Yi (intent) is not just a thought. In my current understanding, yi describes an ability for your body to do a precise action as you command it to do. In other words, your body listens to your brain. It takes training to get to that state. Master Chen Zhonghua has said before, “the real intent is no intent”. Think about riding a bike as an example. After you have learned how to ride a bike, you don’t think about how to coordinate your hands and feet, how to balance, you only think about where to want to go. You appear to be able to do it with ease. For taijiquan, we need to train long enough to make an action habitual, so that we don’t think about it when we need it, and it just comes out. Read more
“…You also need To have good friends With friends You can help each other…” – Hong Junsheng, from Learning
We are glad to announce that the second European Practical Method Meet-up will take place in
Berlin on the first weekend of March 2018 (3rd & 4th).
Please let us know if you’re coming, as soon as possible (deadline January the 8th), so we can book
an appropriate training hall and organize a daily schedule.
The event is free, but there will be costs to share for the hall. The sooner you register the sooner we
can book, the cheaper it gets.
Registration is done simply by emailing us to practicalmethod.europe@gmail.com
If you are not from Europe you can join anyway, of course 🙂
This get-together is for all PM practitioners. It is not a workshop, but rather a training together to
exchange our experiences.
So there will be no teaching for beginners. That means you should know at least
the first 13 moves and the core foundations. You can struggle through the rest of the Yilu with us.
If you need more information feel free to ask us (practicalmethod.europe@gmail.com)
We are pleased to have Master Chen Zhonghua back for another training camp. Again, the taijiquan training, lodging and dining will be at one location with one cost at the same location as last year. This will be an intensive workshop focused on foundations, drills, form, push hands and applications. Disciples will take part in some of the instructions. Other areas of instruction may include Chen Style Jian and Cannon Fist (Erlu).
There are 32 accommodations on-site and 2 single occupancy cottages. If those slots should fill up, we will list hotels near the retreat center and allow those individuals to participate just the same as the other participants.
July 25th 2018 through July 31st 2018
Price:
4 nights 3 days is $550,
5 nights 4 days $700
6 nights 5 days $800
4pm check in and check out is following your last day breakfast.
Prairiewoods Retreat And Conference Hiawatha, Iowa
For more information please contact:
John Upshaw johnnyupshaw@yahoo.com
Levi Sowers lpsowers@gmail.com
My family was visiting Ottawa for the weekend of Oct 21-22, 2017. James Tam, Ming Tam and I got together to train early on Sunday morning. It was a great training session, and we worked on the following:
1) Stretching and how to progressively connect the hand to the rear foot
2) Half horse stance: how to fill the front kua, how to do one knee up and one knee down Read more
In the late afternoon of the first day of my first workshop with Master Chen, a wave of remorse and sadness swelled up in me, seemingly out of nowhere. Earlier in the day, two other workshop participants talked to me about decisions they were faced with that reminded me of a difficult period in my life, but there were no other obvious reasons why these emotions would well up.
I was not exerting myself in that moment, most of us were standing in a circle watching Master Chen demonstrate something on one of the other participants. The feelings were intense, but not overwhelming. I continued to pay attention, participate, and enjoy the workshop. There was also a degree of detachment from the feelings, a sense that they were somehow taiji-related and would pass. The feelings moved from foreground to background after a few minutes, but became strong again after the workshop had ended for the day and I was on the subway alone.
They faded for good the next morning after a restful sleep. I have since been told that Master Chen recommends being unmoved by feelings that occur during training or that take us away from training. I feel I did a reasonably good job of this at the time. I find it encouraging that training remained my priority in the midst of a potentially powerful distraction.
Here are some of my notes from this morning’s training on Daqingshan where Master Chen went over the two different types of movements in push hands:
An opponent can make “local” or “global” moves against you. Local moves involve only part of the body. Global moves involve the whole body.
We must learn to match an opponent’s local move with a global move, and vice versa.
In Practical Method, local and global moves are as follows:
– Local = “rotations” occurring in the upper body
– Global = “revolution” generated through stepping
No matter how large a movement is, if it doesn’t involve stepping, it is still a local move.
Hope these notes make sense without seeing what he was talking about. Happy training!
This morning at training on the small square of Daqingshan, Master Chen had us all write down the following points to remember for push hands and when making contact with an opponent:
Hand must be fixed on opponent
Elbow must go down and horizontal (towards dantian).
Elbow cannot be lined up with hand. (Master Chen had to elaborate a little more on this one: “The elbow cannot push towards the hand. It moves inward towards dantian but the force generated lines up with the hand”).
Shoulder must go straight down
Front foot steps in, rear foot follows
If there was any more elaboration on these points, I missed it unfortunately, due to my lacking Chinese language skills, but I hope these points can help you in your training!
A potential participant of our upcoming November 28th, 29th, 30th Hong Kong workshop posed the following questions. Sifu suggested that I pose the answers here so that everyone, especially newcomers, would benefit: Read more
Address for September workshop: 33735 Essendene Ave Abbotsford BC at the Two Dragons Tai Chi Academy (Abbotsford Downtown)
For the people coming from the Vancouver area, take the Freeway over the Port Mann. No more tolls.