Chen Xiaowang announces the creation of his 9-posture form

sicko

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Yea guys, the grand master Chen Xiaowang did create a new form, mostly becose of Western people.
http://taijiquan.com.tw/cxw/cxw_news25.html

Can't wait how it looks like :)

This is a quote from Facebook, I don't know where originally comes from.

GrandMaster Chen Xiaowang, a lecture in 2012: "when I started teaching Laojia and Xinjia to Europeans, they complained it's too long. So, around 1997 I created a shorter form of 38 movements. They still complained, so around 2007 I created 19 forms for them. But they are still complaining! I'm afraid of what happens with Taiji in 2017..."
 

Blaze Dragon

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interesting...in theory? I think it's a good idea...it would be easy to remember the sequence of only 9. considering that is the length and it doesn't repeat....on the other hand if your going to study something study it...I know at my kwoon we break down the forms and teach pieces at a time. So I don't think this is a new concept, but almost seems like a way to get publicity, which is not bad thing.
 

oaktree

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I think it is:
1.opening 2.jin gang 3.lazy tying coat 4
Six sealing 5.single whip 6.cloud hands 7.punch 8.jin gang 9. Closing.

It is not a bad set most of these repeat about 4 times in the laojia
Form. Six sealing and cloud hands are basically silk reeling.
The punch is to help under stand fajin more.

I guess if you only had a month to train or a seminar maybe
9 Form is good. For the rest of us working on a longer form
Would give more of the chen style characters needed such as kicks
And angling.
 

clfsean

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Bugger that. I'm calling cop out to save income.

There are plenty of people that make the time to study properly. I understand all to well the necessity of "siu (xiao)" sets to introduce an idea to a student before dropping the big set that fully explores that, but he's already created 2 other smaller sets, whittling down the sets.

If they complain about the set being too long, maybe they should take up professional nose hair growing or something...
 

Xue Sheng

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World Xiaowang Tai Chi Chuan Association Hsinchu Branch

TAIJIQUAN.COM.TW




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Xiaowang Masters News

Tai chi master Chen Xiaowang nine style Taijiquan officially released
China News 2013.01.31

Chinese tai chi master Chen Xiaowang (former) announced in Beijing on January 30 to the outside world, in order to solve the problem of Taiji popularity, based on traditional Taijiquan 19 style, 18 style, Xiaowang I created a nine style Taijiquan . (Zhang Ziyang photo)

Streamlined, easy to learn, but the skill unabated complex moves, both inherited the essence of traditional tai chi, and integration into the characteristics of the times to be improvement and innovation, become more suitable for modern boxing, easy to learn, easy to remember, easy to practice. Xiaowang authorized Aowu Fu Investment Group worldwide promotion Xiaowang nine style Taijiquan.


Xiaowang Masters News

I have great respect of Chen Xiaowang’s skill but what I find interesting about this, as well as suspect, is that he is the same guy that said the he felt Taijiquan was dead as a martial art due to the number of people doing it that know nothing of the martial arts of it as compared to those that do know the martial arts of it so he was teaching the martial arts and he is also the same guy that said you cannot understand Chen Taijiquan until you learn Laojia Erlu and that only comes after a good understanding of Laojia Yilu.

I hate to say it, and it will likely get me into trouble, but I think this is just another way to get more money out of Westerners with as little effort as possible.

My first sifu did the same exact thing with Yang style 24 form. He broke it up into for 1 and form 2 and changed the postures to make it easier and all it did was successfully take money from people while teaching horrible Taijiquan.

Sorry, I am not buying this one and I am rather disappointed too.

Sorry but in my opinion if you do not have enough patience and dedication to learn his 19 form there is always Chen Zhenglei’s 18 and if that is to long for you then you don’t have enough patience to learn Taijiquan at all
 

clfsean

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Sorry but in my opinion if you do not have enough patience and dedication to learn his 19 form there is always Chen Zhenglei’s 18 and if that is to long for you then you don’t have enough patience to learn Taijiquan at all

Truth ...
 

