Chen Family Taijiquan - Gongfu Jia

[Teapot]

Just sharing this short video:

 

[Xue Sheng]

Had a couple a discussions with him on a couple other forums awhile back. I believe he is in the Boston area

I believe Chen Yu (In Beijing I believe) had a stroke not to long ago, hopefully he is back teaching

 

[Teapot]

Had a couple a discussions with him on a couple other forums awhile back. I believe he is in the Boston area

I believe Chen Yu (In Beijing I believe) had a stroke not to long ago, hopefully he is back teaching

Chen Yu has retired from teaching; it's taken over by his son, Chen Shiwu.

 

[Appledog]

I find "Gongfu Frame" interesting, as a marketing attempt to differentiate between real Tai Chi and for-health Tai Chi. What is missing, in fact, from 'Health' oriented practice, is any kind of 'gong-fu'. So it is just regular Tai Chi, more or less, that being said 'regular' today has become 'rare and precious';

物以稀为贵 (wù yǐ xī wéi guì), "something becomes precious because it is rare."

However, I fear that the situation is also like 杯水车薪 (bēi shuǐ chē xīn), "a cup of water on a burning wood," and that we must now band together as brothers and fight to save it.

In this case, there is not enough public interest to truly sustain and develop real gongfu frame. Only a few have it, like Moling (Spivack). However if it does not recieve widespread public support it will die. Like Go in Japan. When public funding was removed, the mantle of strength passed to Korea.

Has the gongfu frame passed from China yet? What do you think?

You can get gongfu frame any credible lineage of Chen style, baguazhang, xingyi, etc.. You can get it from Moling, but you can't get it from Chen Yu anymore. You can get it from Michael Calandra, but (AFAIK) you can't get it from Chen Zhonghua anymore. You could even get it from me, but you can't get it from my teachers. Here's how it works:

1. In our style, we do things differently because it is 'more real' than other styles. That is why our style looks radically different than other styles. (To be fair, this is not a criticism -- my teacher also changed his style to suit.)

(time goes by)

2. It takes 10 years of doing the yilu 10 times a day in order to get gongfu. The way this works in the Chen Yu/Moling school for example is he will say "The forms are purely developmental. (So,) you practice the form to develop strengths, skills, and you're basically building the ... jin." Other schools say the same thing. In our school we say the same thing. Practice 10,000 times to understand the movement. Really, this part is the key, and you will find that if you are in a poor school you will actually get so good it will become obvious to you that you are better than your teacher. At that point, you will know where to go to find a better teacher.

(time goes by)

3. Sifu says, "I finally understand what my teacher taught me (forty) years ago." and he changes the form to look more like Feng Zhiqiang or Yang Chengfu.

That last part is a bit of a joke. But, it's kind of true.

In the beginning Spivack was big on "Gongfu form". On another forum someone is talking about "secrets" like "fa li". But in a PM video I heard CZH say fa li. And you can pick it up without even knowing it's name if it is in the stars. Practical method is big on things like carrying water. They have carrying water. It's great. My style doesn't do that. But all of this is just random stuff, random starting points, there is so much information, and it is all publicly available, the real value of a teacher is showing you where to start and guiding you through the process, because if you had to figure it out yourself it would take several lifetimes, you just can't do it by yourself. Not anymore, anyways, we just live in a different world... it is our karma.

It is just like stars in the sky, hitch your wagon to a star...

 

[Teapot]

I find "Gongfu Frame" interesting, as a marketing attempt to differentiate between real Tai Chi and for-health Tai Chi. What is missing, in fact, from 'Health' oriented practice, is any kind of 'gong-fu'. So it is just regular Tai Chi, more or less, that being said 'regular' today has become 'rare and precious';

物以稀为贵 (wù yǐ xī wéi guì), "something becomes precious because it is rare."

However, I fear that the situation is also like 杯水车薪 (bēi shuǐ chē xīn), "a cup of water on a burning wood," and that we must now band together as brothers and fight to save it.

In this case, there is not enough public interest to truly sustain and develop real gongfu frame. Only a few have it, like Moling (Spivack). However if it does not recieve widespread public support it will die. Like Go in Japan. When public funding was removed, the mantle of strength passed to Korea.

Has the gongfu frame passed from China yet? What do you think?

I don't think gongfu needs widespread public support to survive; it just needs localized support. The art was passed down privately in the family for many generations and wasn't publicized until the early 20th century. It managed to survive for centuries in a private family setting.

Before it was publicized, you could imagine that the art was passed down from father to son. Or at the very least, the teacher-to-student ratio was very small.

