Formosa Neijia

20 responses so far ↓

• 1 Chong // Dec 28, 2006 at 3:34 pm

  According to Grandmaster Zhu, in Chen Village, they used to just train the laojia yilu which is the foundation of all.
  Laojia Erlu will be taught only when one had mastered the yilu.
  Xinjia was introduced in the early 70s when Chen Zhao Kui went back to Chen Village. So traditionally, Chen Village will just practice the laojia yilu (pre 70s)

  Now if the instructor follows the traditional methods, not many people will learn from him and the instructors will have problems in making a living. Everyone want fast fast… and everyone use monetary to measure his investment in this case, how much money for how many forms .

  You are right that the shorter form is to test the interests of the student. Beside this, Grandmaster CXW and ZTC travelled a lot and the time that they spent each time will not be more than a month, so they designed the smaller version in order to complete them in the short duration available during the class.

  My view is try to master 1 form and practice it hard. Once that is done, it does not matter how many forms will be teached as the basic taiji principles are the same. As for application, you just need to master one or two… the rest will be just for knowledge if you like (jue zhao 绝招 -aka the best skill is the one that you executed the best).

  Chong
  http://www.chen-taiji.com

• 2 Orz // Dec 28, 2006 at 4:39 pm

  Ha! Ha!
  This is very good judgment.

  IMHO, the reason why Chen style taiji has many forms is because those forms can help practitioners learn “balance-control”, “explosions of strength with each part of our body”, bring the whole body into harmony and make those performances follow a circular path. (But as a result of the different principles with circular and quadrate path, Huleijia and Zhaobaojia are not categorized as Chen system.) Those various forms are used as tools to help develop a practitioner’s strength, balance, coordination, and understanding of Taiji principles, included in the Chan Si Jing. So I guess they are quite necessary for those Taiji beginners and middle practitioners.

  Most Yang people do ONE form？Yeah！That is true. But the problem is: Do most Yang style taiji practitioners know how to use the applications of taijiquan, except pushinghands(tuishou)？Do most Yang style taiji practitioners consider taijiquan a martial art？Do most Yang style taiji practitioners know how to use the internal power (neigong) to practice taijiquan and explode strength with each part of their body (especially those old men and old women who practice Yang style taiji every morning in parks)？ I don’t think so, well maybe some of them！

  “Used correctly, one form is enough.” Yes！I totally agree with that. But it sounds like “Used correctly, one punch or one kick is enough.” The pioneer of Xingyiquan - Guo Yunshen earned a fearsome reputation with his half-step bengquan, he had an outstanding nickname and was called “unbeatable half-step bengquan” in China (半步崩拳打天下). He might win over others with his bengquan (just one punch), but do you really think he only practiced bengquan his whole life？ Of course not, it’s impossible. In the games of UFC, Pride and K1, many fighters knock down others by one punch or one kick, but the process of training is very tough. They won’t just practice and train themselves just one punch or one kick.

  Let’s get back to the topic, “Used correctly, one form is enough.” Sure！”Used correctly, one punch or one kick is enough.” Yes, I agree with that. But just as you said there’s almost always more than people realize in the forms and all the material needs to be trained and then perfected. How many taijiquan teachers and instructors really understand the use of taijiquan, the applications of taijiquan, the principles of taijiquan, the essence of taijiquan, and pass them on to their students？

  Students of Chen style often go from one form to another and then another. It’s not their fault. The problem is their teacher. If those teachers can only practice forms and don’t know what I mentioned above, what can their students expect to learn？

  “Most of the time, there isn’t even a siginificant pause to allow students to absorb and train the material, let alone master it.” IMHO a good taijiquan teacher shouldn’t do that, unless the teacher has commercial intentions. In fact, a student wants to learn what he needs, but a teacher always gives a course by the majority’s need. It seems not so easy to make a balance.

