Chen Xiaoxing teaching

[ors]

Andy!

The 20th generation is quite combative you have said. Who they have learnt their apps from, if there are no one in the 19th generation who knows the usage of the art?

Örs

[Doc Stier]

Andy!

The 20th generation is quite combative you have said. Who they have learnt their apps from, if there are no one in the 19th generation who knows the usage of the art?

Örs

Excellent question! Hmmm!

I guess they're just blessed with greater insight than their predecessors, eh?

[Bokonon]

yes, good question, Ors. I think that Chen Xiao Xing is showing things that have to be discovered before you can generate the kind of power that the 20th gen players show in their taiji (Chen Bing and Chen Ziqiang at least). How do you think these guys got the power that they did? My guess is by doing a lot of what Chen Xiao Xing told them to do.

[ors]

As I see with my limited knowledge and understanding, after some time quite a lot of practioners lost their interests in combat. The younger generations haven't lost that yet...

Örs

[Ian]

Andy!

The 20th generation is quite combative you have said. Who they have learnt their apps from, if there are no one in the 19th generation who knows the usage of the art?

Örs

When I was learning Chen style, I was taught exactly..... one app.

Almost the entirety of my apps I reverse-engineered from the forms, and took it to venues such as muay thai, judo, bjj, boxing, and wing chun classes.

If you're interested in fighting, that's what you'll learn.

What you do in your own free time should be more than what you've been shown in class.

[BrianK]

Ian, Chris, and Andy have all made some excellent points. I've gone the same route as Ian, moving away from Chen TJQ (CXW line) after studying it for 6 years. In those 6 years I probably learned more about Shen Fa -and less about anything resembling free fighting- than in any of the other arts I've studied. I spent quite a bit of money at CXW seminars; while I still employ tips he gave me in my daily standing practice, I learned more about actual combat in any one xingyi, choy lay fut, BJJ, JJJ, bagua, etc. class which I paid far less for.

The notion of being a MA master who hasn't mastered fighting -the primary function of martial arts- is a bit odd to me. If someone claims mastery of muay thai, kyukushin, BJJ, sambo, silat, wing chun, or whatever, their ability to apply the art in free fighting would seem very relevant to their status as a master. Otherwise maybe we can call them qigong masters. Hell, I'd love to be a qigong master.

Most "masters" try to produce students who can apply their skills under some pressure, if for no other reason than the stark reality that the student might have to fall back on his skills in a scary situation (to say nothing of fighting for the glory of the pai). Yip Man supposedly once said that if any of his students who had learned Chum Kiu lost a fight, he would throw himself from the roof of his school. I like a little crazy hyperbolic boasting from my CMA luminaries. The Chen masters have fantastic body method, but san da can be as important as shen fa.

Brian

[Andy_S]

Ors:

The younger guys do a lot of wrestling - this training for this, as you know, is totally different from forms training,and has little to do with "take a move out of the form and apply it against a partner."

Presumably, they learned these basics from the seniors, and do a whole lot more of it. When the 19th gen were coming up, fighting was frowned upon and there were no PH competitions, so most of their training was form. Things are different now in that regard, and so the 20th generation's training focus is a bit different.

I imagine the present generation have added to the art - I don't agree with this attitude of:
"Everything they have, they have to have learned from an older master."
Just as BJJ is changing and adding to its techniques with ongoing tourney experience - so with Taiji (albeit in a lesser manner).

I asked Chen Ziqiang: "Now we have better training equipment, more information, better nutrition, and more time to practice. Can we (I meant "you" when I asked this Q) surpass the skills of the old masters?"

His reply was, "In Chinese culture it is disrespectful to say you have surpassed your elders..." but went on to largely agree that it IS/should be possible to gain the same skills as the old masters.

[GrahamB]

When I was learning Chen style, I was taught exactly..... one app.

One app? You were lucky - in my day we had to wake up at 2.30am, run 12 miles to the masters dojo barefoot over rocks then, and only then, might we catch the slightest glimpse of him teaching an application by peeping through a crack in the wall.

Those were the days!

Anyway, it's all change - I count at least 4 chin na going on here:

[Ian]

I would rather work exclusively on jibengong and forms (which is what I did) than partake in any of those piss-poor 'applications'.

[Andy_S]

I second Ian's comments above.

The PH training gives a much better route to application than such dodgy practcies as pulling a punch (or knife) out of the air and applying a lock: He is not even bridging, he is just seizing the striking member.

[GrahamB]

seizing the striking member.

herr herr... he said "seizing a member".... herr.rrr..herrr..

[ors]

Hmmm...

First of all!
BrianK!
How many of those mentioned masters with combat skills have thought their students in seminars…?
Think of it about this:
You are a master of some interesting family style. Let’s say BrianK-style…  Some guys from Turkey (who don’t speak English at all…) have seen you on television, and decided to ask you give them a seminar in Istanbul. Some of them have a background in Turkish wrestling, some of them are totally beginners. What would you teach them?
Time goes on and the team is good so, they invite you quite frequently. Every year a ten day seminar (how long those mentioned seminars usually are?)… After 6 long years you would seen those faces 60 days altogether. 2 months… Is it a relationship between you? How deeply you would teach them?
Besides those guys from Istanbul, you have a regular class at home. You live with them, sleep with them. One of them is your son, the other guy is your nephew, and the rest is all your good students. You can correct them day by day, step by step… They will be the inheritors of your art…
Is there any real purpose for you to teach the Istanbul guys deeply?

Ian!

After you have “re-engineered” your apps from the forms, as you have mentioned, are you sure those are the correct apps? Are you sure you use the correct forces and the correct body methods for chenstyle? Or these are just apps like in any other styles you have learnt?

Andy!

As I see, you are right in the wrestling part. It is interesting, yeah. More interesting for me to know, that other chenstyle teachers, like the late Tian Xiuchen and Feng Zhiqiang are totally against wrestling. Just as the late Hong Junsheng was… Why? My teacher did lots of tuishou training with both of their teachers and he said when they saw their students wrestling they stopped them immediately. Tuishou is not about wrestling. When we train tuishou with my classmates we usually end up with wrestling. My teacher enjoys seeing us wrestle, and give us some advices, but always says it is not the force we are looking for…
I am sure the 20th generation is very, very good. But I am sure when they will be elder a little bit the way how they train will be change a lot.
Just compare the formplay of them and the 18th generation. The competitions have changed lots of things, at least their focus, as you have said, and that is for sure!

Örs

[Ian]

Ian!

After you have “re-engineered” your apps from the forms, as you have mentioned, are you sure those are the correct apps? Are you sure you use the correct forces and the correct body methods for chenstyle? Or these are just apps like in any other styles you have learnt?

Well I stuck as closely to the shape of the form (Wang xian's form), and the principles Hong junsheng wrote about, as possible. And the apps seemed to work.

The apps looked nothing like my other style because my other style was TKD, and I'm pretty sure I wasn't doing flying sidekicks.

But no, of course I wasn't sure.

Maybe I should've waited until 60 to be as sure as CXW, but to be honest I don't like getting humiliated like he did in his push hands match

[ors]

Ian!

That last was brutal...

Örs

[Ian]

Maybe, but I don't think that clip can be white-washed

I have massive respect for Chen bing based on the clips of him tossing that big guy around. I can't do that.

But I'm pretty sure many people of much lesser skill and specialization can spar/push hands better than CXW.