Chen Taiji, why the hate?

[D_Glenn]

I don’t practice Taijiquan but I’m curious as to why there’s so much hate and disregard for Chen style Taijiquan?

Correct me if I’m wrong but didn’t Yang Luchan live and learn martial art in the Chen village?

[origami_itto]

I don't hate or disregard it. I think it's different than Yang style and the politics are a bit ridiculous.

[D_Glenn]

Different than Yang style, not too much in my opinion, I realized after watching that side by side video of the forms being practiced.
But I like different. I try to meet as many different people, in many different martial arts, as I possibly can. A lot of well known people I’ve met at our Bagua seminars. I always glean whatever information I can from all of them. Finding similarities and differences is what makes my Bagua better.

[Doc Stier]

I don't think anyone really hates Chen Style TCC. However, the stylistic expression of the movement doesn't appeal to everyone, and the physical athletic demands of correct performance are greater than some people wish to endure.

Many years ago, my Chen Style teacher, the late Master Cheng Jincai, taught a week long summertime workshop at a local San Antonio college. We started out with 70+ paid participants on Monday morning and ended with only 14 participants on the following Sunday afternoon. Virtually everyday of that week, fewer students returned from the lunch break and fewer returned the following morning. Their leg strength and overall level of physical fitness was incapable of continuing on.

Of the 14 people who survived the entire week, only two other participants and me were able to learn the entire New Frame form set and could perform same in its entirety without following the teacher. He told me on Sunday night before the workshop started on Monday morning that we will know by lunchtime who actually trains seriously and who does not.

[yeniseri]

I have no idea!
Chen taijiquan does have a level of exertion that few can put up with due to its all body workout encompassing it many levels
of 'horizonta'l and "vertical" silk reeling mechanisms. Despite all other variations of taijiquan, many think Chen Family System, as the
original, is the "bastard' when it is just the opposite. Yes, Chen is difficult for the multitude so I appear to see the dislike for the training methods therein!

To play Chen once is exerting. To play it 10x is excruciating

[johnwang]

why there’s so much hate and disregard for Chen style Taijiquan?

It's not hate. It's envy.

- Chen Taiji has power generation. Yang Taiji has not.
- Chen Taiji talks about combat. Yang Taiji talks about health.
- Chen Taiji punches. Yang Taiji pushes.
- ...

I'm not a Chen Taiji guy. But I do believe Chen Taiji is much superior to Yang Taiji in many different ways. Chen Taiji, Baji, and XYLH are 3 CMA systems that's famous in "power generation". There is a good reason for that.

Can you find any Yang Taiji guy who can do this? You can't. Why?

[Steve James]

Well, that was the common refrain, even touted by Chen people. CMC and other schools were fighting here in the US before there was a Chen style teacher. And, if that's changed, and you're right, they aren't doing anything outside tcc circles. They should be the one showing tcc's effectiveness as a martial art.

This doesn't say that they can't. If they can do it and look like what they do in the form, that'd settle a lot of issues.

Afa Chen hate, there was real resentment in the 80s (when it first appeared in the US) because they labeled it as the "real" tcc. This was specifically because it had fast parts. It was introduced along the Peking Wushu group that toured the US. I was there. Jet Li was a little kid who performed a staff form. There was a hard internal breaking demo. And, toward the end the was a Chen style tcc demo, and the announcer said that it was the real tcc.

For years that was what people were saying. There weren't that many Chen style students, so there weren't any competing at all that decade. In the 90s, though, Chen village decided to organize a push hands tournament. At the time, the internet bulletin board thing was starting. There were arguments about how real Chen tcc was compared to others. Anyway, a CMC guy was challenged, so he went to Chenjiagou and he won their tournament.

Imo, the tournament looked nothing like the form in the videos. Personally, I don't expect it. There's a video somewhere of CXW (above) doing push hands with someone who wants to be uncooperative. It doesn't look the demos.

[everything]

don't hate it. more confused/bemused. the shtick comes across a little like saying "who taught michael jordan" then claiming "we did, so we have the real basketball" then someone proceeds to explain all this flowery stuff that "jordan style" is missing but nobody can do anything jordan could do. or 100x less drastic, "who taught helio" and "who taught bruce lee", then only study judo or wingchun and ignore bjj and jkd and claim they are somehow superior to the developments that came about. or "who taught Fedor" and only study sambo and not mma. none of that makes any logical sense whatsoever. but if they don't co-opt the "we taught yang" thing, it's hard to understand the "value proposition" being asserted.

