No internal without external...

The physical strength of Fu Zhengsong is evident. 

Fu was a famous master of Bagua who first learned

 Chen Tauijiquan under 16th Generation Chenjiagou 

master Chen Yanxi

To the average western Taijiquan student neigong or "internal training" can seem esoteric and is often over-emphasised. In Chinese Martial Arts: A Historical Survey Brian Kennedy and Elizabeth Guo describe internal training as follows: "Neigong includes exercises to train such qualities as coordination of muscle groups to act as a single "whole", the ability to coordinate the breathing along with movements and the ability to stay relaxed and responsive in a confrontation. These exercises are called "internal" because they do not involve any obvious external actions". 

In Chen Taijiquan the following are all critical parts of internal training: 

• Fang Song - loosening the body by relaxing the joints
• Peng Jin - an outward supportive strength
• Ding Jin - upright and straight
• Chen - rootedness
• Chansijin - reeling silk energy

But all traditional Chinese martial arts involve a balance of internal and external methods. Without an external basis this internal development is of limited value. ""Coordinated strength" means nothing if you don't have any strength to coordinate".

18th Generation Chen Taijiquan exponent Chen Zhaopi divided the training process into three distinct stages:

First training the body externally concentrating upon the extremities - this stage involved intense physical practice to "open up the joints". This stage, he said, should take about five years to accomplish - five years of daily training under the guidance of a knowledgeable teacher. This stage was deemed successful when:

Stamping the foot in Jin Gang Dao Dui should sound like thunder

Punching during Yang Shou Hong Quan should make a sound like the wind

Leaping up to do Er Ti Jiao, the kick should be able to reach seven or eight foot into the air...

While these past Chinese teachers did express themselves in flowery terms, I think we get the picture - at the end of this first stage a practitioner is strong and agile. While this probably sounds heretical to many Taijiquan practitioners today, Chen Zhaopi was adamant that: "If first you don't train this type of brute jin, the body's joints will not be opened up and flexible. As a result, the neijin (internal energy) cannot be stimulated".

Push hands training with Chen Ziqiang - Some basis of strength and conditioning is necessary to
successfully apply the qualities of rooting and sinking against a 110kg opponent! 

Only when the first stage was complete  were practitioners deemed ready to enter the second stage of working towards understanding neijin. Since he was responsible for training the current generation of Grandmasters from Chenjiagou his advice is probably worth listening to. This is in line with a previous post where Chen Ziqiang listed the four qualities necessary for success in traditional Chinese martial arts as: strength, constitution, technique and finally gong. 

Is calmness possible in the digital age

On the flight from the UK to Singapore yesterday I was browsing through the in-flight magazine and came across an interview with Nicholas Carr - Pulitzer Prize finalist, author of The Shallows:What the Internet is Doing to our Brains. The following quote from Carr struck me as very relevant to Taijiquan training/teaching/learning today:

Taiji in a digital age!!!

"The nature of the Internet and other digital media is to encourage us to take in as much information as quickly as possible. What the net doesn't encourage, and I think what it is stealing from us is the ability to engage in calmer, more attentive ways of thinking, the kind of thinking that requires us to screen out distractions rather than indulging them. It's not just deep reading, it's also contemplative and reflective kinds of thinking and introspection. As a society, I think we are devaluing calmer, more focused ways of using our brains".

This presents a serious challenge to today's Taijiquan players. Talking to the current grandmasters it is clear that they faced many challenges on their own journey - famine, political upheaval, poverty.... It is also clear that in better times, life in Chenjiagou had few distractions and a slow and calm lifestyle that lent itself to the prolonged steady training through which the real traditional skill could flourish. 

In the same magazine there was another article in the business section citing"mindfulness" programmes that had been successfully introduced. By Olympics athletes, US marines and large corporations such as Google, Shell, GlaxoSmithKline, KPMG, Carlsberg... With the likes of the Harvard Business Review reporting on a modern epidemic of ADT - attention deficit trait - in the workplace, the article suggested that the need for mindfulness was an idea whose time had come. The symptoms of ADT cited included: distractability, impatience and difficulty with organisation and prioritising. Not traits likely to help one's Taijiquan development! 

The Principle of gradualness

Chen Zhaopi -live in accord with a higher philosophy

To fully understand Taijiquan it is necessary to understand its underlying philosophy. This is less of a problem for Chinese students as many of the ideas are omnipresent throughout  their everyday culture. Western students, on the other hand, need to explore aspects of Chinese thought that have permeated its culture for several thousand years. Failure to grasp its philosophy results in one training a superficial system that is lacking in real foundation. 18th generation exponent Chen Zhaopi believed that this does not just apply to Taijiquan, but that every action a person takes in everyday life should be in accord with a higher philosophy.