Conversely, publicizing it led to a lot of commercialization, and when money got involved, many teachers, who had lived poor lives, wanted to be rich. That meant maximizing student count, watering down the art to maximize retention of those students, jacking up the cost to become their disciple, etc... Once their fame/status/reputation is assured, they don't need to teach seriously. They can have $500 per person workshops where they just teach breathing and talk about Qi. People pay just to be in their presence. There are teachers who have several hundreds (if not thousands) of disciples. That "shouldn't" be normal.

I would say that Gongfu dies at the hands of commercialization. The desire to have it widespread and inclusive is what paradoxically kills it.

Gongfu Frame is naturally self-selecting of its students. Among those who try, only a few remain, and that filtering process happens right from the start. Rather than trying to cater the art for everyone, Moling just focuses on the survivors because they're most serious about it. The tradeoff is that it's a bad business model.

It needed publicization to the degree that there could be a sample size of potential students to try it out, but once that phase is over, the teacher just focuses on the survivors. In terms of preservation, it's a waste of time to invest in students who aren't serious.

 

[windwalker099]

I would say that Gongfu dies at the hands of commercialization. The desire to have it widespread and inclusive is what paradoxically kills it.

Very much agree with this statement...

Good to see some of your work....

 

[Xue Sheng]

I don't think gongfu needs widespread public support to survive; it just needs localized support. The art was passed down privately in the family for many generations and wasn't publicized until the early 20th century. It managed to survive for centuries in a private family setting.

Before it was publicized, you could imagine that the art was passed down from father to son. Or at the very least, the teacher-to-student ratio was very small.

Conversely, publicizing it led to a lot of commercialization, and when money got involved, many teachers, who had lived poor lives, wanted to be rich. That meant maximizing student count, watering down the art to maximize retention of those students, jacking up the cost to become their disciple, etc... Once their fame/status/reputation is assured, they don't need to teach seriously. They can have $500 per person workshops where they just teach breathing and talk about Qi. People pay just to be in their presence. There are teachers who have several hundreds (if not thousands) of disciples. That "shouldn't" be normal.

I would say that Gongfu dies at the hands of commercialization. The desire to have it widespread and inclusive is what paradoxically kills it.

Gongfu Frame is naturally self-selecting of its students. Among those who try, only a few remain, and that filtering process happens right from the start. Rather than trying to cater the art for everyone, Moling just focuses on the survivors because they're most serious about it. The tradeoff is that it's a bad business model.

It needed publicization to the degree that there could be a sample size of potential students to try it out, but once that phase is over, the teacher just focuses on the survivors. In terms of preservation, it's a waste of time to invest in students who aren't serious.

I have to admit, the best teachers I have had in Chinese martial arts advertised little, if at all.

 

[windwalker099]

My own teacher sought and maintained anonymity most his life .
Only in his late 90s did he allow people to video, not of our group.

As “teapot “ mentioned, the practice is not for everybody, the practice it self tends to weed out those not suited for it .

 

[Xue Sheng]

My own teacher sought and maintained anonymity most his life .
Only in his late 90s did he allow people to video, not of our group.

As “teapot “ mentioned, the practice is not for everybody, the practice it self tends to weed out those not suited for it .

My Yang Shifu, now in his 90s, never allowed video and never advertised. And now he really no longer teaches, just does a lot of Taijiquan

 

[Krisxylove]

I don't think gongfu needs widespread public support to survive; it just needs localized support. The art was passed down privately in the family for many generations and wasn't publicized until the early 20th century. It managed to survive for centuries in a private family setting.

Before it was publicized, you could imagine that the art was passed down from father to son. Or at the very least, the teacher-to-student ratio was very small.

Conversely, publicizing it led to a lot of commercialization, and when money got involved, many teachers, who had lived poor lives, wanted to be rich. That meant maximizing student count, watering down the art to maximize retention of those students, jacking up the cost to become their disciple, etc... Once their fame/status/reputation is assured, they don't need to teach seriously. They can have $500 per person workshops where they just teach breathing and talk about Qi. People pay just to be in their presence. There are teachers who have several hundreds (if not thousands) of disciples. That "shouldn't" be normal.

I would say that Gongfu dies at the hands of commercialization. The desire to have it widespread and inclusive is what paradoxically kills it.

Gongfu Frame is naturally self-selecting of its students. Among those who try, only a few remain, and that filtering process happens right from the start. Rather than trying to cater the art for everyone, Moling just focuses on the survivors because they're most serious about it. The tradeoff is that it's a bad business model.

It needed publicization to the degree that there could be a sample size of potential students to try it out, but once that phase is over, the teacher just focuses on the survivors. In terms of preservation, it's a waste of time to invest in students who aren't serious.

