Chen_Andy_S

[Bob]

I hope I got this right---your teacher, CXX--

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2Zvt5Puy ... re=related



http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MwDUqtXL ... re=channel



No waste of space; a few other odds and ends:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yPdaC15Y ... re=channel



http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=u3A_0zCb ... re=related

Chen style taiji form executed by master Feng Zhijiang 1986



http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PyhKMkuu ... re=related

Chen style 48. 1988

[Andy_S]

Bob:

U R half right: Chen XX is my teacher's teacher and (once or twice a year for a couple of weeks) my teacher. Anyway:

Nice intro to the village in the first vid. Those dramatic paintings of Taiji's mythic history are in the Chen Clan temple, next ot Chen XX's school. It is rumoured that Master Chen does his solo practice in there every morning though, alas, if you are not a Chen clan member, you have to cought up an entrance charge. Note also the wushu routines: There is (shock horror) a wushu coach in the school who teaches the kids this stuff. The paochoi on the roof routine in Clip 2 offers a nice view of the village - almost all the houses are walled in; perfect for secret Taiji practice... - but Chen XX currenlty lives in a ground floor flat on the school site.

What he is shown teaching the Russians is what he is ALL about: kwa. His style of Taiji is conservative and austere, compared even to his peers like Chen XW, Zhu Tien-cai, Wang Xian and Chen Yu - not to mention the Taiji wushu peeps. It is only in the last two years, that I have really started to appreciate his teachings. I should add that my thinking has changed on this: Previosuly I had been underwhelmed. I wonder if this is because he is starting to teach some interesting material these days? My teacher, FYI, apprenticed to him in, IIRC, 2000, and we have been working his method since then.

Note his punch here; A key method of fajing training in Chen Taiji. Chen XX teaches it differently to any other Chen teacher I know. Many teachers do a big punch, with a very clear horizontal rotation. Not so Chen XX. In his method, the hips shift from one side to the other, but do NOT turn - and the dantien rolls on a vertical axis. This mechanic gives the punch both horizontal and vertical power components. This is at odds with the horizontal turn that most teachers teach. As can be seen in the clip with the Russians, he can do a very short, snappy and whippy punch with little apparent movement, though he does also demonstrate bigger movements.

Pity the clips did not show Chen Ziqiang or Chen Zijun, his two sons. They are the chief instructors at the school: AFAIK, Chen XX only teaches privates these days (at a considerable premium). Chen Zijun's laojia (it is up on YouTube) is a pretty good representation of his father's Taiji, though to my eye, Ziqiang's forms are diverging from his father's.

Both the sons willingly teach combat - using the shuia PH or "Taiji wrestling" as the vehicle for this; there is little or no teaching of "applications" from the forms. This is very different to their father, who has very little interest in combat, or stands aloof from it (I am not sure which). But for detailed body mechanics, Chen XX is most certainly the man. When we were in the village last year, there were three other westerners traiing there under Ziqiang, and my instructor advised them, if they had the money. to do at least one private under Chen XX. Looking back, I would endorse that advice.