Points about Taijiquan from Master Chen Zhonghua

1. At a higher level, power cannot be seen.
2. Movements that can produce power cannot be seen.
3. Power must come from the ground, or whatever that have the property similar to the ground.
4. The body only acts as a conduit. It should provide a structure, a point of reference, or an aiming devise. The body should not be part of the power. It should no contain power.
5. Taiji is the art of making the opponent fight the ground, or something stronger than the taiji practitioner.
6. Whatever we want to do, it will appear to be the opposite. For example, we want to use the waist but in taiji movements, the waist should not move or turn too much. We want the hand to be strong but we cannot move the hand.

This came from:
http://practicalmethod.com/2010/02/chen-zhonghua-yilu-demo-on-oct-25-2009/#comment-52

Notes for Practical Method Toronto Workshop Oct. 1-3, 2015

We had 19 people attending the Toronto workshop this time. 5 of them were first timers. We started off with Master Chen talking about the positive circle, and continuously focusing on its various aspects.

Here are my notes:

1. Only move your foot forward towards the opponent, everything else does not go towards the opponent.
2. Don't do the action you want to do, do the opposite.
3. Power comes from the back.
4. Positive circle: only rotate the elbow, shoulder, kua, waist
5. One of my students told me that Master Chen told him to be song/relax at the elbow, which was contrary to what I told him before. I asked him to go back to Master Chen to ask him to clarify since I wasn't present in the original conversation. It turned out Master Chen was telling him not to tighten the muscle the way he did at the time. The student took as needing to being "song" using his prior non-Practical Method understanding of the word. The lesson to me was hat 1) we couldn't use our previous understanding to learn new things, 2) there was no need to guess when we can ask directly.
6. To get power, train power
7. Exercise: To train power. Hold up right hand, move only the the fingers. Make sure the power does not get stuck on the right shoulder.
8. Stick, rope and rock. Stick and Rope are the yin and yang. Stick is hard material of the body: bones. Rope is the soft material in the body: muscles, ligaments. Rock is the dot (not moving point). The Rope needs to wrap around the stick.
9. Power is only created by differential of speed. That's why tossing produces no power.
10. Cover more space means more speed, e.g. hand-elbow differential (first and second count of positive circle)
11. Catch the opponent on the top, move the bottom. Always finish the move I set out to do regardless of whether it will be successful or not.
12. Once I catch the opponent, zoom into/focus the power/aim at one point on the opponent, e.g. press down on his front kua.
13. Rotate waist/kua exercise: Elbow in, lock the elbow to the front kua, rotate the front kua. Look for the special spot where the elbow is tied to the kua. This is used to train kua power.
14. Kua needs to be the leader in each move.
15. Different stages of power: tearing, shearing, explosion, implosion.
16. Ding zhu liang tou da zhong Jian 定住两头打中间。Fix the two ends, break/move/rotate the middle, e.g. the opponent is pushing my chest, I put my hand on his shoulder. My hand and his hand (the two ends) forms a line, put force in his elbow (middle) to break it.
17. Anything that you are not used to, you will feel it to be bigger/more abnormal than usual.
18. Zhuan Guan/°°/Turning over of the joint produces mysterious power. Master Chen may also say "to go over" or "to go to the other side" or "to go over the threshold". We do need to create the threshold, and go over the threshold without moving the threshold (Yin/Yang separation).
19. Outer space is anywhere above the ground. Project that dot into outer space, so that it is not rooted/supported by the ground.
20. Carry out your agenda, don't derail.
21. When your movement is done right, it is very clear. Don't drag other things into it.
22. Place your power where it needs to be.
23. Push Hands: Engage and lock the top, move the feet.
24. I must finish the move otherwise the position I am in is dangerous for me. Similarly if someone comes in, I must act otherwise I am in a dangerous position.
25. Lock the chest, in with elbow. Lock the back, out with hand
26. Find the dot behind to match the forward action. Exercise: Hit that dot on the back to the wall.
27. Horizontal moves are supported by vertical support. Vertical moves are supported by horizontal support. Think of how a typical backyard wood fence is set up.
28. To pull (in with elbow), lock on one dot, the feet come up to that dot to lock it.
29. Taiji is a balancing act. Match the opponent 50/50 for a long time (learn to move the counter weight). Later, one can change the pivot position to create a long lever that can be used to overthrow the opponent.
30. Earth is dantian. Earth nourishes things so they can grow. Once they leave the earth, the sun will cause them to die and go back to the earth.
31. Five fixed points cause rotation.
32. Intent is pure energy movement without displacement.
33. Exercise: Find the opposite dot to the hand. Push the dot against the wall.
34. Suck, stick swallow, spit实用拳法：对吸，贴，吞,，吐混元：敷，盖，对吞Once you suck, it sticks to the back, swallow down, and spit it out.
35. If someone pushes on my chest, I want to connect it to a dot on my back, and split that energy on the chest. The split is like creating a dish on the front while keeping the back straight.
36. Everything has to go to a focal point.
37. Stance: Put a bar beside the inner knee/calf. For any forward movement, the inner knee can't press into the bar.
38. Positive Circle: Not moving the shoulder. Front ribs pointing to the front, elbow move to the chest, front shoulder/kua line not moving. Hand out, shoulder not moving, shoulder/kua line not moving. 
39. Cable-like action: Point under bicep, pulled by point on the side ribs, then pulled by point under thigh.
40. While checking my half horse stance, Master Chen said that my waist was too thin.
41. Horse stance: it's like there is a ball underneath. You can't squeeze a horse while sitting on it, there is always a curve under you.
42. Principles->Concepts->Actions: When in doubt, always go back to the principles.
43. Elbow in exercise: To get rid of the shoulder during the pull, connect a dot at the back thigh with a point in the front upper arm.
44. If I understand it, I can do it. If I can't do it, I don't really understand.
45. Don't lose track. Stay on it.
46. Exercise: Let the opponent grab my forearm with both hands, push and stop in front of the grabbing point, switch to behind the grabbing point to pull (it's a pull relative to the grabbing position).
47. Exercise: In order to conquer the fear of falling, Master Chen asked us to get in against the opponent to the point that we fall by ourselves. He said you were already very close to the floor in that position, it shouldn't really hurt. We also did one variation of it that we got in and switch to go to the other side.

