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Thread: Chen style Taijiquan

  1. #1
    wongfeilung809 Guest

    chen style

    i was wondering if anyone practices chen style in san antonio or austin, or knows of any teachers in the area.
    simpleangles

  2. #2
    azwingchun Guest

    Chen style

    I am going to be taking a Chen style Tai Chi class, and am curiouse what to expect. What is the differences between this style and the other Tai Chi styles. By the way I will also be doing Yang style with the TCM class I am starting along with the Chen style, any info on this will also be helpful. Thanks. :D

  3. #3
    Nexus Guest
    What to expect...

    I can give you an idea but I highly suggest to enter the classes with a completely empty mind, willing to learn what it is your teacher is teaching without any comparison to the expecations of what you might learn.

    You will probably be learning some fluid, open body movements, some fast, some slow, involving a fair bit of flexibility.

    Chen style takes many years to master, as Yang Lu'chan spent 18 years learning Chen style and 2 years learning the principles of the Yang style (as some stories tell it).

    If your teacher is well taught, and has spent time doing Chen style, you are fortunate and can really gain a lot from doing it. I can't say that its a great idea though to learn Chen and Yang all the time, but perhaps if you are gifted and making the dillineation between the two you will be fine.

    I have heard it said that after someone learns Chen style and wishes to learn Yang style they must forget Chen style first.

    Don't take any of this too literally though, and talk to your teacher as that is where you will get the best advice.

    - Nexus

  4. #4
    origenx Guest
    So who is more highly-regarded then - Chen masters or Yang masters? Altho Chen is OG, the Yang lineage seems to have had some huge names...

  5. #5
    Sum Guye Guest

    Nexxus

    who did Yang LuChan learn the Yang principles from?

  6. #6
    Nexus Guest
    Let me say that differently. What I meant by saying that, the Chen style was specifically for neutralizing attacks. Yang lu'chan was not a member of the Chen family and was not taught the entire system of taijiquan, although he had spent 18 years learning. He had learnt how to neutralize to a very high level, but did not have the solid aspects presented in 'todays' Yang style.

    These only took him to two years to learn, after which he left Chen village to once again stake his claim (literally) that taiji was the Grand Ultimate Fist.

    So now the yang postures, are like a mountain, and one might run into such and feel as if they hit a brick wall. And chen as if you are fighting thin air with every attack you attempt.

    Once again, my explanations due to little justice to experiencing this all yourself, and I still have as much if not more to learn as I did when I began!

    - Nexus

  7. #7
    dedalus Guest
    I would disagree with your charcterisation of the Yang style Nexus, primarilly because Yang can be empty and Chen can be hard... it depends on your level of mastery, I think. It was an interesting view, however, and I do agree with your point about Yang and Chen being difficult to learn together.

    While originex is correct that there are many big names in Yang style, I would say (somewhat paradoxically) that you're more likely to find a good Chen teacher than a good Yang teacher. The Chen lineage is still closely guarded (for better or worse) and almost all practitioners seem to be very experienced. The Yang style suffers from a glut of new age corruptions.

  8. #8
    bamboo_ leaf Guest
    “a glut of new age corruptions.”

    Please what dose this mean?

    Why and how would you learn both at the same time?

    As to what is better. If first is better or more true wouldn’t it be better to learn the style that was introduced to the chen family?

    I was under the impression that the chens learned of the taiji idea from someone and modified their org style to those ideas.

    bamboo leaf

  9. #9
    azwingchun Guest

    Thanks all

    The only reason I will be studying both is for the fact that Chen was the class I chose, but I am learning TCM from him and Yang style is taught as part of this course. But again, thanks for all the info. ;)

  10. #10
    dedalus Guest
    Bamboo Leaf, I just meant that the Yang style has been watered-down over the years (beginning with Yang Cheng-Fu and progressing to the community centre teacher on the corner) so that a lot of the orignal combat utility has been lost. I want to learn taiji to fight like a demon more than I want to learn how to use it to control stress or "exercise gently". I certainly don't want to learn the crap they perform in Wushu. I want the health *and* combat benefits.

    Azwingchun, I reckon that if you're learning Yang taiji as part of your course it is unlikely to be the really good stuff. It takes decades to learn that, and so they're probably teaching you one of the standardised Yang wushu forms (like the Yang 24 or 48 or something else silly like that). Don't think that's all there is to Yang taiji, but you'll get better from a Chen instructor at this stage.

  11. #11
    bamboo_ leaf Guest
    Dedalus,

    Interesting statement. So how do you know this is so? Is something that you read, something that some one said or something that you experienced? Perhaps Yangs idea of TC manifested itself in different way.

    Where I play TC I can see, met with and practice with people from many different TC styles. The people I talk with tend to talk of people who got it, regardless of TC style.

    TC is like water, the style like a glass. some may have an empty glass. some may have the water in a simple clay cup.

    bamboo leaf

  12. #12
    azwingchun Guest

    dedalus

    I hope I didn't miss lead you on what kind of class I am taking, this isn't at a college and isn't like taking a semester class. I am referring to several years of study with this person, this class goes from Tai Chi to herbology. Though personally I don't know what his experience with Yang style are, I do know he has been studying Tai Chi for many years. If I am not mistaken he began his martial arts training as a young child. ;)

  13. #13
    Nexus Guest
    dedalus, taijiquan is the graduate school of the taoist arts. Much of us are in such a hurry to be a 'demon fighter' as you call it, that we skip over the elementary/highschool stuff, just so we can get to the stuff that we think looks great on the surface. This works ok at first, and can even prove to be combat effective, but will never produce a great martial artist, only a mediocre one as there is a weak foundation.

    If you are with a teacher whom emphasizes the martial aspects of Taiji as well as health/meditative then you are fortunate and should stay with that teacher.

    In response to whomever it was talking about Yang being both hard and soft at a level of mastery, to this I would agree although I do not agree from personal experience, only from what I have been told/shown. I have a long ways to go in my studies, but it is a daily process.

    Thanks for the comments everyone, good thread so far, lets keep it that way! I am learning from it as well.

    - Nexus

  14. #14
    dedalus Guest
    Yeah, fair enough guys. I certainly agree that it takes longer to learn how to fight with taiji than most other arts, and that you need to have solid foundations. I'm just adding that the teacher has to know how to turn the martial art into a fighting art, and that is a rarer quality than knowing the sequence of the forms (*if* they even know that... there are commercial schools out there that don't know the small frame, have no pauchui at all and know no weaponry besides the standardised taiji jian).

    There are loads of instrucotrs out there who run big schools that have no depth, only beginners don't realise it until they've already wasted their time... well, so it goes for the most part down here. More experienced taiji artists can see it at a glance, and certainly feel it if they touch. The difference between the Old Yang Style (from Yang Lu'Chan through Yang Pan Hou and Yang Shao-Hou) and the recently standarised stuff is enormous. I don't mean for any of this to sound arrogant or to offend followers of the new syllabus - William C.C. Chen, for instance, is clearly an exceptional practitioner in the Cheng-Fu lineage, and I'm sure there are many others - I'm just trying to relay my own experience, which has been one of disappointment before finding a good teacher.

  15. #15
    patriot Guest
    1. There are more recognized names in Yang because it is more popular. Chen style didn't really spread to N.America until a few years back and there are still only a very limited number of Chen schools.

    2. It is more important to choose a good instructor than to choose a particular style. Most Yang schools are very watered down and Tai Chi is taught as a new-age exercise rather than a martial arts.

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