I will be in Madison, Wisconsin starting this Friday, Nov. 1 through Sunday, Nov. 3 to study with Chen Huixian. If you live within driving distance, I hope you'll join me and train with one of the best.
Chen Huixian is an in-door disciple of her uncle, Grandmaster Chen Zhenglei. Other uncles include Chen Xiaowang and Chen Xiaoxing.
She grew up in the Chen Village and is highly skilled. Each time I train with her, I come away with deeper insights because of the personal corrections and coaching that she gives me.
She is teaching a workshop that will include the following:
Friday Night 6:00 to 9:00 p.m.
** Zhan Zhuang (Standing Stake)
** Silk-Reeling
Saturday 9:00 a.m. to 5:00 p.m. (with a 2-hour lunch break)
** Chen Straight Sword Form (1st half)
Sunday 9:00 a.m. to Noon
** Chen Straight Sword Form (1st half)
Sunday 2:00 p.m. to 5:00 p.m.
Laojia Erlu ("Cannon Fist") Review and Corrections
Chen Huixian's workshops are punctuated with laughter. It is very refreshing to have a...
What would you have if you attended a workshop with a highly-skilled member of the Chen family who deepened your understanding of body mechanics, structure and movement, showed fighting applications that amazed you, spoke English to communicate the information, and made the atmosphere joyful and full of laughter as your legs burned and you sweated and grew stronger?
You would have Chen Huixian, the niece and indoor disciple of Chen Zhenglei who lives in the Kansas City area with her husband Michael Chritton, another talented Chen teacher.
I have learned from Chen Xiaowang, Chen Xiaoxing, Chen Bing, Chen Ziqiang, and I admire each of them. I have learned excellent things from them (and especially from their American students/disciples, who studied with them and other teachers) and would study when them again in a heartbeat. I have had some excellent moments with each one. But the two workshops I have done with Chen Huixian are the most satisfying of any of my experiences in martial ...
In 2005, I had the opportunity to spend a couple of private days with Grandmaster Chen Xiaoxing. My teacher at the time, the late Mark Wasson, invited me to his home in Livermore, California, for an exclusive opportunity to hang out with him shortly after Xiaoxing arrived in the country for a tour of workshops.
We spent most of the time going through Laojia Yilu, movement by movement. Grandmaster Chen and Mark would watch as I did a movement, then Xaoxing would make comments and gestures, and often hands-on corrections. Mark would listen and watch his comments intently, then interpret with additional instruction.
I was grateful to have such a valuable opportunity.
When I left Mark's home to drive back to San Francisco to the airport, I was a few hours early, so I stopped at a park, went to a table, and started furiously writing notes. I continued on the airplane flying back to the Quad Cities. Starting with the Opening movement, I went step-by-step through the form and wrote down ...
At one of the workshops I attended with Chen Xiaowang, he told the story of a taiji instructor who invited his young, eager students to have dinner with him.
They all sat around the table as spaghetti with meatballs was served.
The master took his fork and tried to spear a juicy meatball that was on his plate. He missed.
The master kept trying to spear the meatball and it kept slipping away from the fork, so he chased it around the plate, stabbing and missing.
After a moment, he looked up at his young students seated around the table. Each student was chasing a meatball around the plate just like the master was doing.
That is how the master does it, so that is how it must be done. The master is showing us the way!
I am paraphrasing this story. In Chen Xiaowang's version, the master may have been using chopsticks - it has been a while, but the gist of the story is the same, and he laughs when he tells it, but as you look around at the students who are listening, you see them smil...
This video shows Grandmaster Chen Xiaoxing giving a private push hands lesson to my former teacher, the late Mark Wasson, in the early 2000s.
Mark was on one of his many visits to train with the Chen family in Chenjiagou, but it was a cold winter day and in those days, the village was still without heat in most of its buildings. So Chen Xiaoxing graciously came to Mark's hotel room to train him.