Sandy Doeur's Toronto Workshop notes can be found at: 
http://practicalmethod.com/2015/10/toronto-october-2015-workshop-notes

Paddy Hanratty's Toronto Workshop notes can be found at: 
http://practicalmethod.com/2015/10/toronto-october-workshop-notes/

Notes for Practical Method Iowa Workshop 2015

I attended the Practical Method Iowa Workshop 2015. Officially, the workshop was on Sep 12-13, 2015. I spent a total of 6 days there from Sep 10-15, 2015. It was the best workshop I had ever attended. We had a lot of dedicated Practical Method people there. Thanks to Levi and Christina who let a number of us stay at their place the whole time, and gave us the opportunity to immerse in taiji with Master Chen Zhonghua. Thanks to Levi and John for taking care and arranging food, as well as driving us around. We woke up early at 4:20 am to start doing yilus before breakfast, and we often pushed hands till 10:30 pm at night. It was just wonderful being around my taiji brothers.

The following are the notes I took:

Day 1
- Keeping the back straight at all times
- Always have an aim at the centre, every movement should result back to the centre (don't deviate from it)
- Keep the movement small, otherwise it is wasteful, and there won't be any left.
-Separation: When the hands have power, move in the waist. Have power in the waist, the hands can become free. Nudge in bit by bit.

Day 2
- Yilu: My energy is still on the upper body, need to focus on moving the waist first all the time in every movement.
- Train the muscle to move around the bone, like Chen Xin's diagram.
- Our movement needs to be like two hands holding a water bottle, and pushing the water bottle forward without dropping the water bottle.

Day 3
- Master Chen taught Cannon Fist's choreography
- Footwork for "The whip wrapping around the body" in Cannon Fist: Walk across sideways as far as you can without jumping up
- In push hands, all movements are always expanding with no retreat and what was gained must be maintained.
- Double positive circles: Maintain the centre line straight and independent of the arm movements.
- Unless you train in practical method, you can't see the difference in the rotation based on front shoulder-kua axis, centre axis and rear-shoulder axis. 
- Synopation: separation of top (hands), middle (waist) and bottom  (legs).
- Jady Girl's Jump: Going up, link left thigh to right forearm. Going down, link right thigh to right forearm.