  As you mentioned：”Several of the old Yang styles like the Chen Pan-ling form and others have a way of training the same form in different ways. For example, the form can be done with large, extended postures for power training, or with shorter, tighter postures to work on flow. But only one form is used.” Well, it’s the same with other taijiquan styles. According to the “holly” book of taijiquan (Quanjing 拳經), the circular paths of taiji movements should be from nothing to everything, make everything looks like wide circular paths, then let the wide circular paths become smaller, and finally those circular paths would get back to nothing.(無圈到有圈，有圈至大圈，大變小，小終化無) That is the reason why, in Chen style taiji the interpretations of “laojiayilu (老架一路)” can be very different depending on the person, although it’s the same form. It would be very obvious when you observe the performances of the Big 4 (Chen Xiaowang, Chen Zhenglei, Wang Xian and Zhu Tiancai), Feng Zhiqiang and Chen Yu. Actually the true, secret or family trainings of Yang style taiji have not only one form (37 postures, 85 postures or 108 postures). There are neigongjia (內功架), fast-set (快架), fighting-form (技擊架), small-frame (小架) … ect. But as we know, the most popular forms are both Yang Chengfu’s 85-form and Zheng Manqing’s 37-form, only a few people practice those rare forms. Imagine that, if Yang Chengfu passed all Yang family taiji forms on to his students … It’s madness.

  “There’s more to taiji than just forms training.” It is true unless those forms are useless or the teachers can’t give clear definitions of each movement of them to their students. For example：How many applications are in the movements of Lanzayi (懶紮衣)？What is the neigong principles of Lanzayi？What is the difference between Lanzayi in Laojia and Lanzayi in Xinjia？What about the feet and fingers applications of Lanzayi？How to train the internal- strength of Lanzayi？Where should the center of gravity be in the posture of Lanzayi, and why？ A good taiji teacher should explain all this to his students, otherwise he/she is not a professional taiji teacher. I hope your teacher knows, just hasn’t told you yet.

  Orz

• 3 wujimon // Dec 28, 2006 at 9:49 pm

  Hi Chessman. Great topic and something I’ve often thought about myself. This type of stuff constantly reminds me of a question Wai Lun Choi often asks new students:

  “Are you a forms collector?”

  At first, I thought it was cool to learn all these different forms, laojia, xinjia, etc, but as you mention, one can easily fall into the trap of “chen-form-merry-go-round”, that is round and round you go, just touching the surface and learning new choreography without addressing underlying issues. This can easily lead to: “Ohh.. I want to learn some qinna.” “Well, you’ll learn qinna when you begin to study xinjia”…

  Back to my favorite fortune cookie:
  “Simplicity of character is the natural result of profound thought”

  I think some of the yang/wu/other 1 form styles stumbled onto something. Because the focus is on 1 form, they can dig deeper into the applications, underlying principles, concepts, theory, philosophy, what have you..

  While it’s true what Orz noted about most yang practitioners not studying for the “martial”, but I’ve run across more and more “yang style martial artists” that go against this thought. Not only are these folks able to show and do martial applications of single movements, but they even show how/why the moves connect to each other. They seem to have the ability to “distill the move to it’s essence” without any extra flair, coiling, silk reeling, extra movements, etc.

  “you want to do figure eight level 5 pattern push hands… why don’t i just step back and let you do your figure eights…” There’s some profundity in that, IMO.

• 4 Casey // Dec 29, 2006 at 12:58 am

  I think by teaching mini forms before the real forms and then teaching too many versions of the same form, Chen masters are only exacerbating what I think is probably CMAs greatest weakness– it takes a long time to get “down to business,” that is, it takes a long time before you’ve got the material and then can start work on polishing it and using it.

  Compared to something like boxing, in which you learn all the actual material in a couple of months, CMAs take years. I understand this is necessary and good, because you have to teach your body the CMA way to move. However, after a few years of practice, basics, forms, etc., I think you need to get to the actual business of the style.

  By teaching these “mini” forms teachers just extend the time they can spend instructing basic movement almost indefinitely. This is very easy to teach, but you never get to any substance this way.

  In any case, I think the various versions of Laojia are just different people’s take on the same thing. After decades of practice you might develop your own version suited to you. That doesn’t mean everyone else will have to learn it in order to learn Chen style. Probably just one type of Yilu and one version of Erlu is enough for anyone to mine for years.

• 5 Q // Dec 29, 2006 at 1:38 am

  Unless you can own the form (ie. have some mastery of it) I don’t really see a point to learning another. I’ve kept a fairly detail schedule of what I practiced daily and I couldn’t even do the basic pierce hand to the level I’m satisified w/ after 11,000+ reps. If I try to master multiple forms where each one is umpteen times more complicated than this, I’ll just give up.

