Master corrected my Six Sealing Four Closing. He adjusted the orientation of my front kua and the direction of the front hand. He then emphasised the front kua / front shoulder rod.
Master corrected my large Six Sealing Four Closing. The rear hand must be bigger.
Your door can never be open.
Master Chen demonstrated using a spear. The front hand is always pointing at your opponent.
Movement must come from the line. The line cannot be part of the move.
Twilight is at 12:00 and 6:00. Find these two dots and amplify them.
Full. Cannot add, cannot take away.
Essence, Qi, Spirit.
We are doing a series of mechanical movements.
Perceived power. It does not exist. But it does.
Exercises: Moving Step
Stepping side to side. The left foot, dantian, and right foot are three dots. Lock two dots, and move one.
Horse stance.
Lock dantian and R foot. Suck L foot in.
Shovel out.
Double Negative stepping out on a straight line.
Double push down.
Adjust front foot.
Elbow in while turning 180 degrees.
Shovel Out with hands on knees.
Press on your rear knee, shovel out at 45 degrees.
Shift to the middle.
Press on your front knee, suck the rear leg in.
So small there is nothing inside of it. So large there is nothing outside of it.
Upper Dantian is also called the Ancestry Cavity. Zu Qiao. Middle Dantian is at the solar plexus. Lower Dantian is three fingers below the navel, three inches in.
What is real cannot be named.
Behind is ability, in front is function.
If we have a question, write it down, then ask it after we are training. While we are training we must focus.
Push hands about (1) how quickly you adapt to your opponent (2) how fast you make a decision.
120 Overseas Chinese teenagers with 20 parents are on Daqingshan to learn Taiji. The course is taught by Han Rui, one of the instructors on Daqingshan. The content is Chen Style Taijiquan Practical Method. This is part of their Chinese culture experience in during their visit to China.
These youngsters come from Mauritius, Indonesia, New Zealand and Australia. This is part of a program through the Shandong Provincial Overseas Chinese Office. Daqingshan is one of their training sites. Read more
Your Next Step After A Workshop HONG KONG CHEN STYLE TAIJI PRACTICAL METHOD 香港陳式太極實用拳法·WEDNESDAY, DECEMBER 6, 2017
I watched master’s videos; it was the one where he demonstrated with Master Michael Calandra to be exact that got me curious. I thought, gosh, there is something very different here. He bounced and dropped people with what seemed to be minimal effort. I sent Master Chen an email asking if I could have a look at his next workshop and he gladly invited me. After driving about forty-five minutes to Langley, I sat and watched, and sure enough, it was the same as what I saw in the videos. The only remaining thing to do is to have a try. I walked up and asked Master Chen if I could push him (in hindsight, that was pretty stupid – the right kind of stupid for learning Practical Method). Read more
Practical Method was invited to participate in 2017 Martial Arts Festival in Vaughan, Ontario, Canada.
Shaolin martial arts from China were the main attraction for the event. Many local martial arts school were also invited to showcase their talents.
Kelvin Ho leading Bruce Robinson, Kevin Sun, Lucas Lu and Mark Hanley performed a yilu demonstration. A kids experience class was also conducted. A booth was set up to promote Practical Method. Eric Foo, Ken Fong, Louis Chan, Marianna Chan, Michele Chu helped with taking photos and videos, and looking after the booth.
Thanks to everyone who came to support as well.
I have fascia problems that limit and sometimes interfere with certain movements originating from a car accident and then being pushed on my tailbone 15 years ago. In October, my physio-therapist told me that my hips are opening and to continue with whatever exercises I was doing. I simply said that I am doing a Tai chi form that emphasizes stretching. She indicated that the stretching was breaking up the fascia. Read more
2017 5th Daqingshan International Taiji Competition, Rizhao China
Congratulations to Master Chen and the Daqingshan students on the outstanding success of the 5th Daqingshan International Taiji Competition (大青山第五届国际太极拳大赛开赛) in Rizhao (日照), Shandong province (山东省), China.
This prestigious event brought together participants from over 32 countries and regions, with 130 teams fielding a total of 1,170 contestants—including more than 70 international representatives. Notably, for the first time, real-time YouTube broadcasts of some push-hands competitions allowed an international audience to experience the event as it unfolded.
More information about the competition is available here (in Chinese).
I look forward to hearing from Practical Methods members who participated—please share your experiences in this thread!
Thank you for Rachelle Bergeron and James Tam for organizing the Ottawa workshop and their hospitality. It was always great fun to attend the Ottawa workshop. A lot of important aspects of Practical Method was shown and covered by Master Chen Zhonghua.
What is Practical Method about?
Practical Method was based on a fight system from long time again. It is an exercise we do to pass along the tradition.
What is a Practical Method stretch?
It is something with a moving and non-moving part. Read more
“Winter is coming!” Master Chen took time from his busy schedule to visit Ottawa in a Weekend seminar organized by Disciples Rachelle B.and James T. . Participants from Ottawa, Toronto and Quebec City gathered to review their Practical Method Taijiquan progress for this year. Over the weekend, we focused on the theory and philosophy relevant to the Practical Methods. We then apply those understandings to the physical actions of the Foundations, forms and applications.
Our actions are like on the tangent of a circle. The non-moving dot is the centre of the circle. Every linear action is very small. The direction changes all the time. The sequence of such actions along with non-moving dot cause the rotation. The actions are continued on top of each other, and they have a relationship with the non-moving dot. In the form, it is like dragging the flesh around some non-moving rod or dot. It is almost like someone pushes the arm on one side for elbow in, and someone else pushes the other side of the arm for hand out. This is related to the stretch that Master Chen Zhonghua showed on the inside or outside of the forearm. Another example is that if someone touches me in the front, I don’t move the front, but I stretch the back over or around that non-moving front. Read more
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
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.
