PH from Jan Silberstoff

[Bao]

The fact that you are "even less impressed" after hearing his lineage suggests to me you are more impressed with "lineage" than skill.

That's quite the opposite of the truth. But I was disappointed because I thought there might be more backing up the master label, or something else than marketing and self promotion. I haven't seen any particular skills in the clips that I have watched, but I am sure he must have something. Sometimes, it's very hard to judge what is seen. One must really be there and feel it.

If you don't lke the skills coming out of Chen village, that is fine. There is other stuff out there. But few people (particularly, few foreign people) have put in more time learning those skills (for what they are worth - gold or muck) than Jan.

I don't know what skills are coming from the village. I have only seen forms and PH drills from the masters there. But I like much of what I have seen from Chen Yu and others who have the same background and connections to the village. So I guess there must be other stuff in the village as well.

I am not really interested in bashing someone, his skills or getting personal. It's the "master label" I am allergic to. I really hate when worship, surface and other things becomes more important than the art and I don't like when people use the master label to market themselves. It doesn't matter if it's Jan or Bruce Francis or Yang Jwing Ming or anyone else. The truly skillful practitioners or even lineage holders tend to not label themselves as such and seem to dislike the word and the personal worship attached to the word. I have never seen the word "master" associated with John Wang for instance. There seems to be many people deserving the title much more than the most of people who use the word for personal branding.

Out of curiosity (if you consider this a true mark of skill): How many years have you spent living in rural China, studying under a master?

Not as much as four years in China. But why do you believe that studying in the Mainland is very important?

[Bao]

In fact, CXW at that time himself was on the look-out to fill gaps in his training" (that I was told by elders)!

That's very interesting. Would like to hear more about this. Do you mean that even in the village only forms and PH drills were practiced?

[taiwandeutscher]

I don't know. In 1982, the village was a dust hole, nobody really was interested in TJQ, and the few, who practiced, were not in, CXW on the search. For what?

[nicklinjm]

I have now heard this (that Chen Xiaowang left the village looking for the 'missing pieces' in his taiji) from several sources. It seems like the crucial period was between say 1978 - 1981, when he visited in particular Feng Zhiqiang and Hong Junsheng. However, no one can agree what actually happened during these visits or what exactly Chen Xiaowang learned. By 1978 CXW's fajin and push hands was already pretty good (he had already one a few national competitions), so my guess is that he was seeking instruction on the free-form combat side of Chen taiji.

Can compare this with what Chen Zhonghua said about learning from Feng Zhiqiang after studying with Hong Junsheng, something like "Teacher Hong taught me the rules of taiji, teacher Feng taught me how to break free of the rules".

Bao, as for liking what Chen Yu shows: what Chen Yu teaches is very different to what one would learn in the village - not just in terms of form (xinjia v laojia) but also in terms of the applications, footwork and single fajin training. YMMV.

[charles]

In fact, CXW at that time himself was on the look-out to fill gaps in his training" (that I was told by elders)!

That's very interesting. Would like to hear more about this. Do you mean that even in the village only forms and PH drills were practiced?

I don't have a horse in this race.

My primary Chen teacher spent 5 years studying in the Village from '82, the first 6 months with Chen Xiaoxing and then as a private student of Zhu Tiancai. He said that at that time no one there (i.e. students) was interested in fighting.

I once asked my teacher why he didn't chose to study with Wang Xian, who lived next door to Zhu, and with whom he also trained. He said that Wang was too brutal. This statement from a man who was an accomplished fighter prior to going to the Village. In short, at least some people - e.g. Wang - know/knew how to fight in the Village, regardless of what was/is commonly practiced/taught.

[Andy_S]

My sense is that the early training of the village people from Chen Zhaipei did not focus much on combat: After all, Zhaopei had suffered heavily at the hands of the authorities during the cultural revolution, and he probably did not want to push his luck. Also, at that time - in the 1960s and 70s - Taiji was already widely established as a health routine rather than an MA. That is a pity as he COULD fight (at least, according to the stories told in the village): He apparently set up a leitei in Beijing on his visit there, where he established Chen Taiji's reputation. When his senior Fa-ke subsequently arrived in Beijing, Zhaopei moved off to Nanking to spread the gospel further. (Oddly, I have never heard of any of his students from Nanking, whereas Fa-ke had a strong cadre of students in Beijing who continued his legacy - Zhaokuei, Hong, Feng et al).

