Line up the forearm and rear calf

What does it mean by lining up the forearm and rear calf? There are 2 ways:

1. The forearm and rear calf can on the same line, but separate into two sections.
2. The forearm and rear calf can also be on two parallel tracks.

Refining Flash the Back

Overall, flash the back is used to throw someone over the top. We started training with a stick to understand the idea of a lever.  The left hand is a pivot and does not move at all. The right hand holds one end of a stick, it starts at a location front of my body. It stretches against the non-moving left hand, and goes downwards towards the floor, and then goes up on the other side, all the while stretching more. At the same time, the right move from the front to the back, it is used to pull the stick. We have to imagine that the other end of the stick has a heavy load. We catapult the heavy load over our head and throw it. As my right hand stretches down and back, there is a point where the opponent's power disappear, and we need to quick switch to the other side with the left hand continuing the overall vertial rotating motion. The use of the stick makes it very clear how the lever works here.

Now without the stick, we need to rotate the dantian area. We need to thrust the dantian to the left and up to go around the top. The stick is like between the left hand and the right foot. The movement of the right foot allows the left hand to turn over at the dantian.

Driving energy on the two sides of the forearm.

Today, Master Chen Zhonghua talked about how to cause energy to go around within the forearm.  It involved using the shoulder to cause the elbow to go over within a vertical plane of the entire arm.  We have done similar exercise for the kua and knee standing on one leg.

The elbow is not allowed to move, but it has to rotate. The elbow rotation is driven by a very big motion at the shoulder.

Master Chen Zhonghua Online Lesson on July 1, 2022

Chinese Class

In Six Sealing Four Closing, there must be a stick that does not change direction between the two hands.  In Practical Method, there are rotation and resolution. Rotation is not considered a move. Resolution is considered a move as it causes something to change position with respective to the ground. The result is 螺旋缠丝 luo xuan chan si. 

This is moving a rotating saw to cut a piece of board.  As the saw makes contact of the board, the rotation does not slow down, the saw blade does not change shape as someone pushes the saw through the board (or the board through the blade).  The common problem is that we change shape or direction as we move

English Class

In training, we must lock the whole body, and move one body part.  Use a big stance in Brush Knee in Oblique Stance to lock the body up, and try to only push up the front (left) kua. Only in this kind of training, we can train to gain the power.  Most people just train the useless moves, moves that make them feel good.  The move we want to train is the one that we don't want to do, and it is one that seems impossible to do.

At the begining of the 2nd Flash the Back, I need to lock the front (right) hand and put the rear (left) shoulder into the same line with the front hand. Lock them, and try to open front (right) kua, lock the front kua, and move the rear (left) kua.

Before the jump after Flash the Back, I need to make the right kua bump into the left kua like newton balls, to cause the jump (no movement in the body).

After Punch Covering Hand, I need to shrink the distance between the right elbow and the right kua, in order to suck the right foot up to complete the turn.

In Single Whip, after the right hand and left foot stretch, I must rotate the left kua to get into the left half horse stance. I can't just move the left kua.

Bevel Gear

 

Today we did an exercise to rotate the torso horizontally from left to right (first gear), while the arm with the elbow straight as a stick rotated in Ni Chan (second gear).  The second gear’s rotation was driven by the first gear. The result was like how the train wheel turned, and the rod attached to the wheels moved along the rotation without changing direction. The torso is attached to the arm in the same way as how a bevel gear works as shown in the diagram above. As the torso rotates, the arm must rotate proportionally. This is the result directly related to how it is set up. In action operation, it is key to start the arm rotation from the armpit. Another important part is that the action must be initiated by the kuas, causing the waist (torso) to rotate, in turn, causing the arm to rotate. When the torso must also be like a solid cylinder, when the waist (bottom part) turns, the shoulders/chest (top part) must turn together. This is said to have one action, while two different parts are moving/rotating in their own designated ways. In the future, there can be more than two gear discs attached together, one action drives many different individual movements. In taiji, this is known as when one part moves, all parts move. The shoulder is where the split happens. It is the middle that is not involved in either side. No power should be added at the shoulder. This allows the dantian and the fist to be connected. The resulting action is called a “through fist/通拳“, it is not a punch in the normal sense. When observing others performing the same exercise, the following common mistakes are noted:

1. The torso rotation is limited to above the chest - The arm rotation is only driven by the horizontal chest rotation. The bevel gear is still working in this way, however, it lacks an extra level of indirectness (the vertical distance) created when the kuas initiates the action.
2. The two gear discs are not attached - The person is independently moving the arm and the torso trying to match the rotations and make them proportionally. The external appearance is almost the same as the intended outcome, but the mechanics are not.
3. There are no two gear discs at all - When the person rotates the torso, the arm will change the direction that it is pointing at following the torso rotation.
4. The torso is not one solid cylinder - When the person attempts to rotate from the kuas, the chest adds a separate action and does not follow the action from the kuas. The result is that there is a twist in the torso, the energy leaks at the left shoulder.
5. The arm is pushed by the shoulder - The person uses power at the shoulder to push the arm out. The torso rotation is not involved, i.e. no bevel gear setup.
6. Using the arm to punch - The person is using the upper arm to throw a punch.

In taiji, the concept of a bevel gear is very important in understanding how we should connect our various body parts. The full instructional video can be found at https://practicalmethod.com/2022/06/chen-zhonghua-english-instructor-class-20220603-online-video-purchase/.

Master Chen Zhonghua Online Lesson on April 20, 2022

Exercise:

Move right kua to the front, left kua to the back.

Move right kua to the back, left kua to the front.

This increases range.

Eventually, the ending diameter needs to be longer than the starting diameter, even though the difference may be very small.

We need to a twist in every part of the body.

Master Chen Zhonghua Online Lesson on Mar 31, 2022

Exercise

1. Heavy head tied to the ground
2. Push the kua out to extend to the line between the head and the ground

Six Sealing Four Closing

1. Need to make sure the kua shoot towards the hand while the torso rotates, otherwise the hand is too light.
2. Need to do 40% of movement with the front kua, and 60% of movement with the rear kua.
3. We need to produce a stop (which is the switch between 40% and 60%).