. I have heard this so many times, yet I was copying while he spoke in the class this morning.
-Not one move in PM Taiji is like any other in life or sports. We must see that the moves are unique to PM Taiji. MC does not move like an average person, but the average person, as in we his students, THINK we move like MC. He has said to me specifically in other zoom classes that I make a good copy of the moves, but he can see that I do not really do the essence of the moves. We tend to compare to other movements and other sports, but PM is different from those moves. I must say that I make many of these comparisons. I would say my whole education has been based on building on comparisons and it is a very difficult thing for me to not compare PM to other human activities. I can see now that recalibration must happen without these comparisons.
Action vs adaptation
- Only worry about that particular action. We don’t care much about the adaptation. Once the screwdriver fits with the screw, there is only one thing you can do. You can get away with whatever for the adaptation, but the action must be what it is to have power. Must identify that action.
The actions need to be precise/ accurate. There is only one way to do it right. The adaptation you can get away with it. Read more
A leader is someone or something that others follow. If a number of people have to go through a tunnel that is only large enough to fit a person through at a time, the first person who goes through it is the leader, whom the rest of the people just follow. If multiple people try to go through the tunnel at the same time, there will be a jam, and no one can come out the other end. Read more
- Smart phone
- Tripod
- Notebook
The first two items allow your camera to be set at the appropriate height, distance and angle for the teacher/instructor to have an optimal view to provide feedback to the student. These items can be replaced with other equipment that can provide equivalent adjustment of the camera. The 3rd item facilitates note taking (don’t forget to post your notes too at the website).
Bevel gears are gears where the rod or the rotating shafts intersect.
The shafts are often mounted 90 degrees apart, but can be designed to work at other angles as well.
They are used for power transmission between intersecting shafts.
This allows a vertical rotation to be converted to a horizontal rotation.
- movement by doing or pretending vs movement as result of physical structure & rotation
- if you think you are executing correctly, you are not
- get into position>lock & rotate
- rotation does not normally create displacement in space
- core must be totally independent from other body parts
- when moving body must be locked
- reorientation is not considered movement
- initially all body part move together
- two body parts can move if they are independent
- ultimately there are 18 body parts
Master Chen Zhonghua’s online lesson of Practical Method on Oct. 8, 2020.
Presenter: Chen Zhonghua Length: 64 min. In: English Year: 2020 Difficulty:1/5 At:Edmonton Chen Zhonghua Taiji Academy
Master Chen Zhonghua’s Private lesson with Anton Phipps on Oct. 8, 2020.
In this lesson Master Chen Zhonghua taught Phipps how to isolate power from the kua and use it like a hammer to power the forearm in Twisting the Towel.
Presenter: Chen Zhonghua Length: 57 min. In: English Year: 2020 Difficulty:1/5 At:Edmonton Chen Zhonghua Taiji Academy
Master Chen Zhonghua’s Private lesson for Roy Croucher on Oct. 8, 2020. He started with the theory of taiji movements being tying knots and untying knots. Then he corrected Croucher’s third part of Yilu.
Presenter: Chen Zhonghua Length: 48 min. In: English Year: 2020 Difficulty:1/5 At:Edmonton Chen Zhonghua Taiji Academy
Chen Zhonghua’s Sept. 2019 Toronto Workshop.
Presenter: Chen Zhonghua Length: 10 min. In: English Year: 2019 Difficulty:2/5 At:Toronto
On 7. Oct 2020’s online class, Master Chen talked about the first 2 layers of the positive circle.
The 1. layer is horizontal, with only the hand going back and forth.
The position of the hand should be slightly higher than the shoulder, and much higher than the elbow. ← →
The 2. layer adds a vertical dimension to the circle (to the above action), by moving up and down.
This up-and-down-movement can only come from the shoulder & kua.
The dropping of the front kua takes the front hand elbow with it (downwards), the dropping of the rear kua takes the front arm with it (sideways).
The rear foot pushes into the dantian. The power is from the dantian. ↓↑
Combined, the horizontal ← → and vertical ↓↑ action will display these two layers and the hand will appear to be moving, although it is not.
Master Chen Zhonghua’s online lesson on Practical Method on Oct. 7, 2020.
Presenter: Chen Zhonghua Length: 23 min. In: English Year: 2020 Difficulty:2/5 At:Edmonton Chen Zhonghua Taiji Academy
Master Chen Zhonghua’s private lesson for Roy Croucher on Oct. 7, 2020.
The first 18 minutes of the video has no sound. But we think it is important so we did not cut it out. Purchase this video if you don’t mind this clip.
Section two of yilu corrections.
Presenter: Chen Zhonghua Length: 34 min. In: English Year: 2020 Difficulty:1/5 At:Edmonton Chen Zhonghua Taiji Academy
Master Chen Zhonghua’s private lesson with Anton Phipps on applications.
Presenter: Chen Zhonghua Length: 52 min. In: English Year: 2020 Difficulty:1/5 At:Edmonton Chen Zhonghua Taiji Academy
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Niko’s Private Lesson at the Sept. 2019 Toronto Practical Method Workshop with Master Chen Zhonghua
Presenter: Chen Zhonghua Length: 45 min. In: English Year: 2019 Difficulty:2/5 At:Toronto