• 6 chessman71 // Dec 29, 2006 at 9:05 am

  Good comments guys.

  From what Chong said, it was nice to see people in the village line that agree with what I said. Chong runs a nice site on Chen style, BTW.

  Orz’ comments are right on the money. I agree that many in Yang and Old Yang aren’t doing the applications either. But as far as I’m concerned, they have absolutely no excuse. With so little material, you can’t hide behind the excuse that you have so many forms to master. If they have one form, then they better be pretty good at it IMO. No excuses Yang stylists!

  BTW, I have a habit (frowned on by some) of studying under different teachers so that I get the type of info that Orz mentioned at the bottom of his comment. I’ve yet to meet a teacher that has it all, even though I aspire to be that teacher myself. You just have to get pieces wherever you can find them.

  Fianlly, I agree with you guys that really mastering the material is the way to go, and the forms trained should allow that to happen. Forms should be vehicles to facilitate that process, not barriers that prevent it. And yet, that’s what so often happens. Like wuji said, “Wanna learn some qinna, then study xinjia.” Give me a break. That’s totally unnecessary.

  But what about this quote from Chong, “Now if the instructor follows the traditional methods, not many people will learn from him and the instructors will have problems in making a living.”

  I’ve been told by a teacher that this is absolutely true. Whatis the solution?

• 7 Q // Dec 29, 2006 at 3:13 pm

  Actually my old tai chi teacher probably has the best solution to this issue I’ve ever seen. He teaches at local city recreation centers, where you would get average joe or collectors to sign up for a semester or 2. He has a separate class (unrelated to the rec centers) for serious students and typically 1 or 2 of the casual students in the semester classes end up asking about the more serious class. This way he could keep long term students and form collectors (that and he knew quite a few forms anyway) happy, it’s just that the collectors are replaced periodically. It’s a win-win situation for the teacher, serious student, and form collectors. The only issue is that tai chi is famous for the health aspects and easy to get casuals and elders w/, but if you practice some relatively unknown and vigorous stuff like xingyi or bagua you might need to be a pretty good salesman.

• 8 Orz // Dec 29, 2006 at 4:05 pm

  Learning different forms one to another consecutively, just touching the surface and learning new choreography without addressing underlying issues, well … it seems a serious problem for many Chen style students. But think about it, if a Chen style taijiquan teacher has 30 students in his class, a mix of elderly people, people in their 20ies, women, kids, small and tiny ones as well as big and heavy people. For a beginner, it would take at least 3 years to learn and finish laojiayilu(老架一路), actually even more. Students start from silk reelings, different horse stances, and do some basic trainings for their lower-body and thigh-muscles. Then the teacher teaches them the 74/75 postures of laojiayilu, one movement by one movement. If the teacher wants to pass the techniques of fa-jin(發勁), qinna(擒拿), and applications(技擊應用) on to his students. Should this teacher have to force them to study this stuff？Is every student interested in fa-jin, qinna, and applications(技擊應用)？What if some of those students cannot pass the basic trainings, even the horse stances？What if some of them don’t know how do use and develop the strength from their lower-body after one year of training？What if some students are tired of practicing and have no feeling of achievement？These are serious problems for a Chen style taijiquan teacher. How can he figure out these problems and makes every student satisfied？I think it’s very difficult. Maybe teaching mini forms would be a good option. But just like Casey said：Different versions, but all the same. Some people joined Chen style taiji class, because they thought it is a gentle and elegant exercise, but finally they found it is not. And some joined because they wished they can be a kungfu fighter like Chen Xiaowang, but when they found it would take more than 10 years or their teachers can only teach them forms, they are disappointed. IMHO, a good taiji teacher is always not easy to be found, and being famous taiji boxer doesn’t mean one is also a good taiji teacher. Never be superstitious about famous taiji boxers. There is a Chinese slang saying：師傅領進門，修行在個人。It means even if you have a good teacher, you still have to practice hard by yourself, and grasp/realize the meaning of principles by yourself.

