secrets of chen village with master chen qingzhou

8/13/2019 Secrets of Chen Village With Master Chen Qingzhou

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This is an article Copyrighted 1995 by Kungfu Magazine on Secrets ofChen Village

Secrets of Chen Village with MasterChen Qingzhou

by Marian K. Castinado

As a child in Chen Village, China in the 1930s, life for him was hard. Sickly,with some lung and stomach disease, he was living in a time and lacewhere there was little food, and like a scene from !he "ood #arth, theeole of the area sometimes ate dirt to survive.

$ut in site of such a%&ect overty, treasured as sacred within their culturewas a &ewel %eyond worth ' too valua%le to sell, too recious to ignore( theChen )amily !ai&i.

!his nine'year'old Chen *ing+hou, hoing to imrove his health, %egantraining in tai&i ostures, working first with his father, Chen ufang. !he

elder man was not of a high skill, %ut he could lay well, and the lessonsrogressed in difficulty. #ven under the most stressful of circumstances,when Chen *ing+hou and his father had to leave their home during the-aanese invasions and thousands of eole were %eing killed, they lefttheir home town, %ut they continued to train. !he %oys love for tai&i %ecamevery strong, and his father encouraged the search for a %etter teacher, theone who could %estow the ne/t level of difficulty. n 192, at age 19, Chen*ing+hou stood %efore aster Chen 4haoi, a famous instructor of the time,and asked for indoor status as a student.

hy did he choose this style5 6y last name is Chen,6 aster Chen

*ing+hou states with a laugh that transcends language. 6n that area wedidnt even see any other kind of martial art. y father, everyone, racticedit.6

t was &ust %efore the cultural revolution of the mid'190s, when only echoeswould remain from these days when everyone trained ' or were the 6echoes6the distant sound of ractitioners underground in little rooms, keeing the


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sacred art alive like sorcerers con&uring a time thought dead5 ronic then,that Chen *ing+hous training hall was a graveyard ' 7i%eration Cemetery inen/ian ' the only 8uiet sot where he could ractice when not with his

teacher. erhas insired %y the sirits of his ancestors, Chen *ing+housower grew so great that Chen 4haoi granted him ermission to teach in193, after only one year of tutelage.

n those days, the Chinese eole were oor and didnt travel much, %utChen *ing+hou went to teach in outlying rovinces, and first encountered:sing , 7ong )ist and Shaolin at tournaments. 6 saw a lot of the chi gongwhere they were %reaking %ricks on their foreheads,6 recalls aster Chen,seaking through his student ;ris #ckert. 6!heir %odies were hard, and said, ere not like that, were &ust the oosite, our %ody is soft and theinside is hard as a rock.6 At first they were all somewhat afraid of us, and at

the cometitions all the divisions were searated, so they really didnt havean oortunity to touch hands ' to do any fighting. $ut then later they didlay ush hands, or free fighting, and it was very easy for the high'skilledChen layers to take all this hard energy and dissiate it, lead them intoemtiness and then at that oint e/ert force and finish them off.

6 he was named one of 12 eole in the five recogni+ed tai&istyles as da shi, or grandmaster. "eneral instructor and head coach at theChen )amily !ai&i8uan ?esearch and !raining Centers in en/ian and


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Chen&iagou, he was also vice'secretary general of the en/ian nternationaleeting of !ai&i8uan. A noted author, he has %een invited to act as headcoach in ten Chinese rovinces, and has taught more than ten thousand

students, many of whom ' including Chen *ing+hous sons ' have achievedgreat cometitive honors. :aving re&ected the so'called @ew )rame Chenstyle as taught %y Chen 4haokui, youngest son of Chen )ake, Chen*ing+hou decided to reserve the > during the Chingdynasty, in the 1>th generation, when a young man named ang 7uchanretended that he was mute and very oor, and the Chen family gave him a

&o%. eek after week he watched the family racticing Chen !ai&i until oneday, so e/cited a%out what he saw, he shouted out, 6Very "oodB6 Caught inhis decetion, ang had no choice %ut to confess that he wanted to learn,and to ask for indoor student status from Chen Chang in, who agreed toteach him.

ang 7uchan also had a nickname, Siao :u, meaning 7ittle !iger. :e wasalso called ang the nvinci%le. @o one could %eat his gung fu skill, whichdid not deviate from the Chen )amily !ai&i %o/ing system. $ut when heassed that art on to ang 7uchans sons and grandchildren, they took outsome of the %ao fa &ing, or hard elements, changing the style. !he reasoningwas that they were teaching the emerors family, who %ecause of a life ofease werent hard workers, and didnt want to sweat, to nurse %ums and%ruises= the system %ecame ang style tai&i, which is the soft side of tai&i.


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treasure will remain intact.

Modern Newcomers

3'year'old American who6went into China, through the underground gung fu network trying to findsomeone like him. ost of the foreigners dont get taught all that much, and can say that %ecause ve %een in China= ve aid money, gotten tricked andrun through the gamut,6 she says.