Day 4
- Timing is what we need to utilize. The concept is in the Chen cake exercise. We need 3 different and independent rhythms in the actions. We need to surprise the opponent with unexpected rhythm. For example, the one part of the body (elbow) travels a greater distance than another part of the body (fist). It means they have different rhythms.
- We need to complete the same rotation with different parts of the body in a sequence. One part action is likely not enough to complete the rotation that I need. I need to do the first action (left elbow down with a hand hook on the opponents shoulder), when that action is maxed out, maintain where it ends, continue with the 2nd action that contributes to the same rotation (right hand that stretches out around opponent), when the 2nd action reaches its maximum, continue with the 3rd action that contributes to the same action (left kua rotating down).
- Example: No retreat. Think of a cylinder. Use the right side of the cylinder as the fixed axis, rotate the cylinder, then use the bottom of the cylinder as the fixed axis.  This is also the same as the "worm" action.
- Drill for Left Fist Cannon and Right Fist Cannon
- Use a fake move to hide the real move. These 2 moves have to happen simultaneously so the opponent can't detect it, e.g. pretend to push hard but not moving on the top, the bottom moves in at the same time, so the bottom advances.
- Find time to go to Daqingshan for 2 weeks to train.

Day 5
- We need to train the vertical axis of rotation as the power engine. Pick a move in cannon fist and drill it, e.g. Turn right and shoulder strike.
- Every move in cannon fist requires a central axis, use Tame the tiger to train it.

See also: 
http://practicalmethod.com/2015/09/notes-for-practical-method-iowa-workshop-2015/

Rolling Over the Dot

Today, when I was practicing with Laipeng, I realized a bit more about rolling over a dot, which was a concept shifu told me in the first private lesson. Let's say the dot is the fixed point. It can be a point where the opponent doesn't want to move because that is his power source. It can be a point that I put pressure on and make sure that it does not move. Regardless of how it is created or found, it is a point that does not move. By keeping it not moving, we want to move around it, whether it is from the top down (vertically) or from one side to another (horizontally). By keeping my structure solid against the forces the opponent puts on me, I am trying to roll over that dot. It is like I put an object on the edge of the cliff, then get it over the edge and fall down the cliff. In fact, when I put the opponent on that edge, I am on that edge at the same time. However, since opponent is not really aware of the situation, when he starts falling, he can't save himself. I, on the other hand, can get out of it by rotating myself if I am below the opponent to begin with. If I am above him, he will fall first before I do.

Kelvin Ho Practical Method Yilu in Toronto on Aug. 23, 2015

Fixed Point and Lever

http://practicalmethod.com/2015/06/fixed-point-and-lever/

Bouncing

At a very high level, one can basically lock you up whether you want or not, and then bounce you out.

At a low level, the lock up part needs to be cooperated by the opponent, but that's a stage for learning this.

That is just to fix a variable and focus on a particular part of the training.

Whether you get bounced or sent to the ground is a matter of choice by the issuer if he is really good.

With the mat, we can train to get to the ground direction in a safer environment.

Every action should be a separation of yin and yang. In one perspective, having a non-moving point with some associated action to it.

There has to be a relationship between the action and fixed point, but the action cannot affect the fixed point and cause that point to move.

Having a staff going through a fixed ring is also separation of yin and yang.

Some of the moves actually work like that. I guess that is the same as bullet coming out of a gun barrel.

Bouncing people is like that. The head and feet of the opponent do not want to move, and you apply force to the middle section of the opponent, the opponent looks like he is being pulled back. If the opponent has good structure, he will be bounced. If he does not have a good structure, he falls

down.

If you can't hold him, he steps backwards, nothing happens.

I always have the image of a trampoline for bouncing. Put the trampoline vertically. If the punch in the middle can not overcome the stretching ability of the fabric, you can bounced back.  If the punch can overcome that, the sides of the trampoline is pulled in the direction of the punch.

To issue up, you can also achieve it by having a fixed point, and you press down on a lever. So in theory, one part presses down, one part sends it through the ring or tube.