  I think Yan Luchan(楊露蟬) was really something, he deleted those useless movements, postures from Chen style taiji forms, and rearranged them into a perfect internal martial art with lots of deep neigong(內功) principles. He passed one wide-form, one small-form, applications of taiji Spear(Taiji Qiang), and applications of taiji Staff(Taiji Dagan) on to general people, and passed at least one secret-fighting form on to his children. Well … compare with Chen style taiji, it’s less. The marvelous part of true Yang style taijiquan is its perfect system of neigong principles. Unfortunately these systems are being forgotten, even the Yang Chengfu’s wide-form does emphasize the physical exercises.

  Compare with other modern/western martial arts, like Russian Sambo or Brailian Jiujitsu, even though Taijiquan is not a perfect fighting skill nowadays, but it’s truly a good health-building martial art. It’s worth the practitioners spending their whole life studying it. And that is the reason why a lot of taiji old masters focus their thoughts on one form (Chen style taiji laojia or xinjia yilu and Yang style taiji 85 or 89 form) only.

  “Now if the instructor follows the traditional methods, not many people will learn from him and the instructors will have problems in making a living. What is the solution？”Well, IMHO if you like the way your teacher teaches, and you believe he has something you want to learn, then do your best to follow him whatever it takes.

  Orz

• 9 zenmindsword // Dec 29, 2006 at 5:03 pm

  hi Orz, its unfortunate but its the way society is moving so fast that nobody has much time for slow stuff any more especially in Singapore and China. We stil preserve the neigong stuff that Yang Luchan passed on within the family and which was largely lost once it reached Yang Chengfu for reasons I rather not say. But you are right, people may say they want it but the moment I ask if they can spend 3 hours a day practicing for the next 10 years to develop the fundamentals of mind intention suddenly they are not so enthusiastic any more

• 10 Nikwdhmos // Dec 29, 2006 at 9:58 pm

  At our school, we only have two fist forms for Chen — Xin Jia Yi Lu and Pao Chui. We have several weapons forms, of course.

  My teacher is also a desciple for the Chen and Wu (Jianquan) styles. From what I have seen, there he may only teach the Wu long form for fist (and several weapons).

  Sun and WuHao are the same, with one fist form and several weapons.

  Yang he teaches 24 and 88 fist. And there are several weapons.

  He also teaches contemporary taiji 42 and contemporary weapons, which we treat as its own separate style.

  But Chen and Wu are his two best styles. His other styles are very very good, but these two are superb — they are also, I believe, the lens through which he sees the other arts he teaches.

  I feel like mentioning this, because this is how I have been learning the taijis — with one or two fist forms only, in great detail, with lots of practice.

  Bagua and Xingyi are different, of course. There are simply tons and tons of forms for those two styles — they run very deep.

• 11 Thomas // Dec 30, 2006 at 5:13 am

  “. . . kungfu fighter like Chen Xiaowang . . . ” I didn’t realize he was a fighter.

  ***********************

  The issue of numbers of forms goes way back in Chen family history. The traditional story addresses how Chen Wanting created seven forms, and Chen Changxing synthesized them into two: Yi Lu and Er Lu (another version says the other forms were “lost”).

  As far as “Lao” Jia and “Xin” Jia . . . there is a real question as to whether “Lao” Jia is actually older than the “Xin” Jia that CZK brought to Chenjiagou in the seventies. My own take is that “Lao” Jia is simply the way that Chen Zhaopei, Chenjiagou’s primary teacher from the late 1950s into the 1960s, taught the forms. “Xin” Jia is new only in that taijiquan had nearly died out in Chenjiagou until CZK visited from Beijing. At that point all the young studs like CXW, CZL, ZTC and WX had received their primary training in Chen Zhaopei’s method, so Chen Fake’s version was “new” to them.

  The more accurate distinction, according to Feng Zhiqiang (who learned “xin” jia) would be Da Jia (large frame) and Xiao Jia (small frame). A large nucleus of the remaining Xiao Jia practice had left Chenjiagou for Xi’an by the time CZK returned.

  *****************************************

  A good taolu should be able to be practiced in a variety of ways: high or low, large or small, with/without fajin. With respect to any of the versions of Chenshi Yi Lu, there seems to be enough excellent material in that form for any of the various purposes that a solo form should be trained for.

