William Chen demonstrates his Tai Chi on TV

[Bao]

81 yr old Tai Chi master William Chen demonstrates his tai chi punching power on a scared interviewer.

Well, he shows some great vitality for his age. I haven't felt his punches, but learned some techniques from people studying with him. Here, it doesn't look like very much here, but almost everyone who has felt his punches says that he has an awesome power.


https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iAdpGkFRzQo

[wiesiek]

...' TJ can be use as SD,
o, really ?, so i can use it... " cute, - yes let me write my tele. on you wrist

anyway, the new trendy fashion of the TJ boots is born !
Train as u walk!

[GrahamB]

That was funny

But was it internal???

[Bao]

That was funny

But was it internal???

Why shouldn't it be? He relax and is soft all throughout the punch. There is no tension, not even at the impact of the punch. If you don't use external effort how can it be external method?

[allen2saint]

He was my teacher for 6 years. The ole smoothie still takes over the show and still can hit. I've taken plenty from him and it's been a very unique experience. I think he was going to show his iron shirt stills, right? At the end?

[dspyrido]

Cute. I like the use of the banana & had forgotten about that one. Years ago we used a squeeze toy that made a sound on impact. The goal was to hit a solid chest with it in the hand & not make a sound. We thought initially it was a just for fun excercise. It ended up being a little enlightening.

[Andy_S]

Wow, that was a pleasant surprise.

These kinds of light chat shows with buffoonish presenters are normally fucking inane, but that was actually educational. What Chen said about the life of the fingers is good stuff - reflects what Gleason says on the other thread.

And I like the look of Chen a lot: Dignified, humorous and relaxed. (Why are so many MA masters so very tense in their everyday postures, facial expressions, movements, etc?) He is very damned quick, too. And not just for an 81 year old - an 18 year old would be hard-pressed to demonstrate this kind of totally un-telegraphed punching speed.


Given that the segment opened Michelle tying her chee in China, I wonder if the two anchors are deliberately trying to look - in terms of dress and hair - like POTUS and FLOTUS...?

Dspyrido:

What is the banana drill? I have always been taught to punch with a closed hand - albeit in Taiji, the hands only closes for the instant of impact. Here, however, Chen is punching with a fistful of banana, ie with a "hollow" hand. I have never seen this before.

Tell me more! (If you like...)

Bao, cheers for posting.

[Bao]

. I think he was going to show his iron shirt stills, right? At the end?

Yes I think so. . In an interview Chen tells a story that one of his main tasks as Cheng Man Ching's student was to come to CMC in the night and deliver punches at him while he was at sleep!

Dspyrido:

What is the banana drill? I have always been taught to punch with a closed hand - albeit in Taiji, the hands only closes for the instant of impact. Here, however, Chen is punching with a fistful of banana, ie with a "hollow" hand. I have never seen this before.

Tell me more! (If you like...)

Bao, cheers for posting.

Your welcome!

I have no idea about that banana thing, but a teacher in Beijing I met used to demo his relaxed punch by holding an egg. The key point was to focus the strength into the lao gong point in the palm to gain stability.

[allen2saint]

Yeah, Master Chen would tell stories about training with CMC. Never enough so we could really get the method down, but enough to form a very weird image in my head of young Master Chen and some buddies, dropping bags of something or other on CMC.

Yeah, he would usually just show us his hands and how relaxed they were in class. I guess the banana is a new thing for show. Funny....people underestimate him all the time and he's very crafty.

[Michael Babin]

I did a number of workshops with Master Chen and subsequently with two of his instructors in the early 90s. I still practise his 60 Posture solo as well as his sword form to this day. He was then, and judging by clips like this one, still is a remarkable instructor. He didn't speak poorly of any other teachers or styles any of the times I was in his presence even when asked directly for his opinion on various colleagues and he always made sure that by the end of a workshop he would have worked with everyone present for at least a few minutes. Both those attributes made him a rarity in my experience as I was doing workshops with everyone I could afford to meet in the taiji world in those days and very few other instructors were averse to slanging their competition and very few worked with the general attendees as opposed to whoever was hosting their visit.

Kudos to him for continuing over the decades to teach and share his experience and skill.

The banana training equipment seems like a great way to teach a serious subject and he was always fond of humour and toys of different kinds as a way to help teach the concepts he was trying to get across.