Not whether it's true or not, I also like to think that historically and far enough back, training locally was a lot more than within the family. It could be friends to the family, extended family etc. and other people nearby in the community. I like to think that people just sort of communed together to train and in turn they became a stronger community while stronger individually. And people were lucky if they can afford to train with a well known Master.

 

[Krisxylove]

It takes 10 years of doing the yilu 10 times a day in order to get gongfu. The way this works in the Chen Yu/Moling school for example is he will say "The forms are purely developmental. (So,) you practice the form to develop strengths, skills, and you're basically building the ... jin." Other schools say the same thing. In our school we say the same thing. Practice 10,000 times to understand the movement. Really, this part is the key, and you will find that if you are in a poor school you will actually get so good it will become obvious to you that you are better than your teacher. At that point, you will know where to go to find a better teacher.

 

[Appledog]

I don't think gongfu needs widespread public support to survive; it just needs localized support. The art was passed down privately in the family for many generations and wasn't publicized until the early 20th century. It managed to survive for centuries in a private family setting.

Before it was publicized, you could imagine that the art was passed down from father to son. Or at the very least, the teacher-to-student ratio was very small.
[...]
Gongfu Frame is naturally self-selecting of its students. Among those who try, only a few remain, and that filtering process happens right from the start. Rather than trying to cater the art for everyone, Moling just focuses on the survivors because they're most serious about it. The tradeoff is that it's a bad business model.

Well, this is certainly true of some people but in general, there has been a push for hundreds of years to publicize and modernize kung fu of various kinds. In the last century, the Jingwu and Nanjing Central institutes generally replaced the less put-together traditional arts, with the prime survivors being those who had already moved overseas. Today's duan system is the same idea, but with it's dozens of 'new' tai chi forms, I don't think it's the right thing. Mainly because it doesn't have community support. But I do think the time is ripe for another new wave.

 

[Same Trick]

A specific gong-fu frame ! What’s so gong-fu with that ? if it’s just measurable within its own staged performance?

All “frames” have gong-fu potential, but I’d say the soft and flowing hold the greatest gong-fu potential.

 

[Appledog]

All “frames” have gong-fu potential, but I’d say the soft and flowing hold the greatest gong-fu potential.

How do you practice (for example) bao fa li if it's not in the form? That isn't how Chinese martial arts works.

 

[Same Trick]

How do you practice (for example) bao fa li if it's not in the form? That isn't how Chinese martial arts works.

Yes the common way of fali practice is very visual, for the spectator it looks strong, for the solo performer it feel strong….
This is the obvious method you have been learning as a regular student,
However there’s another way of practicing, it’s subtle, it’s manifestation is not within the limit of ones own solo performance, it can only be felt/experienced but not quite understood by a receiving party.
This method of practice comes only from oral transmission your knowledgeable teacher may choose to pass on to you

 

[Teapot]

A specific gong-fu frame ! What’s so gong-fu with that ? if it’s just measurable within its own staged performance?

All “frames” have gong-fu potential, but I’d say the soft and flowing hold the greatest gong-fu potential.

The problem with soft-only arts is that they cannot practice what they preach. They cannot practice 'soft overcome hard' because nobody in the class was trained to give hard power. The ideologies of softness and subtlety have made it such that nobody in the school has the mindset or training how what good hardness entails. It's easy to assume that the opponent is some dumb brute, but what happens if the opponent is intelligent and competent at hardness and structure?

Taiji, by definition, involves Yin and Yang. It should be both soft and hard.

I have met many Yang style practitioners who are really into the soft stuff where they use subtlety and "song" and "release", etc... And they're decades into it; they're not new.

But when they played with me, all of a sudden, their stuff didn't work. Ironically, they're the ones mystified by me. They ask: "What are you doing? How are you doing that? How is this possible?" In their view, I was an outlier because they thought what they were doing would have worked on virtually anyone else.

It is because I am accustomed to hardness that I can appreciate softness. It's because I'm used to having partners who can give me hardness that I can exercise softness.

But a lot of Yang style is really just soft vs soft.

Most people in Yang style don't have explosive power. The reason they don't showcase it in form is because they can't do it. It's embarrassing to show power in the form if it reveals how much they suck at it. If someone can't do it, the act of not showcasing power protects their dignity.

Having an overly complaint and dramatized partner is often used to hide the fact that they can't do it; they need someone to play pretend for them. But many Chinese martial arts practice power in the form.

Some say that it's only for "external" martial arts, then I suppose Xingyiquan isn't an Internal martial art because they certainly practice power.

