A-Grade Taiji Demo, Very Well Filmed

[Andy_S]

Just come across this. OK, it is JUST a Taijiquan form demo,but the chap doing it is Chen Bing, the top resident disciple of Master Chen Xiaoxing in the village; Bing last year opened his own Taiji school. (Bing is senior to Chen Ziqiang - whose demos are visible elsewhere on this page - but oddly, I would say that Bing's Taiji is much closer to Xiaoxing's than Ziqiang's even though Ziqiang is Xiaoxing's son.)

I would consider Bing's forms 'gold standard,' but what I really like about this clip is the camerawork: He focuses in and out, on the center of the body, the full body, the legs, etc. Also, Bing is doing the form at a very restrained pace, so there is plenty of time to see what is going on. Moreover, Bing is only in his early 30s, so he has not 'internalized' his moves as much as some masters.

IMHO, this is a tremendous postural and technical model for anyone for anyone from my (Chen Xiaoxing) lineage, and, I would add, for anyone who does Chen Taijiquan. Close to perfect.

HAND FORM
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7ItYp_Kf ... re=related

SWORD FORM
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pAr-369I ... re=related

[PartridgeRun]

Man, I hafta fix that proxy soon...

I always thought Chen Bing was mad impressive. It was one of his performances which drew me into studying IMA (that and Mike Sigman's first appearances on aikiweb ).
When Chen Bing played a Taiji-form I could easily see a concrete manifestation of some of the extraordinary bodyskills that proper IMA-training should lead to...
Chen Bing is also one of the only guys with public footage on the net where active use of IMA-mechanics against a larger opponent is clearly demonstrated (I never understood why those clips didn't garner more attention...).

[Adam S]

Andy

You committed sacrilege recently-re CFK

so hopefully you'll allow me to do the same

However beautifully CB moves his xinjia (along with quite a few of his village peeps) lacks some of the detail & 'intent' that many of the 'Beijing' line consider important

so I couldn't even begin to say close to perfect


sacrilege over

[Andy_S]

Adam:

Firstly: How anyone can visually 'see' intent I have no idea. Please fill me in, I'd love to know how to spot it.
As for the 'detail' that is considered important by the Beijing boys - likewise.

TIA.

[Doc Stier]

Adam:

Firstly: How anyone can visually 'see' intent I have no idea. Please fill me in, I'd love to know how to spot it.
As for the 'detail' that is considered important by the Beijing boys - likewise.

Agreed. The presence or absence of focused concentration in performing a set can certainly be visually seen, but seeing someone's intention is doubtful, unless you possess questionable clairvoyant abilities.

And as the old adage says: "The devil is in the details."

The vast majority of practitioners in any given style train the same form sets with the same sequential arrangement of postures, and generally assign the same or very similar names to the forms. Additionally, most will train these routines according to standardized concepts and principles commonly accepted within their respective style, resulting in a clearly recognizable 'family' style resemblance overall.

Most differences, therefore, are found in the personal performance of the transitional movements which connect the named and numbered postures in the form sets. As a result, we can easily observe a wide variety of personal interpretation in performing these transitional movements among individual teachers and practitioners of every generation.

Thus, much of what is likely to be the focus of performance details may be unique to the specific teacher one is learning from and, IMO, perhaps not so relevant to those who practice the same form set as taught by a different teacher.

[ChiBelly]

Adam:
Firstly: How anyone can visually 'see' intent I have no idea. Please fill me in, I'd love to know how to spot it.
As for the 'detail' that is considered important by the Beijing boys - likewise.

You can't see intent, but the presence of glowing qi balls firing from the palms is evidence of its presence.

Assuming 'Beijing boys' means Chenyu / Chen Zhaokui lineage, the difference in the level of detail in Xinjia is pervasive. Some of this is due to the extra emphasis Chen Zhaokui had on qinna (generally, the smaller the joint manipulated, the smaller and more subtle the movement). This also works hand-in-hand with Chenyu's shenfa, which can also be rather subtle / detailed.

Here's one example ( "four palm changes" - just before "whirling elbows"). When Hans Oh (Chenyu's Tudi) does it, you can actually count the four palm changes. This isn't apparent when Chen Bing does it.

@5:28 - 5:43


@4:43 - 5:00

[Adam S]

You can't see intent, but the presence of glowing qi balls firing from the palms is evidence of its presence.

Excellent point

I did put the I word in quotation marks but okay lets stick with detail

Excellent example Chi Belly of some detail missing-there are quite a few examples


Dont even get me started on the leaning over.....in xinjia talk about sacrilege

[Adam S]

The vast majority of practitioners in any given style train the same form sets with the same sequential arrangement of postures, and generally assign the same or very similar names to the forms. Additionally, most will train these routines according to standardized concepts and principles commonly accepted within their respective style, resulting in a clearly recognizable 'family' style resemblance overall.

Most differences, therefore, are found in the personal performance of the transitional movements which connect the named and numbered postures in the form sets. As a result, we can easily observe a wide variety of personal interpretation in performing these transitional movements among individual teachers and practitioners of every generation.

True & very good point

However there are certain details & characteristics in xinjia that I see CY/FZQ/MH all have & not so much the village guys.........