As to punching... many teachers still say that you should relax your hand and arm until the moment of impact and then tense up momentarily; if you're used to that it's hard to appreciate the impact that can be generated by keeping a relatively hollow fist until you experiment with it successfully. Start with a stalk of celery and don't hit anything too hard at first and make sure that your wrist is aligned properly [but you all knew that already. ]

[wayne hansen]

Keep relaxed untill you hit
At that point relax more

[dspyrido]

Dspyrido:

What is the banana drill? I have always been taught to punch with a closed hand - albeit in Taiji, the hands only closes for the instant of impact. Here, however, Chen is punching with a fistful of banana, ie with a "hollow" hand. I have never seen this before.

Tell me more! (If you like...)

Banana, egg, squeeze toy, celery etc. may at first seem like showmanship & you would be right in assuming it. After all it is usually presented in light of "can you do this?" to an "external stylist". But it is actually far more reaching than people might think.

I am going to highlight two stages. I like to think of them as Ming jing & An Jing. I don't know if I am right & leave the translations to the others but at least like to feel that the descriptions kind of correlate to the approach I am training.

- When you start to strike you learn to curl the fingers up & use the limb to get directional force.
- As you progress you learn to engage the other muscles in the body to propel the power of the strike.
- You also learn to target & propel. Your body gets more conditioned & faster at the hit.
- For the real diehards the conditioning kicks in with physically striking & toughening the knuckles turning the fist into rock

Training here to improve is normally viewed as do more & load up more. A lot of fighters take to bench press & push ups to ensure that in action-reaction on a target the force that rebounds is pushed through.

The path to striking can then take a turn. You can continue to do more or to seek out a more efficient way to do it better. So you:

- Learn to structurally align - "peng"
- Start to switch off the large visible muscles groups
- On impact instead of pushing you allow the reaction force to come in, pass through, hit the ground, react of the ground, pass through again & pass back into the target
- To do this you MUST BE completely loosened up. Any physically locked up muscles act like a resistor in an electrical circuit - the energy will stop there.
- Being loose also give you another benefit - you can go cold to hot very quickly thus boosting the velocity

So what has this got to do with a banana? Well the epitome of this is to hit with a relaxed fist as this emphasises the relaxed structure. The hand is not clenching but relies on the bones of knuckles to form a protective layer. Why? Clenching the hands automatically, tightens the forearms which creates the problem I highlighted above. Staying relaxed means the impact on the surface is actually passed through the hand into the body etc. etc.

So you remove the large muscle groups from the strike & can hit effortlessly right? Only if you have had really well conditioned connecting tissues which only come from good diligent practice of learning to strike & hit. So someone comes along - picks up a nana & learns to hit without squishing it. The problem - are they even hitting? The ability is only truly understood if the hit you are doing actually engages the whole body & can hurt the other person receiving it.

So to do this properly you don't take a beginner & tell them to pick up a banana & hit someone. You do exactly what everyone does - make a fist, build the power, condition it, then take the training into another direction, relax & structure. BUT - you don't just stop throwing strikes on all manner of surfaces. If you do then the connecting tissue will get weak again & you will probably end up cracking a wrist on your first impact with a hard surface.

Anyway - don't believe me. Give it a try. Use an egg if it takes your fancy. At least it will be good for a laugh. If you are doing it well make sure you are hitting someone & that they are giving you feedback around whether it is penetrating or if you are cheating.

[roger hao]

'Warn me if you are going to hit me'

"sure,sure" BAM!

LOL

[bailewen]

?

Dspyrido:

What is the banana drill? I have always been taught to punch with a closed hand - albeit in Taiji, the hands only closes for the instant of impact. Here, however, Chen is punching with a fistful of banana, ie with a "hollow" hand. I have never seen this before.

Tell me more! (If you like...)

Dunno bout tai chee but for Bajiquan, even the name of the style is most likely a reference to the "hollow fist". One of the more, IMHO, likely stories is that Bajiquan comes from paziquan ---"rakefist" for the open fist used. Today we call it an "empty fist"/空心拳 and the instructions I got were to make a regular fist, then leave just enough space in the middle that you could put you thumb from your other hand in it.

[windwalker]

Learn to structurally align - "peng"
- Start to switch off the large visible muscles groups
- On impact instead of pushing you allow the reaction force to come in, pass through, hit the ground, react of the ground, pass through again & pass back into the target
- To do this you MUST BE completely loosened up. Any physically locked up muscles act like a resistor in an electrical circuit - the energy will stop there.
- Being loose also give you another benefit - you can go cold to hot very quickly thus boosting the velocity

you dont feel this is slow? the rotational force is already there from the inner spiral along with the inertia from the mass of the body moving.

Any physically locked up muscles act like a resistor in an electrical circuit - the energy will stop there.

very true