Mark died in 2013 after a long battle with Crohn's Disease. He helped to popularize Chen Taiji in the United States, sponsoring or arranging sponsors for Chen Xiaoxing and others to visit the U.S. for workshops, and Mark also took several Americans to Chen Village to train.
When I studied with Mark, I sponsored Chen Xiaoxing's visa for his 2006 visit to the United States. In return, Chen Xiaoxing stayed in my home for a week and we practiced like this every day. I learned a lot and, after being thrown to the ground so many times, got a brand new perspective of my basement carpet.
This is p...
This video shows some historic sites in the Chen Village, in Henan Province, China -- the birthplace of Tai Chi Chuan. Among the sites is the wall where Yang Luchan watched the Chen family perform their art. Eventually, he was taught the art and then went to Beijing to create his style of Tai Chi, Yang style.
The video was taken by my former teacher, the late Mark Wasson, who went on many trips to Chenjiagou to train with the Chen family. On this visit, he was accompanied by Bill Helm of the Taoist Sanctuary in San Diego.
Mark was a pioneer, one of the early Americans to visit and train in the Chen Village. He helped bring some of the Chen family to America for the first time, including Grandmaster Chen Xiaoxing.
Mark, who died in 2013, narrates this video. Chen Village has changed a bit since this was taken in the early 2000s. The government realized there was money to be made, and facilities have sprung up as tourists began coming from around the world to study the amazing art of ...
“How long does it take to get a black belt?” asked the prospective student.
“Five seconds,” said the teacher.
“Really?”
“Yes. All I have to do is hand it to you. But it takes much longer to earn one.”
"Maybe I can earn it faster than most people."
"Well, we don't do black belts. We do sashes, and a black sash doesn't mean very much, really. We only have those because in America, people seem to need it. A black sash doesn't really mean anything."
"It means you are deadly," the student said.
The teacher laughed. "No. It means you have just begun to learn. There are a lot of black belts who know very little and can do even less."
“Oh. Well, I want to be able to use Taiji to fight.”
“Why?”
The student asked, “If I am in a bar and get attacked, will I be able to use Taiji to fight?”
“You can use Taiji to stay away from a bar where fighting may occur,” said the teacher.
“Have you ever had to use Taiji in a fight?”
“No.”
“How about Bagua or Xingyi?”
“No. I have not been in a re...
There are many "energies" (Jin) in Taijiquan. The term "energy" has been misinterpreted by some people who take the translation too literally. The word "energy" when applied to Taiji simply means a physical method of sensing and dealing with your opponent's force in a way that follows core internal strength principles.
The most important energy in Taiji is Peng Jin. That is the expansive feeling that fills the body and pushes outward. When you touch an opponent, Peng Jin is necessary to test your opponent, "feel" and respond to your opponent's force and the direction that force is going. But the ability to be sensitive to your opponent's force and direction is Listening Energy, or "Ting Jin."
I once belonged to a school where we were taught that if we stood in front of our opponent, if we just worked hard and gained a high level of skill, we could actually "read" his chi -- we could read his mind and know that he was going to attack us even before he made a physical move.
Well, bull...
I read a blog post this week by a well-intentioned (I assume) person who teaches Tai Chi and calls it the "art of gentle movement," a description that misses the essence of Tai Chi. Let's forget for a moment that Tai Chi fighters were often hired to guard caravans and train the men in villages to fight. Let's just forget that.
The author of this article says that by doing Tai Chi, you can feel the universe flowing through you and you can achieve enlightenment.
Here is an excerpt from this article that was titled "Entering the Quantum Era of the New Energy":
"Tai Chi Chuan finds it place back amongst the most powerful ways to become a condensed person that has clarity of mind, health of body and emotional countenance. It is said that the real meaning of the martial art is the cradle of enlightenment, that it is about self-discovery through a state of being that allows the universe to flow through the empty space between the particles and that this state brings a higher consciousness ...
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