These are notes from a recent trip to Edmonton learning from Master Chen Zhonghua. Question based off torso movements I was shown
To recap:
My understanding of the “2 points” motion within the torso. Read more
This is a detailed list of the classification of moves of the Chen Style Taijiquan Practical Method forms of Yilu and Cannon Fist. Hong Junsheng’s Taijiquan Practical Method Movement Classifications: Read more
2007-10-01
Smith, Jay
Yilu – The knees are more locked in properly now. His stance is much more stable.
2007-10-14
Smith, Jay
Yilu 73.50% More coordination and more power were shown at this performance. Needs to work on more openning and stretching.
Elbow Sticks to the Ribs
“Elbow Sticks to the Ribs” is a principle that is shared by all martial arts, not only Taijiquan. It’s a pity that most martial artists only pay lip service to this age-old aphorism. This is indeed a secret training method to higher levels of martial attainment.
Chen Style Taijiquan Practical Method regards this aphorism as a major principle to follow.
Wuwei
Wuwei is “none doing”. It is a concept that sometimes in life the action required is “not to do anything”. This is very different from don’t do anything in a normal sense. This concept is stressed very heavily in the Daoist philosophy because the Daoists perceive a reality that has both action and non action together.
This is not a Chinese concept alone. For example, in English we say “No news is good news”. We also say that if the opponent does not say no, that can be construed as acquiescence.
Daoists believe that Wuwei should be at least half of our actions. This is a very difficult task to achieve.
So the objective is to “lengthen”, to expand (not collapse) from our central balance point. We create a line, which intersects our center, from two longer points. For example, a line might be drawn from a shoulder point near the neck, to connect with a point on the bicep above the elbow. This opens the shoulder, while letting it rotate into the center of our structure, instead of “popping” up or out (which would collapse the point).
Taiji Push Hands is always about the state of mind, body, structure, angle, space, timing, etc. It is not an emphasis on responding to the opponent. It is always about adjusting my structure, to sustain my center and stability of the structure. It involves rotating joints, to reorganize my inner body relationships, creating appropriate angles, to occupy the optimal space for my center balance to be sustained, while my opponent’s space and center is taken away.
The famed Zheng Banqiao (one of the Seven Poets of the Bamboo Forest) wrote:
It’s difficult to have a clear mind
It’s not easy to be confused
It’s even harder to transform from clarity to the state of confusion.
He wrote this at an era of no hope for the people. Indeed in his time, the learned would be able to live in peace if only they could voluntarily go into a state of drunkenness or confusion. The relevancy of this point in terms of our pursuit of Taijiquan is that there is a time for clarity and there is a time for confusion.
This reminds me of what Hong told me and many of his students:
Those who are smart cannot learn this art
Because they think they can understand it
Those who are mentally retarded cannot learn it
Because they CANNOT understand it
Only those who have the mental capacity to understand
But fail to see the point
Will one day get it
Through persistant
2007
2008
Kim Allbritain is a 7th Dan Black Belt in Karate. He had 35 years of experience in martial arts by 2003.
One of the terms we hear often in the Chen Style Taijiquan Practical Method system is “Rotation”. This term relates to silk reeling, spiral, circles, turning, etc. It is an inseparable part of the Chen Style Taijiquan Practical Method system.
In dealing with this concept, one must keep in mind the following:
- There are no complete rotations with any part of the body.
- Every part of the body should have partial rotational movements.
- According to the number of parts of the body, the rotation is composed of mini rotational movement of each part. The total of all involved parts must add up to 360 degrees, a full circle.
- Rotation must involve a central axis.
Hong’s form of taiji has no ‘rehearsal movements’ or pre-movements, its just the useful stuff. Don’t load your taiji with rehearsal movements and unimportant movements.
“Don’t Move Your Hands!”
Contrary to what most believe, the hand in most cases move too much. Everybody wants to learn how to move the hand. In fact, they should learn how NOT to move it! Read more
Chen (2) Jian (1) Zhui (4) Zhou (2) 沉肩坠肘
Sink the shoulder and pull down the elbow.
The shoulder can only sink downwards towards the direction of the kua. It cannot move sideways. It cannot move upwards either.
The elbow must point downwards towards the direction of the Dantian. It cannot raise upwards.
Are you learning anything? I often mention at my workshops that I notice many old disciples of the Grandmaster who spent dozens of years with the Grandmaster without learning a thing.
