Fetch Water Challenge Jan 12, 2019 to July 24, 2019

John Upshaw created a challenge for himself to do 600 fetch water (300 on each side) from Jan 12, 2019 to July 24, 2019 to focus on opening the kua before the North American Training Camp 2019. A few of Master Chen Zhonghua's disciples, including myself, and students supported him and joined the challenge. My students from the weekday morning practice also joined in the fun.

Jan 13, 2019: I am also using the rubber cord to do fetch water on some days.
Jan 26, 2019: Two weeks into the challenge, I noticed that my chest and abdomen muscles became more developed. They felt tighter.

动、走、弧、旋和定

太极拳是通过内家拳的手段达到快、准、强的。具体的练法，是从时间、角度、距离上去练。在拳法上我们把这三个东西叫做：空、粘和连。空是虚实的总和，粘是角度不变的结果，连是因为距离调节的恰当。 再深一步我们说动、走、弧、旋和定。动就是学会拳上的动作。会练了。把学的动作能连起来练出来，就是走了。练拳时开始出现圆形的迹象，拳套上就有了弧线了。等到练了十年以后，功力提高了，但动作似乎减少了，这是因为身上有了螺旋力了。等这种螺旋力取代了通常的那种动作和力量的时候，劲力独在运行，身体反而看上去不动了。这就是我们讲的定。 身体不动但力在运行、在改变方向、在开合、在吞吐这就意味着另外 一种体能在起作用：转关。这些东西，没有什么高深，但有特别的练习方法。不得法，就不可能得功。 https://mp.weixin.qq.com/s/YIj49uprUSZ7PrNTnXAhJQ

Changing the location of a rod inside me

I wake up this morning, and I have an idea in my head that I have this rod in my body and I can flip it in different ways. It is pretty much like playing keyboard. I press in two places with a non-moving dot in the middle, it instantly changes the rod's location. That was just an idea, not tested out yet. Yesterday in practice, I lock myself (not moving anything), except I try to stretch my flesh around a rod. I was able to do that in two different places. I understand that non-moving rod can be anywhere, but my entire body has to be coordinated to make that.happen.