At Taijiquan's core is the Taiji or Yin-Yang theory - the search for harmony and balance. In Daoist alchemy heaven, earth and humans are collectively known as the "Three Powers". Humans thrive to the extent to which they conform to the forces that mould and nurture them. It was said that: "Heaven is clear and calm; earth is stable and tranquil. Humans who reject these virtues perish, while those who adapt them thrive".Following its Daoist roots, Taijiquan asks practitioners to seek "ziran" or "the natural state". To do this we must accept the principle of gradualness - the long journey towards mastery can only be achieved gradually. Looking at the normal development of a person from infancy to maturity - each day they may seem the same as the day before, but if all their basic needs are met a fully functioning adult eventually emerges.

Gradual progress from ceaseless effort!

Taijiquan places great importance on fulfilling basic requirements which must be trained daily over a long period of time. We all know the rules - suspend the head, store the chest, relax shoulders, sink elbows etc etc... This is the core of Taijiquan skill and no amount of new forms and novel applications can replace it. The following advice from Chen Xin's "Illustrated Explanation of Chen Family Taijiquan", reflects this inexhorable approach to developing real skill: "The Taijiquan practitioner must apply ceaseless efforts to make his mind aware of each tiny transformation taking place in the postures...one must establish full mental control over every movement: from the way one's hand commences a posture, to the area through which it passes, and up to its final resting place". This can only be achieved gradually!

Chen Xiaoxing – entering a new cycle!

The birthday cake -  6 tiers topped by a symbolic longevity peach

A week ago I was in Chenjiagou enjoying the 60th birthday celebrations of Chen Xiaoxing. Unlike the West’s obsession with youth, in Chinese culture the 60th birthday is a landmark birthday and is the first birthday to be marked by large scale celebrations. It was fitting of the man that the party wasn’t held in some fancy restaurant, but in his training hall!

Evening celebrations

The Chinese zodiac is made up of 12 creatures - the rat, ox, tiger, rabbit, dragon, snake, horse, ram, monkey, rooster, dog and pig. Each creature in turn is associated with one of the 5 elements of wood, fire, earth, metal and water. Chinese astrologers consider the age of 60 to be the completion of one life cycle – (The 12 creatures multiplied by the 5 elements equates to 60 distinct phases), an auspicious number in Chinese culture. Those who achieve the plateau of 60 years begin a new life cycle at that point. 

Saying my piece - just one of the many speeches

Chen Xiaoxing has lived in Chen Village all his life. He knows everyone in the village, and they all know him. Surrounded by his family, friends and disciples - like all good Chinese celebrations it began with a succession of speeches. One after another stood up to praise him for his modesty skill and martial virtue or "wude".

When everyone else had finished Chen Xiaoxing stood up and in his usual understated way offered the following advice: 

“Don’t criticise other people. Don’t boast about yourself. Just put your head down and train”!   

After the afternoon banquet the whole school demonstrated for Chen Xiaoxing and his guests.

   

You might be doing Chen style but are you doing Taijiquan?

Moving slowly towards correctness

Chen style Taijiquan is a relatively new kid on the block in Western Taiji circles. In a short time many Chen teachers have sprung up – self proclaimed masters proudly proclaiming that they are doing the original, the real, the authentic Taijiquan passed down from Chen Wangting the creator of Taijiquan himself!! You know the type – trained for 2 years and loudly talking about push hands, applications and realistic training… or instructors qualified to teach the Chen short form: Can you imagine a Karate/Judo/Ju Jitsu student training for 6 months and then getting an instructor’s certificate – “qualified to teach up to yellow belt”!! While marvelling at their own achievements they disparage Taiji players from other systems as having too much emphasis on softness, no fajin etc etc.   

Traditional training - precise, meticulous, long-term...

Let us be clear - the unique features of Taijiquan are song, rou and man – that is looseness, pliancy and slowness. Slowness is the method where we can, as it were, expand time to check that every aspect of posture and movement fulfils the necessary criteria. Through meticulous self-examination and correction from a knowledgeable teacher we slowly move closer and closer to the standard required. Following the traditional method it is accepted that the qualities of pliancy and looseness can only be cultivated slowly. Only when these qualities have been honed are we ready to train the wider parts of the syllabus. Many modern Chen players pay lip service to the traditional way but in reality cannot accept this preliminary stage. I know of an ordained Buddhist who received his appointment after completing a “fast track” course in Zen Buddhism. Comparing a traditionally trained Chen Taijiquan player with these “fast track” Chen players is like comparing western boxing with a boxercise class at the local health studio.

