Foundations notes

History of Chen Taijiquan as an internal art

  • Chen Wangting. Read Daoist book in his free time Yellow Court Classic. Author was a woman: Wei huacun. Yellow something.
  • Modified family martial art into internal.

History of systematic foundations

  • Until Chen Fake passed away, there were no foundations. He would do things without telling people. Old teachers - when you ask the right question, they’ll tell you. There is a reason behind everything. Hong realized there was another training method besides the Yilu. So he showed Hong, positive and negative circle. He would take single moves out to train. So Hong created the foundations. There was no systematic foundations.

Synchronicity with Li Enjiu

  • When Master Chen visited Jinan with students, he left his students with Li Enjiu, told students to record the practice while he was gone. They didn’t record anything. But said he taught the foundations exactly the same. Master Chen thought that wasn’t possible, since he came up with the set of exercises based on random situations with Hong. After Hong passed away, Li also built his curriculum with the same exercises.
  • If you follow the same principles, everything ends up the same. The Dao is the universal thing that governs the Earth. Points to a method, or way of thinking that leads you to the same conclusion.

Positive circle

  • Level 1: Shoulder-based positive circle.

  • Level 2: Kua-based circle.

    • Make a large circle with the kua, only set the restriction of not bending over.
    • Clearly bring the kua down, back, up, and forward.

Moving

  • Not moving is about using a pivot so you can move better! It’s not about totally not moving. Need to move your feet!
  • The move needs to physically change the kua position backwards to draw the opponent in.

Adding restriction

  • Restrictions are once you know how to move the kua, go back to previous restrictions, but only make the movements with kua and shuffling of the feet.
  • Don’t bend down. Don’t bend shoulder over.

Error of power on top

  • If the power if above the kua, you lose the connection to the ground. Power is always from the kua.
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