Master Chen Zhonghua Online Lesson on June 25, 2021

Two scales (levers) in the body

Master Chen indicated if we truly understand how to make a lever in the body, then having two of them simply means creating two levers using two different set of body parts.

The 2nd levers must be created separately from the first one. However, they must be related somehow or can be said to share a common point.

Each lever is a gear.  Engaging two gears together creates a common point at their teeth, and that is how they relate to each other.

Now consider three gears engaged together.  We can rotate only one gear, the two gears will rotate accordingly. Taiji is that we do one action, multiple seemingly separate results are created.  If two people are touching the two passive gears, they may feel different directions, but there is only one active gear creating the action, that is the source of power.

Now consider two active gears and one passive gear. If we rotate two gears but in the opposite directions, we can jam the whole system.  However, if we can figure a way to coordinate those two gears, it can increase power/speed/freedom of movement for the passive gear.  This is like how a 4-cylinder engine work with a timing belt. Each piston action adds something on top of each other, so that they work in a harmonous way.

The real high level of taiji creates a special effect that it breaks the limitation of time. The result is something that cannot be achieved in a normal way, like you want to get 5 things through a doorway that is too small for all of them to go through together, and yet they all went through at the same time somehow.

Empty force is created with a lever, which is the attached to the first lever that the opponent is in contact with.

Master Chen Zhonghua Online Lesson on June 18, 2021

"Three" represents a loop, means to repeat things endlessly.

There is really only two main things in Chinese martical arts: horizontal and vertical.

We need to determine horizontal and vertical, one of them is more dominant.

However, you need both of them to be present to say that there is either horizontal or vertical. We need to both to make the distinction.

We need to determine the opponent's primary move, and use the opposite to deal with it.

The vertical motion will cause a very weird feeling to the opponent when done correctly. It is like the opponent will fall into the hole.  In our normal life, we try to escape from the vertical motion, and only do the horizontal motion, which becomes much more familar to us.  With Practical Method, we train to have the vertical motion, and also to get use to it, so that we are not afraid of it ourselves.

Yao 摇 - horizontal
Bai 摆 - vertical

Exercise:

1. Raise the elbow above the shoulder, press it down to scoop/dig.
2. Vertical movement is controlled by kua and knee (bottom half of the body).
3. Hand/arm movement is always considered to be in the horizontal dimension.
4. The waist rotation is used to coordinate/integrate the upper body horizontal and the lower body vertical movements together.
5. Ultimately, we need to use the kua to drive the overall movement. The other parts are just adjustments or adaptations.

Bie (别)

You need one pair of yin-yang to bie zhu (别住)/twist-and-lock. This pair is typically on the upper body, e.g. with arms and chest. The 2nd pair of yin-yang is by the lower body, e.g. with front kua and rear knee, to bie kai (别开)/twist-and-open.  The two pairs intersect and share the same non-moving dot, like the rivot in a pair of scissors.

Exercise:

1. Use a stick with a heavy load at the outer end (heavy end).
2. Use the forward wrist under the stick as a pivot.
3. Use the backward hand to the inner end of the stick (handle end). Pump down this end of the stick to tilt up the heavy end.
4. Start the pivot in the middle of the stick, and gradually move it closer to the handle end. This will increase the difficulty as the pivot gets closer to the handle end.
5. The key is to keep the pivot not moving.
6. We can only really train the bie power with a load that is just heavy enough to not allow us to tilt it at first. The result of the training is an ability to transmit power from one end of the stick to the other end. It's best to training with the white wax wood, which is bendable.

Weapon Training

In sword and broadsword training, we need to move the weapson with a non-moving dot on the blade.

In 风卷残云 of broadsword, the blade does not move, the body moves forward.

Master Chen Zhonghua Online Lesson on June 10, 2021

Bie 别 is to twist and change direction without losing engagement with your opponent.

Master Chen Zhonghua Online Lesson on June 8, 2021

Back to the Mar 30, 2021 exercise, there is one part that goes out, and one part that goes up. Eventually, there is a force that goes out and around.

3 types of moves in Taiji: horizontal (rope), vertical (stick), rotational (rock).

动静、上下、左右、内外、伸缩、推拉

If we talk about force,  we need to stay on topic. There is positive force, and there is negative force.

When we sit on a chair, there is gravity that pulls you down, but the fact that you didn't fall down, it is because the chair has force as well that simply matches the gravity in opposite direction.

Chen Style Taiji originally has 6 hand forms, and jian 剑, dao 刀, guan dao 关刀, qiang 枪.

Chen Changxing has passed down yilu, erlu, jian and dao.

Master Chen Zhonghua learned the jian form from Chen Fake's daughter Chen Yuxia.

Grandmaster Feng Ziqiang originally put together shi san kan 十三砍.

Grandmaster Hong himeself does not know jian and dao. His disciple Xu Gueicheng 许贵成 went to Beijing and learned 十三砍 from Grandmaster Feng. 十三砍 is very practical, and it relaxes between moves, and only uses power with the real move when attacking the opponent.  Later on, Master Li Enjiu, and Master Xu Gueicheng together created Practical Method Dao from 十三砍, as 十三砍 was too short, and not suitable for dao form competition.

Master Chen Zhonghua Online Lesson on June 4, 2021

How to become famous?

1. You need to build stories and talks around you.
2. People around you need to talk about you.
3. We need to have a niche.
4. If I did something, but no one knows or remembers, then this thing comes fake.

We use the kua to initate and drive our moves.  When that is done, we will see other body parts move, and not the driver itself.

We need to understand the difference between power source and leader. They can coincide to be the same, but they can also be separate.

James shared his breakthough about his understanding through a lever, and how lever ties everything together.

Master Chen's comment: "James persisted to reach this level". Persistence is a very important quality.

Natural Growth vs Exponential Growth

Natrual Growth - Continuous growth in small increments

Exponential Growth - No or very little growth for a long time, and a sudden large jump

How to make videos?

We have to show what is desired to be said, and we can't make assumption/implication as people can only see the obvious.

We have to make it so that the video is a big hit. It needs to be entertaining (not boring).

Master Chen Zhonghua Online Lesson on June 2, 2021

The energy has to come out.

We use the kua to bring a 360 degree turn, it's like the foot sweep.

We did some fajin exercises.