Martial Arts Research Instruction and Practice in Chen Style TaijiQuan

2006

May 2007 - View of Daqingshan from a neighboring mountain top
This 2nd trip to the Mountain was without a doubt, the best Chen training I have ever had. Master Chen was thorough in his exposition of technique, clear, concise and always on message. The surroundings, as can be seen from the pictures on this page, were spectacular. There was also, a special chemistry from the group. I'm not sure where that ever comes from but it was there and nice to have. A new chef running the kitchen insured that our meals were a treat, I think I actually gained a few pounds despite working out 6-8 hours a day !
In these 2 pictures, Master Chen demonstrates a throw on me, stepping in quickly while barely touching at all. As he constantly reminds us, "In Chen Style, the feet are faster than the hands".
As can be seen, I did manage to recover swiftly, raising my head and mumbling "whaaaa".
Most of my memories of this event are a collection of fragments. Images, pieces of conversations, instruction and whatever notes I managed to make while I was there. On the rest of this page are some of those images, notes, .....fragments of my time there....
	View from the window in my room at dawn, just before the morning practice
	stretching, expanding the joints, altering the tensile properties along a line/arc within the structure
Village in the valley	the 'whole' body is not 1 gear but several working together
	stretch to fill in the gaps (squeeze) and lock arm, must be like steel but still able to rotate.
one of the mountain paths we walked on	Always get and keep solid connections, enhanced by stretching the joints and squeezing out the excess space.
	Increase your length while decreasing opponents space
Last day, Richard Backus and I with Joseph Chen and some of his wonderfull resort staff	In training: use small increments to adjust along the path (force vector), provides a feeling of smoothness that cannot be detected easily and fought. Adding continually.
More goodbyes from the gang	Thanks for everything, Shifu,.....it was great