After two years she found Chen *ing+hou. 6:es called himself a recluse=his icture isnt in all the maga+ines in China. ts really &ust the gung fu

eole who know of him,6 she says. hoursa day and you work hard. !hat shows his character and his heart. :e hasthe skill and he wants to sread it.6

Complete Art

art of sreading this knowledge was a seminar tour of the Inited Statesearlier this year. Among the differences %etween the countries tai&i, asterChen notes that 6here there is a time ressure. n China, traditionally andeven to this day, things are very rela/ed. n the %eginning, a student mightractice +han +huang or the stationary rooting osture for at least a month.!he fundamental training would take as long as one year, %ut here, %ecause


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these seminars are for a short time ' two hours, three hours, four hours ' youhave to try to cram a lot of information into a short time. During the four'hoursessions, eole are getting a full sectrum( the +han +huang, the %asic

e/ercises, they also want a lot of ush hands and alications. ou cant geta comlete, comrehensive understanding a%out what is going on in the tai&ior the ush hands Ein that timeF.

6 dont lay wing chun and tae kwon do and all the other things, so do notwant to make a comment on their training methods. dont want to critici+e.$ut have seen some eole in the ark and watched their %asicfundamental training,6 says aster Chen.

6!he most imortant element in Chen tai&i 8uan is that one side is the hard,and one side is the soft side,6 he says. 6ou have to have them %oth at the

same time= you cant disregard the other one. have seen a lot of ang stylehere in America and in China ' it is the same ' the arks are full of angstyle tai&i. !hey ractice with almost entirely soft energy. !his is not acriticism. am only noting that the Chen style tai&i has %oth hardness andsoftness. ou cant &ust ractice soft energy, you must also e/ress thedeveloment of that soft energy which comes out in hard energy. $ut it isnot e/ternal hard energy, it comes from the internal, from the dantien,6 orcenter of the %eing. 6!he whole characteristic, the rincile of yinJyang, iscalled gang rou /iang chi( !his is Chen style tai&is secial element. "ang isyang, rou is yin.6

ithin that duality is the hard side, %ao fa &ing, notes #ckert. !his translatesas an e/ertion of force, %ut again, that force is not e/ternal, %ut an e/ertionthat roceeds out of the dantien, using the internal energy of Chen !ai&i.ithin the comlementary element of softness is +ou hua. !hough theenergy is taken away from the artner, the energy is still resent and isused, a synergistic effect %etween the master and the attacker.

6n the Chen !ai&i which was handed down, there are e8ual elements ofhardness and softness,6 says aster Chen. 6@ow in tai&i and all over China,even in the wing chun training center, mostly what you are seeing is the softside= in some cases you are seeing the soft side which does not have any

internal energy, so it is emty. f you are laying good tai&i with good internalenergy %ut are not racticing the %ao fa &ing, then in ush hands training youmight still %e a%le to achieve yin &ing lou kong6 ' which #ckert roughlytranslates to 6leading the artner into emtiness6 ' 6$ut you cannot doanything with it %ecause you have no e/losive force.


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6!he artner attacks and his energy is coming toward your %ody,6 asterChen e/lains. 6f you do not do something, you will fall down and his attackwill %e successful.


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erson, such as a woman, to defeat a larger oonent using these internalenergies rather than e/ternal force. ou dont have to %uild u our %ody to%e successful at this.6

Sharing the reasure6hen China oened to the world in the 19K0s, that was very imortant forthe develoment of Chen !ai&i, %ecause eole came in an researched this.any eole went to China and were looking for martial arts. Chen )amilytai&i is a treasure of China, and now its a gift to the world, not &ust har%oredin Chen village,6 says aster Chen. 6 want eole to learn from it and%enefit. Also, throwing it out to the world will create controversy and romotemore research, which is essential to the health and long'term well'%eing ofChen !ai&i. dont have all the answers, or claim to %e the foremost worldauthority. offer this to you in hoes of further research, to make it go

further.6

ritten %y arian ;. Castinado for ;I@")IA"A4@#.C


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Chen an/i taught his son Chen )ake G1KKL'19MLH, 7i ?uidong, uan ;edingG1KLK' 5H, :u uchun, and others.

uan ;eding was from :enan and sent time in !ian&in, Shandong, and$ei&ing. uan ;eding was uan Shikais G1KM9'191, and the first resident of

China 1911'191H son. m afraid that uan ;eding wasnt famous for much ofanything %ut trying to get olitical ower on his fathers coattails. Sifu was a %itreticent a%out our lineage %ecause of this.

7i ?uidong was from u8ing county in :e%ei. :e learned from ang 7uchan,among others, and was known for his skill in shaolin, tai&i, weaons, and wrestling.:e was a wushu instructor for uan Shikai. think uan ;eding could have also

learned from 7i ?uidong since they %oth worked for his father.

:ui -uan5 learned from uan ;eding.

:uan Dahai learned from his friend :ui -uan5 and also from :u uchun G:uismartial uncleH.

Sifu did not ut our style into any standard catagory, he &ust said it was old, olderthan lao&ia. 7ooking at hotos of old Chen&iagou villagers, hotos of /iao&ia, andthe illustrations of Chen ins 1921 %ook, there are a lot of similar looking moves.!he +hao%ao style looks tantali+ing similar at first, %ut on looking closer is not8uite it. !he cris fa&in of old villagers is a lot more like our fa&in than any modern

Chen ve seen. !he movements ve seen in video clis of /iao&ia do not really

move 8uite like our style. n the end, it does not really matter what it is, the feelingof the moves and the way they grow together is roof of its authenticity.

secrets of chen village with master chen qingzhou

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