Why do I say something so harsh? Look at the physical evidence. They continue to look like they are doing wushu, or whatever they used to do. They continue to use force in their push hands. They continue to use tricks in their applications. Their abilities are all external.
Are you one of the above?
One observation that I have consistently made is that most people follow the rules for about 4 months. They gain considerable ability and understanding during these four months. After that they mentally graduate. They won’t “hear” anything any more. The first four months were filled with real learning because they were totally new to the system. After the first four months, they continue to believe that they are learning but in reality, they don’t learn any more. If you tell them, they will have 1 million explanations. They confuse what they do with what learning is. They experiment and are on their own while in their mind they are trying out what they learned.
In real life, a person gets into this frame of mind at the age of about 11 to 13. That’s when you notice that they start believing in themselves. In learning Taiji, this is reduced to about 4 months. Once a person gets into that frame of mind, there is almost no return.
Another scenario is almost the opposite but has the same bad effect. People come to the system but will not learn. There could be a myriad of reasons but they are not learning. If these people can persist, one day they will learn. When that happens, their learning will be in leaps and bounds. That is because by this time, they will have a very good foundation for learning. Their understanding will be based on facts they know.
You need to re-examine your learning process.
Rotation with just enough pushing force. A good example of this type of energy or action is when screwing. The turning and the pushing that makes the screw go in is “grinding”. Otherwise there would be only turning, or pushing. This type of energy is highly stressed in the Chen Style Taijiquan Practical Method system.
In Chinese pinyin: Nian.
On Daqingshan in January of 2007 you descibed the example where the positive circle was Yang (to attack) and the negative circle was Yin (to adhere). You talked about the effect on an opponent when you would turn your negative circle into a positive circle. If the other person was attacking and you were using the Yin (to adhere) and suddenly you changed to a positve circle at just the right moment, this would send an impact into your opponent. You also explained that the quicker the change (the turning of the joint), the more power that would be generated. The part that really got my attention was when you explained that the Taiji theory stated that if the change from Yin to Yang could be done instantaneously, then there would be infinite power generated at the ‘Turning of the Joint’ contact point.
Please let me start my comparison of the Western science to Taiji with the subject of the contact point or the one dot where the two players hands meet. I want to refer to this link to show the relevance of the impulse function and the contact point:
This article starts out by saying “In engineering, we often deal with the idea of an action occurring at a point. Whether it be a force at a point in space or a signal at a point in time, it becomes worth while to develop some way of quantitatively defining this.”
The rectangle on the graph says that as we shorten the time (of the ‘Turning of the Joint’ ) on the X-Axis, we get a corresponding increase in the power (the magnitude of the response) on the Y-Axis. One key point here is that the area of the rectangle (which in our case whould be the total power that you used at the ‘Turning of the Joint’ ) is the same, whether you did the move slowly or extremely fast (an Impulse). If you compress the time that it takes to expel that energy into your opponent, the force (power) is stronger (over that time interval). Here is another links that shows the idea of the same area (power) at different time intervals and how the height increases as the time gets shorter:
These equations are only models and models were created to attempt to describe the natural world. Taiji is real, so the models can only be approximations of the amazing complexities of Taiji. I was, however, impressed by the similarities. Also, in Taiji, it could be the attacking person that supplies the power (area of the rectangle) and the defender’s ‘Turning of the Joint’ that turns the power back on the attacker. Here again, we are still talking about that ‘point’ where it goes from Yin to Yang. (I suppose in reality that there is some power from both people and never just from one person)
Mathematical theory is not particularly exciting unless I can relate it to something real (like Taiji), so for me, this comparison was very interesting. I hope this had some appeal for you too!
Thanks,
Gene
- Split: The action of two (or more) parts of the body moving away from each other. The key is that there must be a fixed spot (does not mean a real physical spot) in this action. This fixed point is also the center of the action.
Powering Up： To increase size, length or compression within a fixed area.
Momentum： inertia of force. In taijiquan practice, momentum force simply means movement that cannot be stopped.
- Sinking
- With the baihui point fixed, the movement downward of all or some other parts of the body.
- Any part of the body can be split into yin and yang. When one part is fixed and the other part goes away from the fixed part, it is also called sinking. Therefore, sinking does not have to have a downwards direction.
peng jin：The movement away from the center in all directions. The center must be maintained to be considered an expansion.
Extension: Stretching of a part or point to make it longer. The original point/position must be maintained.