Or does it have to be fun or you're not playing!

The “inner world” is going mainstream!

The internal training required of Taijiquan and other internal martial arts is often dismissed by some as some kind of esoteric practice.  However, it is interestingly to note that many elite level mainstream sports coaches now acknowledge the critical importance of the “inner world” of the athletes under their charge.  None more so than top sports psychologist James Loehr, who has trained world-class athletes in many different sports, who asserts that in the final analysis even the thoughts inside an individuals head must be considered as a physical aspect to be rigorously trained if they are to achieve excellence in their chosen discipline:  “This may sound quite shocking coming from a psychologist, but all the evidence is there.  The body is physical; talent and skill are physical; emotions are neurochemical events and are therefore physical; and thinking and visualising are electrochemical events in the brain and are also physical… let’s get it straight once and for all: thoughts and feelings are physical stuff too; they are just as real and every bit as fundamental to achievement as talent and skill” Loehr, 1995). 

Source: The Essence of Taijiquan

Constructive Thoughts and Practical Applications

Left are some images from Asian Martial Arts: Constructive Thoughts and Practical Applications. This commerative book marks the end of publication of The Journal of Asian Martial Arts. There is a preview of the book on Amazon. Congratulations to editor Michael De Marco  for his great work over the years! If you love traditional martial arts - support this project!

Words are just words...

Chenjiagou Taijiquan GB's Mary McGregor feeling the correction

During his seminar at our school recently Chen Xiaoxing said that one of his aims is to train students not to be dependant. He would demonstrate a movement and then expect everyone to train themselves. People often like to have the teacher leading them all the time. And if he is not leading then many people soon stop practicing and start to talk instead. Chen Xiaoxing's approach is that if you want to get the skill yourself then talking and just following him is not the way to do it. Don't be so quick to ask questions - "watch carefully and then practice yourself". His brother Chen Xioawang, similarly often says to "practice more and a question may not be a question any more". During one of his workshops Wang Haijun said simply - "beginners ask too many questions"! Of course sometimes we have a real question, but what we are talking about here is the learner who asks question after question, often barely pausing for breath after one question has been answered to ask the next... In The Tao of Zen Ray Grigg put it nicely when he said: "Look in mind to find mind; look in things to find things; look in words to find words. But words chase themselves in circles trying to explain things that are not words". If a teacher corrects your posture then the most appropriate thing to do is to train and try to replicate the corrections he has just made. Unlike the modern "Zumba-world" - with the ever-changing fitness classes as entertainment model; running on treadmills with tv screens and book-holders - progress in Taijiquan is built upon careful study, introspective training and perseverance. As it has always been!!!!

CTGB's Adrian Murray - after seeing then training hard!

Follow the Rules!

Got a great few weeks coming up!- Just picked up GM Chen Xiaoxing from the airport. He returns to our school to do a week-long seminar on the traditional Chen Village staples - Standing Pole/Reeling Silk, Laojia Yilu and Erlu. Then for the next few weeks we'll be accompanying him to the South of England and then to Poland, to my pals Ben Milton (Bristol School of Taijiquan) and Marek Balinski's Chen Academy in Warsaw. In both places covering these same fundamentals. One of my earlier postings highlighted Chen Xiaoxing's "village style" training and his simple advice to anyone trying to emulate the skills handed down by successive generations of Chenjiagou practitioners -  "Know the law" and then  "follow the law".

Two generations earlier his illustrious grandfather Chen Fake divided the training process into three stages:

1. Learn the basic movements correctly
ACCORDING TO THE RULES

2. Become proficient in practising the form ACCORDING TO THE RULES

3. Thorough familiarity WITH THE RULES and understand clearly why there are THESE RULES

It's funny how different people percieve this kind of approach to training. In the world of traditional Chen Taijiquan there really is no other way.  One of my long-time students who has trained in China and attended many seminars happily anticipated Chen Xiaoxing's basic training workshop calling it the "torture session". Others are looking for new exciting things all the time. I guess you take your pick.

Back From the USA

Just got back last week from a great visit to the West Coast of America where we did some really enjoyable sessions at two fine schools - Bill & Allison Helm's Taoist Sanctuary of San Diego (below) and  Kim Ivy's Embrace the Moon Taijiquan and Qigong School in Seattle (left). Thanks for making us feel so welcomed guys and looking forward to our next visit!!