Xue Sheng

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I think these should be considered here as well

Taijiquan is not a mysterious and bizarre magical art; neither is it the shallow skill of the body guards and street performers. Rather, it is a natural self-defense, exercise, and health system that arises from the natural world - Wu Zhiqing student of Yang Chengfu

If one practices martial art forms without also training for power, in the end one will have achieved nothing - Wang Ji Wu

If you train martial arts without training deep skill, you will arrive at old age with nothing - Di Guoyong
 

Flying Crane

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I guess if you only had a month to train or a seminar maybe
9 Form is good.

my opinion: if you only had a month to train or only time for a seminar, then don't train taiji. or any other martial art for that matter. go do something else.
 

Kung Fu Wang

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It's not whether you can condense your Taiji form into 9 moves or not. If you don't bring the leg moves back into Taiji, Taiji still has "no legs".
 

oaktree

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The form was created at the request of the European students
Who for some reason can't remember the steps.
Xiaowang has reduce the form again and again.
So now there is a 9 form. Was it created
To get more money I don't think so.
Chen still does seminars for the other sets and
I doubt alot of people who know other sets want
To learn this one. I think of the 9 set design for
Someone who is 1.doing a seminar 2.new to taiji 3.
Europeans. 4. Elderly that just want something besides arts
And craft. From what I have seen it mostly consist
Of the first postures from the beginning form and first
Section. I think of it as an introduction to chen taijiquan with
The core postures and theory. But again my teacher's
Teacher is Xiaowang so some of the things he tells me
On why Xiaowang does things and on the Chinese
Chen taijiquan forums there ia more to someone
Creating forms just to take people's money.
But come on it is still better then taoist ta chi society haha.
I do hope my post did not off rude
 

Xue Sheng

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1. Beginning Posture of Taijiquan (Taiji Qi Shi)
2. Pounding the Mortar (Jin Gang DaoDui)
3. Closing Posture of Taijiquan (Shou Shi)

There....problem solved and if that is to hard

1. Beginning Posture of Taijiquan (Taiji Qi Shi)
2. Closing Posture of Taijiquan (Shou Shi)
 

Flying Crane

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The form was created at the request of the European students
Who for some reason can't remember the steps.

...

Chen still does seminars for the other sets and
I doubt alot of people who know other sets want
To learn this one.

If the Europeans are trying to learn this stuff largely thru seminars, that may be why they cannot remember the sets.

I do not feel that seminars are the proper way to learn any martial art. It requires an ongoing relationship between the student and teacher, to gradually develop the skill and get it right. A short period of time like a seminar, even if conducted all day long over a week or so, falls woefully short of that need. The student who has learned thru seminars has learned something poorly and incompletely and will continue to practice it poorly and incompletely and it will probably gradually get worse and worse as time goes by, because they do not have that ongoing instruction and correction needed to really get it right. The seminar then becomes a vehicle for simply collecting another form without really understanding any of it.

The proper way for a martial art to survive at a high level of quality and then propagate and grow, is for the head leader (such as Xiaowang) to run his own school where he teaches his students to a high level. Once those students reach the level where they can become good teachers, they can teach their own students, and on down the line. It is a natural and organic way for the method to grow. If people like Xiaowang try to propagate the art thru travel and seminars, then it is doomed to fail.

There is one case where I see seminars as potentially good: as a method of quality control. If he has students who have become teachers, he could travel to their schools to keep an eye on the quality of their students and make sure it is all up to par. But that assumes his own students who are teaching are legitimately at a teacher's level.
 

Xue Sheng

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If the Europeans are trying to learn this stuff largely thru seminars, that may be why they cannot remember the sets.

I do not feel that seminars are the proper way to learn any martial art. It requires an ongoing relationship between the student and teacher, to gradually develop the skill and get it right. A short period of time like a seminar, even if conducted all day long over a week or so, falls woefully short of that need. The student who has learned thru seminars has learned something poorly and incompletely and will continue to practice it poorly and incompletely and it will probably gradually get worse and worse as time goes by, because they do not have that ongoing instruction and correction needed to really get it right. The seminar then becomes a vehicle for simply collecting another form without really understanding any of it.

The proper way for a martial art to survive at a high level of quality and then propagate and grow, is for the head leader (such as Xiaowang) to run his own school where he teaches his students to a high level. Once those students reach the level where they can become good teachers, they can teach their own students, and on down the line. It is a natural and organic way for the method to grow. If people like Xiaowang try to propagate the art thru travel and seminars, then it is doomed to fail.