[charles]

Many years ago, my Chen Style teacher, the late Master Cheng Jincai, taught a week long summertime workshop at a local San Antonio college. We started out with 70+ paid participants on Monday morning and ended with only 14 participants on the following Sunday afternoon. Virtually everyday of that week, fewer students returned from the lunch break and fewer returned the following morning. Their leg strength and overall level of physical fitness was incapable of continuing on.

I spent a weekend with CJC in the late 1990's learning new frame. I hadn't realized he passed. Sorry to hear that.


First, like many other martial arts/styles, Chen style Taijiquan isn't a single thing. Different lineages practice it differently and different teachers within one lineage practice it differently. One of numerous differences is the height of the stances and level of athleticism.

For example, at one seminar held at an Aikido studio with a suspended wooden floor, Ren Guangyi, one of CXW's leading disciples, after repeated foot stomps, lifted the nails holding the floor down: the studio owner would periodically go around the floor and hammer the nails back down. The first seminar our host held with RGY was the Chen sabre form. After the first day of the seminar, the host said he lay in bed that night praying that, as the host, he'd be able to walk the next day: it would look bad (lose face) if the host didn't participate in the seminar he was hosting. (None of the participants were used to that level of athleticism/low stances and found it physically difficult.) By contrast, Feng Zhiqiang eliminated most of the foot stomping believing it bad for one's health and eliminated most of the low stance training, citing "qi leaking out the perineum" from overly low stances.

By contrast, one of the funniest of memories I have was in the mid '90's at a tiger seminar with Pan Qingfu. (I and most of the seminar participants were students of one of Pan's disciples.) Pan would have us hold each stance as he went around the room and corrected each student's posture. One of the top medal-winning students was standing in a very low horse stance when Pan arrived to correct him: the student's horse stance had his behind lower than his knees. Pan looked at the student's posture and then put one hand on the top of the student's head and pushed downwards on the top of his head, crumpling the student to the ground.

Anyway, back on topic, my experience has been that within the wide variation within styles, there is some considerable overlap between individual practitioners of Yang, Chen and Wu styles. There are other practitioners of those styles were there is almost no overlap, with little in common in implementation and training. What many people know of Chen style practice is what they see at demonstrations, where the demonstrator wants to make the practice look as martial and exciting as possible - lots of explosive power strikes, stomps, fast, jumps, kicks, etc. Often, demonstration is done one way and training is done another. Often, people believe the daily practice is the same as the demonstrations: it usually isn't.

I think much of the "Chen hate" is what is captured in the old joke, as follows:

"How many Taiji practitioners does it take to change a lightbulb?"

"10. One to change the lightbulb and 9 to say, 'Oh, we do it differently in our school'."

[everything]

sounds like a problem rather than an explanation. albeit applies to all of tjq and probably cma, not just chen style. if you go to any judo or bjj school, you learn the same general material. "We are more athletic" sounds like the claims from US Soccer (this is not a good thing, quite the opposite, btw).

[wayne hansen]

Well said Charles
John I reject your premise of envy
That’s easily fixed just go and do Chen
I attended a day with CZW IN 88
When doing silk reeling and form he wanted to know where I learnt Chen before
I told him I had not I was just following the way he moved
From the look on his face he didn’t believe me
There is good and bad tai chi it is the teacher not the style

[johnwang]

There is good and bad tai chi it is the teacher not the style

Can you find one video of Yang Taiji that can do this kind of power generation? I want to see punch. I don't want to see push.

[windwalker]

David Chin,,,in an interview

"Chin was introduced to Kuo by his tai chi teacher, Lau Yee Sing. “When I watched him demonstrate, I had some doubts,” confesses Chin, “because his tai chi was not as big frame and graceful.

It was not square or circular and a little hard. So Master Kuo asked me to root in a bow stance and put both arms in front of my chest. His hands touched my elbows lightly. Suddenly, he shook his body and I flipped into the air and fell ten feet away.

I was very surprised and totally convinced."

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7wQ_wdL4QB0

[windwalker]

[wayne hansen]

No John I can’t
Why would I it’s not what we train for