Taiji

Step on one end of the cord to lock it on the round, pull it with the rear hand.
Train opening of the front kua.
Find the appropriate strength in the rubber cord to be strong enough that we cannot use the hands/arms to stretch it, but weak enough that we can use the kua to stretch it.

One knee up, one knee down with rubber cord

Hold the cord with two hands, stretch it to form a straight line
Find the appropriate strength in the rubber cord to be strong enough that we cannot use the hands/arms to stretch it, but weak enough that we can use the kua to stretch it.
As we do the knee action, the torso drops straight down causing the shoulder and elbow to go into the line of between the two hands to stretch the cord.
There is no power at the hands or arms other than holding the rubber cord securely.
The chest stretches backwards against the outward hand.
The torso is one big gear and are connected to the arm at the shoulder. The arm gear and the torso are connected at a 45 degree angle. Rotating the torso causes the arm to drill outwards.

Torso goes down only

Sit on a chair
Put the front forearm on something, such as the back of another chair.
Torso going down will not drag the front arm downwards. It must cause the front arm to go outwards.

Thursday, December 3, 2020

Master Chen Zhonghua's Online Lesson on Nov. 3, 2020

Chinese Class

Open the knee

A student asks about how to open the knee. Master Chen Zhonghua said the idea of opening was very simple. However being to able to do it requires many other simple things to be put together. There are so many that we are unable to do them, and we simply give up.

How does Master Chen practice at his stage now in a regular basis?

He focuses on foundation these days. He has done 15 years of yilus every day. After we are so familiar with yilu, what allows us to continue to improve is foundation. When Grandmaster Hong was at 70+ years of age, he practiced cannon fist once a month just so he would not forget it. Grandmaster Hong would still be able to teach the details of that form.

We don't necessarily think straight or clearly. We only need to know the requirement. There are many ways to do it, because the method is situational.

English Class

Drill bit only goes forward. We often move our hand. The hand is off the line of the drilling action.

Pour substance into the form.

Knee - Vertical

Shoulder - Horizontal

Elbow - Circular

Two bricks are laid on top of each other because gravity pulls them together. No space in between.

Opening is to put space in between. Now comes the idea of suspended head. We are putting space in between the pile of bricks (bones in the human body).

We are working at the interaction of the horizontal and vertical openings.

We maintain peng, which is to put the space in between in different directions.

3 ways of stretching. A and C are two endpoints, and B is in the middle.

Lock A, move C (or Lock C, move A)
Lock B, move A and C.
Lock A and C. move B.

We need 3 hands. Something has to come out. We need the 3rd point, we only have 2.

A thief is referred as someone with a 3rd hand.

Taiji is the power of the wedge.

Anything that goes down is fundamentally strong.

Lock specific body parts into strategic postition, so a movement of some other body part becomes meaningful.

Ground Dragon - Do the move inside a set of fixed parameters.

We need to train something that we are not used to doing or simply cannot do, e.g.

If you are too stiff, soften yourself.
If you are too soft, stiffen up yourself.
If your movements are too small, make them bigger.
If your movements are too big, make sure that there is some part that is not moving, or put in a restriction that must be maintained.

When you have peng, every part becomes a hand, e.g. After stretching a rubber cord, every part of it can bounce something back.

Wednesday, December 2, 2020

Chen Zhonghua's Online Lesson on Nov. 2, 2020

At this stage, when I train yilu, don't train the hands, don't even include them. Just focus on using the kuas to cause the rotate. We must have a very solid rod, so that we can rub it. There are two of them: one vertical from ban hui to hui yin, one horizontal from shoulder to hand. The two interact like two gears. We rotate the veritical one to cause the horizontal one to rotate, which acts like a drill bit.

In Step Back to Double Shake Feet, make sure that after I put my right foot back, I use the kuas to rotate. I was sticking my butt out a bit. I must maintain a central vertical axis. The muscles on the two sides of the neck must be stretched to emphasize on the central vertical axis. At first, we train a central vertical axis that is perpendicular to the ground, then the axis can be slanted as long as it is maintained during rotation. At this time, we must emphasize on the stretch and make effort to maintain it. In the future, we can be more relax as it is there already, and we can just use it at will.

Train one knee up and one knee down to cause the torso to fall down while maintaining the central axis.

Tuesday, December 1, 2020

Notes for 实用拳法剑2020-正圈 video

https://www.shiyongquanfa.cn/archives/117756

2020年12月5日星期六上午8:00 (中国时间），何家伟教练带领我们来学习这个《实用拳法剑2020-正圈》视频。

陈老师是利用剑解释正圈的要求，我们用剑来练习正圈就能够明白道理。

Notes:

陈老师示范拿着剑来练正圈。剑或是其他兵器是手的延续。老师常常说手要不动，剑在外面本身就不会动。丹田在里面，像是圆心，旋转的时候，没有摇晃，是看不到动作的。先说它的动作是零。这旋转到了肩，肩的动作说是一，肘的动作是二，手的动作是三，到剑尖的动作就是四。在外面看到的是丹田动作的放大。十字真言说《收肘不收手，出手不出肘》。收肘的时候，手跟着肘，剑跟着手。这样才是顺，不能倒个头来，要不是剑就会碰地或是割到自己。

Notes for In and Out of Dantian 进出丹田 20200804 video

https://www.shiyongquanfa.cn/archives/116460

2020年12月4日星期五上午8:00 (中国时间），何家伟教练带领我们来学习这个《In and Out of Dantian 进出丹田 20200804》视频。

陈老师在这视频中解释了这概念，用正圈与反圈示范，还示范了在推手能用上的练习。

Notes:

陈老师说所有收的动作是由丹田开始把力量回归到丹田，所有外展的动作是由丹田开始把力量发放到末梢。

陈老师用正圈作一个实例示范。收肘把前手跟后脚的力收到丹田，出手把力从丹田发放到前手跟后脚。这就所谓的进出丹田。转腰的目的在这情况下是使来路跟去路不在同一条线上。为着使力量能在特定的轨道上走，肩要压住，如果不是，力量就会在肩泄漏，到不了末梢。

陈老师再用反圈作表述。反圈跟正圈的理论是一样，但实际动作使相反的。

接着，陈老师用初收的动作演示此概念，这更能用上在推手中。最后，还加上了劲来练习。后背不动更帮助了丹田的不动。