  Er Lu seems superfluous. Does it really train fajin better or the “real” fighting applications of Chen taijiquan? I’d like to see convincing demonstrations of the techniques in Er Lu (of any Chen line). As far as fa-jin training goes, the best training (IMO)I’ve come across is the single-technique fajin training that Fu Shengyuan and his son James demonstrate (from Fu Zhongwen’s lineage in the Yang style), or that Chen Xiaowang demonstrates here: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zxxebP0u31g

  I don’t know that the random placement of fajin in the Chen forms is the best way to train that particular ability. Yes I’m aware that generations have practiced it that way, but the wisdom as to why certain movements in a form have fajin and others that can clearly be applied with fajin do not seems to elude clear explanation by today’s teachers.

  Today’s Zhaobao He taijiquan practitioners do pretty well with just one form. I’d put their tuishou and applications on a par with anything out of Chen village.

  There is a helluva lot of good training in any one of the Yang forms, even Yang Cheng Fu’s.

  **************************************

  As far as the neigong principles in the Yang tradition . . . there truly does seem to be a lot there. I know there is in at least some lines of Zhaobao. Aside from Feng Zhiqiang’s derivation of Chen style, systematic training of neigong principles is not as apparent in Chen style, before the current generation of master teachers (CXW, CZL, for example). And in that case, I wonder how much–if any–formal neigong training was passed down from Chen Fake or Chen Zhaopei, in contrast to how much might have been added by the current generation of teachers based on things they learned from “outside”–for example, from Feng Zhiqiang (whose neigong comes from his years with the xingyi and neigong teacher Hu Yaozhen, not from his practice with Chen Fake). Chen Xiaojia . . . is a large and deep field of martial training . . . Chen Xin’s book (small parts of which have been translated impromptu for me), which does deal with neigong in some very interesting ways, comes from a Xiao Jia context.

  I’m looking forward to discussions on the “Chenwired.com” site, given the teachers that Frank Shiery, Herb Rich and Jim Criscimagna, among others, have access to.

  ******************************************

  One form. That’s all I need. ;- )

• 12 Thomas // Dec 30, 2006 at 5:46 am

  Well what do I know anyways. (wry grin).
  Maybe I’m just envious of the body skill and freedom of movement of folks who can perform Er Lu well . . . like Zhang Lianen from Hong Junsheng’s lineage (a brief sequence, towards the end of the clip):

  http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uFhkDe9×0Jk

• 13 chessman71 // Dec 30, 2006 at 10:43 am

  Thomas,
  ““Xin” Jia is new only in that taijiquan had nearly died out in Chenjiagou until CZK visited from Beijing.”

  I’ve heard that numerous times as well. But boy will saying that get you in hot water really quickly. There’s a lot of myths about the village built up since the communists took control of China. You can’t question those myths without running into the “official line” though.

  “Er Lu seems superfluous.”

  I have also heard that yilu needs to be trained and fully understood over a period of years. Once that is attained, paochui can be taught fairly quickly. I have personally seen yilu played like paochui, with fajing done in all the moves. It looked like good training and a worthwhile goal to shoot for, but it also looked exhausting.

  “Today’s Zhaobao He taijiquan practitioners do pretty well with just one form. I’d put their tuishou and applications on a par with anything out of Chen village.”

  Agreed. I saw a great clip of Zhaobao push hands training at their official school and I thought it looked great. Lots of shuai jiao, etc. Wish I could find that clip again.
  I also agree about Feng’s taiji and the neigong. Feng has always been the model for me and I appreciate his stuff a bit higher than most village material.

• 14 tim // Jan 1, 2007 at 3:19 am

  I’m glad Orz mentioned BJJ and sambo. Both of those arts are derived in large part from judo. If you look at judo, there are lots of techniques. Very few people learn all of them (except for master teachers) and even then, most fighters have a few movements that they use during fighting.

  I’d look at taiji in the same way– sure there are lots of forms, but the real questions are:
  1. What are the minimal conditioning requirements?
  2. What techniques are high percentage in a freestyle situation? And what low percentage techniques set up the high percentage techniques, or vice versa?

  From that perspective, people who want to learn to use their martial arts for practical application should get into the right physical condition for taiji, then learn some techniques/strategies to let them learn to fight with it. Then later, if they decide to become a teacher, they can learn all the other stuff, and the low percentage moves.

