Chen Style Basics Series -- dào juǎn gōng (Whirl Arms)
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Look like they are doing "brush knee twist step (without the leg movement)" and "close Taiji (without bending the knees)".
I always believe the leg movement is more important than the arm movement. In your opinion, why the leg movement is missing?
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Yes the leg movement is important, however, the second section's fundamental principle is twisting body.
The driver of this movement depends upon turning the waist. By shifting the gaze from front to back and aligning the hands with the front and rear corner of the body, the correct position of the waist turn can be adjusted. Later on, different parts of the move can be trained, including correct leg action (see above). This waist turn exists in many other moves in the second section including shan tong bei, turn over body and kick twice (翻身二起脚, move no. 38), etc. Thus I feel it is important to set it apart as a fundamental movement of Chen style.
Scoop is a good leg skill. IMO, before one starts to train "scoop", he should start with "shin bite".
shin bite (downward force) -> scoop (horizontal force) -> sticky lift (vertical force)-> scoop kick (45 degree upward force) -> foot sweep (45 degree upward force).
But when you do "Repulse the Monkey", you pull back hand will be under your forward moving arm's elbow. In that video, the pull back hand is next to the knee.
In that video, he and she all turn their head back. I was taught that when I do both "brush knee twist step" and "Repulse monkey", since my opponent is in front of me, I should not turn my head back. Many Taiji people turn their head, and I don't know why.
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Teapot
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Sure, Chen and Yang are different. But, both Dao Juan Hong and "Repulse the Monkey" involve stepping back multiple times, alternating sides. And, both sequences come right after Fist Under Elbow.
When you map the sequences between Chen and Yang, the evidence suggests that these two are analogous to each other in an evolutionary sense because it's too much of a coincidence that sequences that come after Fist Under Elbow both involve alternating backward stepping with the exact same count.
Now granted, when I see Yang Jun do it, his hand seems to pull back near his knee as well - but his palm is facing up.
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It depends on what you are pulling. If you pull your opponent
- arm, your pulling hand should be under your elbow.
- leg, your pulling hand should be next to your knee.
Teapot
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Same here. In Chen Style, I was taught to look forward. There's no looking back.
As for the rear hand pulling at the elbow or knee, to me, both are contained in Chen Yu's method because along the path towards the rear knee, the rear hand reaches the opposite elbow along the way. Although, your idea of the applications is not how I think about it.
The trajectory of the hands is more three-dimensional because the hands crushes inwards together (as shown by one of Chen Yu's Fa Jin in Dao Juan Hong). The leading hand, for example, has to arc outwards along both an upward-forward arc and a lateral outward arc. That makes it more three-dimensional (more of a spiral) whereas Yang Jun and the original video use a simpler circle with neither an inward crushing of the palms nor a lateral-outward arc. It's more two-dimensional - there's no lateral component. Their hands never seem to approach the centerline of the body; each hand seems to be along the lines of the shoulders.
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