Formosa Neijia

I asked my Chen style teacher the difference between the laojia and xiaojia versions of our Chen taiji and his answer suprised me. First of all, he put to rest the idea that laojia is dajia (big) and xiaojia is, well, small. Even thoug xiao means small in Chinese, xiaojia movements aren’t necessarily smaller. Any [...]

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This installment is going to be more a photo essay than anything. I’ve thought a lot about how to introduce this stuff and words just don’t really do it. Pictures don’t really do it either. Video is better and actually taking a class in it is best. But we have to settle for now.
The pics [...]

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As the older brother of Yang Chen-fu, Shao-hou doesn’t get mentioned much in the taiji literature. His version of the Yang form is commonly referred to as the “small frame” or “small circle” Yang form. Some sources say that his taiji was heavily influenced by his studies with his uncle, Yang Ban-hou.
I heard rumors years ago [...]

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Wujimon has an interesting post here that was inspired by a recent thread on EF. Going on what he said and quoted, I would like to add my thoughts.
The Taiwan verison of the Chen style seems to place a lot of importance on doing high reps of the forms. The reason is that we don’t [...]

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My “external” CMA training mainly came from bak sing choy lay fut, wing chun, and hung gar. My primary CIMA training has been in XYQ and BGZ under a few different teachers, as well as some training in piguazhang. I also did tangsoodo and karate for many years, as well as iaido in Japan. But [...]

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One of my ongoing projects is to find out as much as I can about the zhaobao/huleijia forms of taiji. Several things have spurred this on. First, I greatly respect the work of my shixiong (elder brother) Tim Cartmell. He has said many times that he really enjoys this form of taiji and from his [...]

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So we have lots of talk about knee pain in the taiji blog community. Yang Family Musings comments on how to use yi to get rid of the pain here. Taiji Student discusses it here. And wujimon gives his perspective here.
 I, too, grapple with this but not as much as I did when I was [...]

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One of the great things about living next door to China is that many of the VCDs for sale on the Internet are available here at a pretty cheap price. I pay about US$3 for each VCD. So I have lots of them.
To be honest, some of them are good and many are not. Most [...]

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Lately I have been thinking about the training process and the transmission of knowledge from teacher to student.
It occured to me that when a student starts training, their bodies don’t know how to move and they are unable to conform to any of the requirements that the style demands. So students entirely rely on their [...]

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So the challenge issued yesterday has fizzled out and died. The poster that challenged me and then hid behind his instructor has been banned from EF. Good riddance.
His response, however, was interesting from a moral point of view. He had the temerity to suggest that I was invading his privacy by putting his name and [...]

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