If the excuse is that Yang Taijiquan doesn't do hard Fa Jin, then Fu Zhongwen seems to disagree when he talks about Yang Shaohou:

a high frame with lively steps, movements gathered up small, alternating between fast and slow, hard and crisp fajin, with sudden shouts, eyes glaring brightly, flashing like lightning, a cold smile and cunning expression. There were sounds of “heng and ha,” and an intimidating demeanor. The special characteristics of Shaohou’s art were: using soft to overcome hard, utilization of sticking and following, victorious fajin, and utilization of shaking pushes.

Is Fu Zhongwen, a senior disciple of Yang Chengfu, wasting his time here? I don't see a partner anywhere here and it also doesn't look all that performative:

What about his grandson?

No partner in sight.

You are what you train. People who don't practice it can't do it.

 

[Xue Sheng]

The problem with soft-only arts is that they cannot practice what they preach. They cannot practice 'soft overcome hard' because nobody in the class was trained to give hard power. The ideologies of softness and subtlety have made it such that nobody in the school has the mindset or training how what good hardness entails. It's easy to assume that the opponent is some dumb brute, but what happens if the opponent is intelligent and competent at hardness and structure?

Taiji, by definition, involves Yin and Yang. It should be both soft and hard.

I have met many Yang style practitioners who are really into the soft stuff where they use subtlety and "song" and "release", etc... And they're decades into it; they're not new.

But when they played with me, all of a sudden, their stuff didn't work. Ironically, they're the ones mystified by me. They ask: "What are you doing? How are you doing that? How is this possible?" In their view, I was an outlier because they thought what they were doing would have worked on virtually anyone else.

It is because I am accustomed to hardness that I can appreciate softness. It's because I'm used to having partners who can give me hardness that I can exercise softness.

But a lot of Yang style is really just soft vs soft.

Most people in Yang style don't have explosive power. The reason they don't showcase it in form is because they can't do it. It's embarrassing to show power in the form if it reveals how much they suck at it. If someone can't do it, the act of not showcasing power protects their dignity.

Having an overly complaint and dramatized partner is often used to hide the fact that they can't do it; they need someone to play pretend for them. But many Chinese martial arts practice power in the form.

Some say that it's only for "external" martial arts, then I suppose Xingyiquan isn't an Internal martial art because they certainly practice power.

If the excuse is that Yang Taijiquan doesn't do hard Fa Jin, then Fu Zhongwen seems to disagree when he talks about Yang Shaohou:


Is Fu Zhongwen, a senior disciple of Yang Chengfu, wasting his time here? I don't see a partner anywhere here and it also doesn't look all that performative:

What about his grandson?

No partner in sight.

You are what you train. People who don't practice it can't do it.

You get Yin & Yang power in Tung Ying Chieh lineage as well. You also get two fajin forms.

I am a Taijiquan guy, 30 years Yang (Tung Ying Chieh Lineage) but I was also a XIngyiquan guy and I remember doing push hands with some Taijiquan people, who knew I was going to use Xingyiquan, telling me I was doing it wrong, I was using to much force, and internal arts don't do that..... I had to explain to them that of the internal arts, Xingyi was the most aggressive, and that you would get force, or Fajin from Xingyiquan, Baguazhang, Chen Taijiquan and my lineage of Yang.....

But you are right, there are a lot of Yang folks who use only soft and do not use Fajin

 

[windwalker099]

I am a Taijiquan guy, 30 years Yang (Tung Ying Chieh Lineage) but I was also a XIngyiquan guy and I remember doing push hands with some Taijiquan people, who knew I was going to use Xingyiquan, telling me I was doing it wrong, I was using to much force, and internal arts don't do that...

this common...It only means they have not reached the level of where they can do what they often write about...If you happen to run into someone who can really do it....it's quite different....

The Tung/Dong method my first intro into taiji world long ago.. Was in Hawaii, part of the path leading to my last taiji teacher after 20 or so yrs of searching...

. Sometimes takes a while...

 

[Xue Sheng]

this common...It only means they have not reached the level of where they can do what they often write about...If you happen to run into someone who can really do it....it's quite different....

The Tung/Dong method my first intro into taiji world long ago.. Was in Hawaii, part of the path leading to my last taiji teacher after 20 or so yrs of searching...

. Sometimes takes a while...

Mine was accidental, I was not looking for a Yang style teacher. My teacher was a student of Tung Ying Chieh....

 

[windwalker099]

The problem with soft-only arts is that they cannot practice what they preach. They cannot practice 'soft overcome hard' because nobody in the class was trained to give hard power.

May be true within "your" experience..

Not true in mine, or maybe some others...