There is one case where I see seminars as potentially good: as a method of quality control. If he has students who have become teachers, he could travel to their schools to keep an eye on the quality of their students and make sure it is all up to par. But that assumes his own students who are teaching are legitimately at a teacher's level.

Chen Xiaowang does run his own school where he teaches his students to a high level, it is Chenjiagou. However what he teaches outside of there is not necessarily to that same level.

And I discovered another good use for seminars, review. I went to a Xingyiquan seminar and it was great and it helped me a lot but I already knew the form and the teach was not big on the typical seminar (lots of material in a short period of time) and he had purposely tried to put in only the amount he as fairly sure most people could remember. However if you did not know Xingyiquan Wuxingquan even with the little he worked on I doubt you would have gotten much out of it. Another was also a review of what was basically one application, defense against a straight punch with a form/posture/hand position that is found in a whole lot of CMA styles and that too was pretty useful,. However the 1, 2 or 3 day seminars are generally too much material in too short time with no contact with the teacher for another year. And you are correct, that will begin to degrade the form/style
 
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oaktree

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Hey flying crane,
I agree that people should train longer with a teacher.
There are people who come to seminars with no martial training
And are lost trying to learn laojia. I have attended seminars
Before and at least walk away knowing something.
The 9 form set you can learn about 4 hours to learn as
Usually for me being slow I learn about 2 steps an hour.
Opening and closing are similar so you really got 7 forms.

I think if you are going to attend a seminar with chen xiaowang
And spend about $300 learning laojia is a waste as you will
Only remember a jumbled mess or just the first couple
Moves which is where the 9 form comes in.
In fact the 9 form is created around the firsr few moments
7 moves are the first moves in the form.

At the end of the day it is chen xiaowang choice and what was requested of him.
As someone who studies chen taijiquan and someone
Who knows a little on the inside I can see why he did so.
 

Flying Crane

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I may have actually learned the 9 form. When I was training with my first sifu, I was trying to train in Chen as part of what I was doing, and my sifu was in Feng's lineage and Chen Xiaowang would come and do the seminars on occasion. I didn't learn it from Chen thru the seminar, I learned it from my sifu, but I believe he had learned it thru seminar or on one of his trips to Beijing. There were so many of those forms, 9, 12, 19 (I guess, but I don't really remember exactly), 24, something in the 30s, like a 34 or 36 or something, and that was all without learning the two major long forms. It was all just turning into this long curriculum and I think it was being presented to us like you kinda needed to learn it all. There was lipservice to the idea that you didn't need to learn it all, but then that's what was being taught. But it was just choreography, not really much in depth. It became all clutter, in my opinion.

When I moved over to train with my current sifu in White Crane, I stopped trying to do anything else and I eliminated all the taiji from my practice, so I don't remember any of these anymore. Life, and my training, is more streamlined now.
 

oaktree

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It seems to me people who don't train in chen taijiquan or
Under chen xiaowang line without knowing all the facts
Have made there own conclusions.

I really don't have have anything to add to this thread. Hopefully
People who do train in chen taijiquan can ask their teacher about it.
 

Xue Sheng

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I believe the 18 form from Chen Zhenglei was also made as an introduction for Chen and Laojia Yilu but the problem was that in one seminar that spanned 3 days he taught the 18 and he first 3rd of Laojia Yilu and I seriously doubt the majority of the people in the room remembered any of it on the 4th day. He also did a seminar on Chansijin and only Chansijin and it was a couple hours long and since it had a more limited scope people got a whole lot more out of it and I am guessing more remembered that the next day than those that did his 3 day seminar.

The 9 may be the first 7 of Laojia Yilu but depending on the length of the seminar and he time in between seminars I still feel you are going to find yourself with a whole lot of errors when it comes time to actually learn Laojia Yilu. But then it really comes down to what you are trying to, or hoping to, get out of it
 

clfsean

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Oh I trained Chen, but not orthodox. It was Hong Junsheng's Xinjia Practical via Feng via Joseph Chen. It took me 6 months to stumble through YiLu. If I had to learn it in a seminar... I'd do something else.
 

Xue Sheng

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For the record Feng is in the Chen lineage as a student of Chen Fake and considered senior to Xiaowang in the lineage; Feng was 18th generation Chen.

Feng and Xiaowang even wrote a book together about Chen Style Taijiquan
 
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