Please dont think I'm saying CB's performance is poor, it obviously isn't

Andy said it was a close to perfect performance-with all the characteristics of laojia in it imho I couldn't agree

[Adam S]

PS

Andy, in a link to another performance that CB does on that same page on youtube

He commits the fundamental error of lifting his elbow to high

One of the village masters smacked me for doing so when I trained with him-& rightly so


Dont see why we metaphorically cant do the same

Just saying

[Doc Stier]

In viewing the Masters Demonstrations at any major CMA competition event, it is common to see errors and mistakes in the performance of practitioners who are generally considered to be among the world's foremost masters of their style or system.

This only proves that those who are the best martial artists are still human, and thus imperfect even in their field of expertise. Nonetheless, in spite of such errors and mistakes, they are obviously far more skilled than most of the competitors and spectators. Welcome to the real world!

[bailewen]

So I'm sitting around at Shifu's a few days back partaking of the new year feasting and a couple of my brethren have dug out a book I actually put together from pics I had taken of Shifu through his form. A 180 pic or so walkthrough and they are all comparing forms and poses and contrasting how they've been doing it to how I captured it digitally and finally one of them runs up the to table and asks, "Shifu! . .. your feet here in the opening posture..er...aren't they supposed to be just shoulders width apart? It seems like you've taken a wider stance here."

They hand him the book and he takes a look for a moment, pauses and says, "Hm...my bad."

[Andy_S]

Chi Belly:

As well as being a disciple of Chen Yu, Hans is a student of my teacher, so I don't think he would appreciate being compared to Chen Bing! I will probably see him at the school in the next week or two and will ask him about the diffs between Chen Yu's shenfa and the village shenfa. I see a bit of a difference in the chest, and a bit in the lower thorax (Chen Yu does that wriggly thing with the lower back that Zhu Tiencai also does). Still, when I saw Hans a month ago, he told he was working heavily on basics (ie the Chen Xiaoxing basics) as well as spear.

Chi Belly and Adam:

Bing is not performing xinjia here, he is mixing up xinjia and laojia, so the issue of which 'techiques' he is using is neither here nor there. In Laojia, the four changes is absent.

Adam:

I didn't see the other clip you reference, I was referring to this one.

But did he make a mistake in the other clip? Quite possibly - but if so, so what? I refer to Omar's anecdote above. BTW, if you look at Feng Ziqiang clips you will see he often raises his right elbow during forms. Wrong! But but who is going to correct him? Not me, that's for sure.

Nobody is perfect, but for my line of Taiji this is, I think, close to perfect. Which, incidentally, was my original contention. (Though as clips go, it has as much to do with the filming as the performance.)

Those interested in or practicing the village style might usefully compare Bing's Taiji to Ziqiang's. Although they are cousins, best mates and training buddies (both having learned at the feet of Xiaoxing) there is a clear difference in their forms.

[ors]

Guys!

Really just a side note, but the movement, what Chibelly has referred to, is called "san huan zhang" (三换掌) three palm changes and not four... At least in our lineage...

Örs

[Adam S]

Chi Belly and Adam:

Bing is not performing xinjia here, he is mixing up xinjia and laojia, so the issue of which 'techiques' he is using is neither here nor there. In Laojia, the four changes is absent.

Andy

I looked again at the clip you posted & only that clip

He does seem to be doing the 83 xinjia form to me (??)

If he meant to do a combined xinjia & laojia performance I'm happy to apologize

If not then I'm still gonna say it's far from perfect as a xinjia performance

Based on my experience with the 1 village teacher I've had, ZTC, I strongly believe if you started to mix in xinjia moves/shenfa into laojia he'd bail you up straight away-if any one knows or thinks otherwise feel free to say

I'm the same about xinjia-if your doing xinjia then do xinjia!!!
Too many village guys mix it up imnsho

Fair call by you & Doc on people making mistakes-we all do & yes 'big deal'
My stupidly expressed point was to say if a top master makes a mistake or does a so so performance we should be able to call him on it if that makes sense
However Doc some of your responses seem like possibly I've pissed you off elsewhere? so if so PM me about it


Andy 100% honestly & without meaning to be a smart ass at all

I'd be really interested to hear what Hans Oh had to say about the difference between village & Beijing xinjia & between the shen fa of Chen Yu & CXX-pretty cool postion he's in to be able to do so!!!!!

[ors]

To tell the truth, I don't really understand the big xinjia/laojia question... Go, ask Chen Yu if he calls his taiji xinjia or laojia... Go, ask Feng Zhiqiang the same...
Chen Fake or Chen Zhaokui has never called his art xinjia... This categorization comes from the 4 jingang, who first learn from Chen Zhaopei, later from CZK, and the flavour of the two was so different, they found out CZK or CFK had created something new.
Interesting enough they and their students usually denied this separation... They usually say the differences comes from the different levels of the development of the practioners...

So this quote:

If not then I'm still gonna say it's far from perfect as a xinjia performance

is a little bit meaningless for me, this way. We can say it is good chen taiji or not, but it is good as laojia, but bad for xinjia, I don't understand...

Örs