So it is not surprising that Chen XW went to Beijing to learn from Feng, though they later fell out. I am not sure over what. Anyone...? And oddly enough, I agree with some of Chen's critiques of Feng' s techniques, such as his "headbutt-the-gut-while-punching-the-foot," a ridiculous application he shows in the Chen/Feng book. Maybe Feng had a sense of humour...?) What makes this doubly odd is that I suspect Feng had much more combative material and/or experience than Chen.

I am not sure where Wang got his combative material from: If memory serves, he spent some extra time (ie more time than the other three "warrior attendents") under Zhaokui...? Certainly, Wang and his sons did have a reputation in the village of being badasses, to the point where (I have heard) they were jailed for extortion and or bullying behavior. I understand that they have now quietened down and make a decent living teaching Taiji. There again, in the village today, Chen Beng and Chen Ziqiang seem to be as widely respected combatively as the Wang boys, which indicates to me that they all have largely the same training; The different may be emphasis rather than per se knowledge.

All that having been said, out of all the "new" forms invented by Chen Xiaowang, Zhu Tiencai, Chen Ziqiang, Chen Bing in the last couple of decades, the only one I find particularly compelling is Wang's fajing form: Looks very effective and expressive. It is also the only one that really seems to be a worthwhile addition to the Chen curriculum, rather than being simply a distillation or shortened version of the classic forms.

Not sure about Chen XW winning any PH comps: I have heard the opposite - ie that PH was not one of his better skillsets and he lost at least one tourney in the first round. And today, he is certainly far more of a form guy noted for his fajing displays (but not fajing applications) than he is for PH or related skillsets.

I'd agree that Chen Yu has a rather different curriculum from the village peeps. His shenfa is different - this is true of several of the Zhaokui students - and he seems to have much more emphasis on applications, especially qinna, than the village people. I am not sure if his guys are doing any better than the village guys in sanda and PH competition, though. And it should be noted the Yu is "on the village team" - he visits there, teaches and/or demonstrates there, is on the lineage charts, etc, etc. That seems not to be true of the other branches of Chen - notably the Hong and Feng lines.

I should add that the "four tigers" were not the only guys in the village who did (or do) Taiji. There are other lines who learned material that was from neither Fa-ke or Zhao-pie. Most prominently, these are the huleijia line (in a suburb of Chen Village) and several masters of xiaojia (small style).

As TaiwanDeutscher found on his trip in the 80s: Chenjjiagou was a very conservative place and even today it is impossible to see what is going on in the houses, as they are mud-walled compounds. I don't think the public spaces for training (eg the circular concrete plaza over the stream, and commercial Taiji schools) were around in the early 80s. Even so, SOME people did get a glimpse of the art even back then: There is that documentary which prominently features severl elders and Chen Xiaowang which was filmed around that time - that even included a few qinna and applications - and a Taiwanese group that included John Wang and Adam Hsu, visited the village then and filmed a lot of material, including the huleijia.

I should add that Deutshcer himself is now learning a (excellent) huleijia line that was certainly represented in the village in the 1980s, but which has, I think, only recently come "out of the closet" and which looks very combat effective from what I have seen. (Which, I should add, is limited to YouTube clips)

[Jarek]

Re Jan - I met him in September 1991 in Wen County during the 1st Wen County TJQ Meeting. AFAIR Jan was studying in Xi‘an back then with Shen Xijing and a bunch of Shen's buddies, quite a merry group. Jan also did some Shaolin on a side then but his TJQ was so much better. I think he was coming to Xi'an for a couple of months only, and his studies in Chenjiagou were also limited to shorter periods. However he invested a lot of effort and later spend time in Australia studying directly from CXW, and was actively promoting Chen Style TJQ and CXW's organization all over the world.
I'm not sure if Jan is on this board, I guess he rather practices than engages in discussions on internet forums. Would be interesting to hear more about his practice from him directly.