Chen Tai Chi

[7starmantis]

I just recently had a chance to start learning Chen and I absolutely love it. I'm more of a kung fu person than a taiji person (although there is some debate as to wether there is a difference at all) but I love the "corkscrew" type movments and the form is amazing. I find it easier to decipher the applications in the moves as well.

Anyone else study Chen style here? I'm curious as to your applications or if you train applications of it at all.

7sm

 

[Cruentus]

I just recently had a chance to start learning Chen and I absolutely love it. I'm more of a kung fu person than a taiji person (although there is some debate as to wether there is a difference at all) but I love the "corkscrew" type movments and the form is amazing. I find it easier to decipher the applications in the moves as well.

Anyone else study Chen style here? I'm curious as to your applications or if you train applications of it at all.

7sm

Is Chen style the modified form with 24(?) movements?

 

[7starmantis]

Is Chen style the modified form with 24(?) movements?

No, 74 movements at least in the one we are learning. I'm not all that familiar with the history, although supposedly Chen is one of the first styles of taiji used for martial application.

7sm

 

[wingchunner]

I train Chen style under Carl Dechiara. His training is from Chen Qingzhou. For more info you might want to check out his website first, then I might be able to better answer your questions.

Applications stem directly from push hands, though we do some seperate Chinna exercises. Additionally, we practice the tai chi bang and tai chi ball.

Marty

 

[Dronak]

No, I haven't learned Chen style tai chi. What I was taught is Yang style. Though I do have a number of books on tai chi and some of them do show Chen style forms. I could look up more about the history in these books, but as I recall, they do believe that Chen style was the first one which makes it closer to the hard, external styles than others. There are explosive movements and the martial applications or moves are often more apparent. I think our MA teacher did say that he knew Chen style tai chi, but he never taught it to us. We only did the Yang style long form. I'm more interested in tai chi than kung fu though so perhaps one day I'll get around to learning some other forms and styles.

Hopefully not too much of an aside, but the 24 posture form mentioned is a standardized, simplified form which I believe is based on the Yang style form. IIRC, this was something China did and backed in an attempt to improve the health of the general population -- here's a short, quick, simple tai chi form that you can practice to stay in good health. There's also a 48 posture form and a 42 posture competition form, both of which I think are based in Yang but incorporate moves from other styles. And four styles of tai chi have their own competition forms as well (I have a book with them). About the only exposure I have to Chen style tai chi is through the few moves from it that got included in the 48 posture form. I learned it a while back using books and video tapes, but since I learned the long Yang form for real, I've basically forgotten the few other simpler forms I tried teaching myself. Not necessarily a bad thing. But I might have a better background now for relearning them if I really wanted to. Something that did look interesting to me was a Compact Tai Chi form, I think in a book by that title, that tends to coil and circle the standard linear movements so that you can do the form in a smaller space. It's also one of these combined forms, based in Yang but taking moves and aspects of other major styles as well. I never got very far with it, but I have the book for reference if I want to try to pick it up at some point.

 

[dmax999]

The Chen family is credited with "inventing" Tai Chi, according to the plausable of the Tai Chi histories. Yang was a student of the original Chen master. Yang became famous with nobility of China as being "Yang the undefeatable" because of his skill. He taught Yang style to the nobility, which as I understand what he taught had no fa-jing (** Insert argument that Yang style does have fa-jing here **). It was tradition for teachers to reserve "secrets" of their style for their own sons only. Yang created the 108 move form using his understanding of Tai Chi and claimed it was the shortest he could make it and keep all aspects of Tai Chi in it.

Chen style is the original style, but because the creator was so far beyond anyone else at the time he was unable to pass down all of his knowledge. I beleve there are some Chen forms lost becuase of this. Chen tends to be much more difficult to learn, includes fa-jing, and appears to move much more like traditional Kung-Fu.

Information in previous posts about specifics of forms is correct to my best understanding.

 

[East Winds]

dmax999,

Thanks for including the "Yang does have fa-jing" argument" in your post

It is a myth that Yang Cheng-fu "softened" down his form for the sake of the Chinese royal family. The form always had (and still has) fa-jing in every posture. If you do Yang style without fa-jing then you have double weighted hands and your applications will be worthless. However I think it is true that many "so called" Yang forms today do not contain fa-jing and certainly I think the modern Wushu forms don't have it. Simply because teachers do not know how to teach it. The fa-jing is clearly not as overt as in Chen style, but work with Yang Zhen Duo or Yang Jun (or the second son Yang Zhen Ji) and you will learn fa-jing in Yang style!!!!!

Very best wishes

 

[Shadowdh]

Hi there... I have been learning Chen style Taiji for about 7 months now and prior to that I tried Chen Man Cheng style for about 5 weeks... since changing to Chen I have not looked back, it is brilliant... its amazing how the spiraling movements can add power to your strike etc... I learn with Shifu Wang Hai Jun and also Shifu Quan Jun Liu... their lineage comes from Chen Zheng Lei but my main practice is through the lineage of Chen Qing Zhou...

We learn the applications as we do the form and also through push hands, for example in the jin gang dao dui (diamond king pounds mortar/buddhas warrior attendant pounds mortar) we learn that you can kick to the front or strike with the left hand as it moves to the front, then there is the strike with the knee and right hand... each movement has many applications...

 

[Hammer Head]

Here's an interesting Chen Style Taijiquan link: www.chenzhonghua.com

 

[Shadowdh]

Link not working HH...

 

[Hammer Head]

http://www.chenzhonghua.com

If you can't get in by clicking on the address, try entering the address manually

 

[Shadowdh]

Got it now thanks.... looks like a good site...