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| An early picture of Chen Xiaowang - "No excuses, training every day without fail" |
In a recent interview Chen
Xiaoxing highlighted the twin qualities of consistency and perseverance as
central to the development of a meaningful level of Taijiquan ability. I
remember listening in some years ago during another interview when he was asked
about his personal training history. Chen Xiaoxing was visibly annoyed at the
suggestion that it was somehow easier in the past. His reply at the time was
that the problem facing the contemporary practitioner was not a lack of time,
but a lack of commitment and application - plain and simply, too many excuses
and not enough training. He countered the distractions facing modern Taijiquan
players with the experience of hardship and starvation, political persecution
and backbreaking work on the fields or in a brick factory. In spite of
everything they managed to develop their skills.
In an article published in forbes.com,
Bruce Kasanoff examined “Three Essential Elements of a Winning Mindset”. He
cited the work of University of Pennsylvania Associate Professor Angela
Duckworth and her study of grit, defined as “the tendency to sustain interest
in and effort toward very long-term goals”. Duckworth’s research found that
individuals possessing “grit” can, through hard work, expand their capabilities
beyond others with seemingly more ability:
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| A young Chen Xiaowang - "the key to success is consistency" |
“Grit predicts surviving the
arduous first summer of training at West Point and reaching the final rounds of
the National Spelling Bee, retention in the U.S. Special Forces, retention and
performance among novice teachers and sales agents, and graduation from Chicago
public high schools, over and beyond domain-relevant talent measures such as
IQ, SAT or standardised achievement test scores, and physical fitness”.
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Chen Xiaoxing: "You have to treat a year like a day and that is not easy. It's very easy to train ten times for one day, but to do it year after year..."
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Chen
Xiaoxing, in answer to the statement that “to achieve what you have achieved
must take a lot of time and effort”, answered “you have to work harder than
most people can imagine”. He cited the example of his brother Chen Xiaowang’s
unceasing practice: “When Xiaowang was training as a professional [In 1980
he was selected by the Henan Sports Council to go to the Zhengzhou Sports
Academy to train alongside elite participants from a variety of sports], he was
training thirty repetitions of the form a day – every day without fail. The key
to success is consistency. You have to treat a year like a day and this is
not easy. It’s very easy to train ten times for one day, but to do it year
after year… most people can train like this for a few days, but how many can do
this for five years?”.