  Of course, if people are only interested in, as someone else mentioned “form collecting” or just want to socialize, or learn some movements for general health and flexibility, then my comments are probably meaningless for them.

• 15 chessman71 // Jan 1, 2007 at 9:41 am

  Tim,
  I agree to a certain extent. But determining the conditional requirements largely depend on why you’re training taij in the first place. It’s not like competition judo where their are levels of competition and the maount of conditioning needed at each level is fairly well known.

  Second, the idea of high-percentage techniques is a bit alien. I guess we could enter push hands comps and see what works for us and then develop 5-6 techniques that work consistently.

  Yang style taiji only has 37 distinct moves — but the applications of those is endless I guess. I’m usually trying to balance mastering those moves and yet exploring the myriad apps of them at the same time. It’s a balancing act but one I enjoy.

  True, my fighting ability suffers sometimes if I stress body mechanics and move development too much at the expense of practicing applying what I already know.

  Again, it’s a balancing act.

• 16 tim // Jan 7, 2007 at 2:40 pm

  With judo, researchers did a statistical analysis of competition wins during the 60s. That’s where the numbers come from, I think it was done in Europe and Japan. The stuff on the foot sweeps was done I think in Europe by some Polish guys…they watched lots of matches and concluded that there was always a “rapid foot movement” right before the player sank his winning throw.

  I like taiji (really starting to like it more and more, the more SRE I do) but I think the fact that competition focuses on pushhands is not so good…they’d be better off entering straight up wrestling matches…whether judo, shuai jiao, greco etc. Or doing san da. I’m always curious why Chen village doesn’t have any san da competitors, at least, that we know of. Maybe they are doing it and it’s just not getting out in the West.

  The biggest problem with training (and competing in…) only PH is that it eliminates the free movement aspect of combat, which is where you really decide who wins and who loses. If you can’t survive the close…or deal with the shot from long range, or set up your movement from the distance it’s a bad deal. I’m sure the top level Chen guys have methods of doing this, but I have seen no evidence of it being taught openly.

• 17 chessman71 // Jan 7, 2007 at 2:57 pm

  Tim,
  Comp PH comes in two varieties: fixed and moving step. Fixed step is much as you describe, but moving step is a whole other ballgame. Many things are possible in moving step, it’s mostly like shuai jiao matches. That’s where you see throws and qinnas a lot. They also routinely disengage and have to re-engage, meaning that bridging becomes more important. Bt you won’t see all these things in every moving step match, depending on the opponents.

• 18 Paul // Mar 29, 2007 at 4:49 pm

  I kind of believe that all the short forms are simply abbreviations of the long forms. Why read Coles Notes if you can get the original book? As such, the hand forms are really divided into two - the Yi Lu and the Er Lu. The difference between the Lao jia and the Xin jia are not that great, actually - the taiji principles are all the same; what changes are the ways they’re executed. It’s a minor difference, though, so people who’ve learned Laojia both yi and er lu should have no problems assimilating the xin jia in a short time (and vice versa). To me, at least, learning the short forms is pretty much a waste of time (if I know both xin jia’s, I can learn the Beijing 56 form quite easily since it’s a compilation of both forms. But if I only know the Beijing 56, I’ll have to learn much more to know the 83 and 71 movements).
  Cheers, Pawel

• 19 wujimon // Mar 29, 2007 at 8:32 pm

  Hi Paul. I’ve actually been told it could be hard for people to learn laojia if they learn xinjia sets first due to the more ‘quieter’ body method of laojia. At this point, I have no inclination to learn xinjia as I have a long way to go in laojia methods

• 20 Paul // Mar 30, 2007 at 12:56 am

  Hey Wujimon,
  I know some people who know both “Lu”s of both xin jia and lao jia, but look absolutley horrible in whatever they practice. I also know some people who just do the yi lu (either lao jia or xin jia, doesn’t matter), and look magnificent. It’s not about how many you know, it’s about how well you know each one. As to it being hard to learn laojia if one knows xin jia - well, I’m sure some people will find it hard, but I’m also sure some will find it exceedingly easy. T
  Cheers, Pawel

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