Formosa Neijia

I’ve been meaning to write a review of Adam Hsu’s Chen vdeos for some time. So here goes.

He has four Chen style DVDs out, one each on the following topics: a short form, laojia yilu, laoji paochui, and huleijia taiji.

All of the videos follow the same format. He gives an intro, basics are shown, the form is demoed, and then some applcations for some moves are given. These aren’t teaching tapes — nothing is done in a manner that you could pick up something from these tapes. They were produced for his Japanese fans and are meant to serve as video demos bascially. If you were his student, they would be excellent for reviewing.

The short form is what the WuTan people call an abstraction — a short form with many essentials for basic training. This form looks like many other short forms, nothing really special or worse about it IMO.

The laojia yilu shows how Hsu’s Chen style is very different from more commonly seen versions. His moves are tight and exhibit very little outward silk reeling motion. Reasons for this vary depending on who you believe. Some people say that his Chen style is heavily influenced by bajiquan — the main style that WuTan uses. I have been personally told twice by WuTan people that Chen style and bajiquan are basically the same thing. I have no comment on that. It should be noted, however, that xiao baji and related training ARE considered basic training for almost everything in the WuTan system. So some influence will be hard to discount.

Having said that, it IS possible to perform Chen style in a manner as to NOT display much obvious silk reeling. As the reeling becomes smaller, the moves appear more linear and tighter — exactly what Hsu shows. So his version on these DVDs can’t be so easily dismissed IMO.

The problem comes in when you consider that these tapes were unfortunately released in the States — NOT the market they were intended for. Adam Hsu is a very smart, very capable, very business-savy teacher (he used to sell insurance for a living) and he SHOULD understand the market for IMA. But releasing these tapes without a clear explanation of what he’s doing, knowing that it looks COMPLETELY different from most other Chen style out there, was not a good idea IMO.

Having obvious silk reeling in the beginning helps beginners because it’s easier to see and do the big movements. The strength of most of the village players, especially someone like CZL, is that they make things a bit more obvious, helping beginners see what they are missing. But this obvious silk reeling (helped by xinjia) has become the expected “look” of Chen style. A man as smart as Adam Hsu must be aware of this.

Consequently, the version done on the DVDs appears with no explanation as to why it looks so different, leading many people to believe it is incorrect or corrupted. And since he was the first to put Taiwanese Chen style on the market, the assumption is that all the Chen style done in Taiwan is like this. That’s simply incorrect and very unfortunate.

The huleijia DVD is a whole other animal. Some people in Taiwan consider it part of Chen style, a lot of people in mainland China do not. The form on the DVD (interestingly enough) looks more like the common village style of Chen than even his laojia does.

Huleijia taiji is very unusual in how it trains the body and is very deep. I have studied this system. Also, because of the range of training involved, it can look very different from teacher to teacher. My guess is that the first time someone sees it, their reaction will be “what the hell is this” but I would hope that people could keep an open mind. It’s a great style, but again, there is little to no context given on the DVD as WHY the style looks so different. Still, this disk is my favorite of the bunch and seems slightly more competently performed IMO.

While I respect Adam Hsu greatly, I really can’t recommend these DVDs except to the collectors out there that want every version of Chen style on the market. The lack of context via verbal explanation on the disk, few applications, and few details given on the moves make this DVD set less than it could be.

Sorry for the length.