Chen Qingzhou passed

[taiwandeutscher]

Just saw this on FB:

太极拳大师陈庆州老师于今天早上6：30逝世，享年八十二岁。陈庆州大师一路走好！
Announcing the death of GM Chen Qingzhou, who passed away today at 6:30 am (China) aged 82. GM Chen Qingzhou spent his life promoting Chen Taijiquan and had significant influence on its development. Rest in Peace.



https://www.facebook.com/250808707237/p ... =1&theater

[Wanderingdragon]

Peace

[Doc Stier]

May his memory be eternal!

[Bob]

Deepest condolences to his family and students.

[Jarek]

Condolences to Chen Qingzhou's family, friends, students. He was one of very few who was guarded the pure Old frame of Chen style. R.I.P.

[nicklinjm]

RIP - it is always sad to hear that one of the older generation of teachers has passed, and particularly in the case of Chen Qingzhou, as he seems to have preserved several rare training methods like the taiji sphere.

Jarek, just out of curiosity, what do you mean by the pure Old frame of Chen style? I thought his taiji was from Chen Zhaopei and therefore should be pretty similar to the 4 Jingang (Chen Xiaowang, Chen Zhenglei, Wang Xi'an and Zhu Tiancai)?

[Jarek]

Jarek, just out of curiosity, what do you mean by the pure Old frame of Chen style? I thought his taiji was from Chen Zhaopei and therefore should be pretty similar to the 4 Jingang (Chen Xiaowang, Chen Zhenglei, Wang Xi'an and Zhu Tiancai)?

Chen Qingzhou - unlike 4 Jingang - did not study New Frame with Chen Zhaokui.

[charles]

he seems to have preserved several rare training methods like the taiji sphere.

It isn't clear that the "taiji" sphere was a training method used in ChenJiagou other than by CQZ. It's a good practice, but he may have adopted it from elsewhere.

[greytowhite]

RIP. My Chen teacher was a fan of his stuff after becoming disillusioned with the Xinjia material. Too bad neither of us can meet the man now.

[Bob]

In 2000 I had the pleasure of visiting his school and demonstrating the Wu Tan(g) version of Chen's taijiquan. I can still remember the humidity and the sound of a starting tractor as I began my performance.

He was a most gracious host and even prior to going there, I was an admirer of his forms because of their close resemblance to those of Du Yu Ze.

His sons all demonstrated for us and it was just a wonderful time.

[Andy_S]

Not sure if his laojia (ie Chen Zhaopei style) was any more "pure" than that of the more famous "four tigers:" They all got the laojia material from the same source (ie Zhaopei himself). My understanding is that he simply declined to learn the xinija (Chen Fake) sets - though I am not sure why. (Anyone...?)

OTOH, his sons HAVE learned, and do teach, the xinjia material.

Although the village system is to teach the laojia first, on the basis that it is "simpler," my sense is that it is better to first teach the xinjia, with its more obvious body openings and closings and more extrovert spirals, than the more subtle laojia.

To put it another way: I see xinjia as a younger man's style (it came to the village from the middle-aged Zhaokui - Fake's son) and laojia as an older man's style (Zhaopei was, I think, in his late 50s or 60s when he returned from Nanjing to the village to teach: At that stage of his life and practice, I would guess that he had internalized a lot of the movements). Still, they are both very broadly the same thing - ie subsets of Chen Dajia ("big frame") Taiji - albeit with different technical emphases and a few different techniques.

A related point. IMHO, the names of the various Chen "frames" - laojia (old frame), xinjia (new frame), dajia (big frame) and xiaojia (small frame) - are misleading as a guide to what the forms actually represent in terms of both lineage and physicality.

Regardless of all the above:
RIP and condolences to family, friends and students. A master has passed.

[Andy_S]

Greytowhite:

What disillusioned him about the xinjia?

[Bao]

Although the village system is to teach the laojia first, on the basis that it is "simpler," my sense is that it is better to first teach the xinjia, with its more obvious body openings and closings and more extrovert spirals, than the more subtle laojia.

To put it another way: I see xinjia as a younger man's style (it came to the village from the middle-aged Zhaokui - Fake's son) and laojia as an older man's style (Zhaopei was, I think, in his late 50s or 60s when he returned from Nanjing to the village to teach: At that stage of his life and practice, I would guess that he had internalized a lot of the movements). Still, they are both very broadly the same thing - ie subsets of Chen Dajia ("big frame") Taiji - albeit with different technical emphases and a few different techniques.

Interesting.... So you prefer the obvious before the subtle?

Otoh, what I see from clips, what he does looks very strong, very evident. Of course, something based on subtle mechanics can also look very strong, nothing wrong with that. But how do you define the subtleness of CQZ's techniques (CQZ, not Laojia) ?

[Andy_S]

Bao:

IMO and IME, you have start with the obvious, bigger and more visible movements. Only once you understand these basic mechanics, can you start to refine things down to the smaller and more subtle.

I believe this is what Chen Fa-ke did with his xinjia frame of Taiji. In so doing, he went against the grain of almost all other Taiji forms: He gave the frames more of an "exo-skeleton" so students could pick up the mechanics of the movement. He also added a few extra moves that (I guess) he picked up in Beijing. Meanwhile, most other Taiji styles were being refined, becoming smaller, slower, higher and (in the case of the modern wushu forms) simplified. A, lternatively, as I suggested above, the xinjia frame is simply a younger master's teaching of dajia ("big frame") taiji, while laojia is an older master's teaching of the same material.

I think Taiji has gone wrong over the decades, as the art has become too soft, too subtle, too much of an old man's - or rather, old master's - style. Certainly, this soft, subtle, internalized style is the acme of the art. The question is: How do you get to that point?

All reports of the training of the early Yangs is that the art was very, very physically hard for the early Yang boys - who tried to commit suicide, so hard was Yang Luchan's training. The photos of 1st generation Wu also tend to confirm this and this kind of training is still (somewhat) visible in the Henan Taiji styles.

Many of the Beijing and Shanghai styles, OTOH, really don't seem to contain this kind of hardcore foundation works, as far as I can see: They are the "finished product" rather than a vehicle to reach that finished product.

[charles]

They are the "finished product" rather than a vehicle to reach that finished product.

I think that is a good summary.