I asked this question to my Teacher, Mr. Chen, Sitan last weekend. He replied:
"I always want to present Taiji as an art blended in with Chinese martial arts, culture and my personal understanding of Taiji. When I perform, I completely immerse myself into the routine using Yi (intend) to lead the movements. The movements are through my body but the presentation is from my heart. I present the entire routine as a whole."
He also said his performance was different now in comparison to that years ago when he was an athlete and competed for gold medals. He has a deeper understanding of Taiji now which reflects in all the movements. He is also more relaxed. In the past, his goal was to compete and win goal medals. Now, he has more time to feel the deeper meanning of Taiji.
Mr. Chen has received 32 medals in various competitions during his professional career. Whenever I was watching his live performance, either for a class demo or for an event, I was always amazed how graceful, light and powerful it was.
In the past three years, I have been impressed by Mr. Chen's patience and the willingness to give all out to the students who want to learn from him. His pleasant personality always makes me think whether it was innate or from Taiji training.
Here is an interesting article about his life in US published on worldjournal.com(in Chinese):
陳思坦來美發揚中國武術
太極拳世界冠軍傳藝授徒 著作出書 澄清人們對福州人成見
Mr. Chen's web site is under revision. In the meantime, you can learn more about him from his recent presence in San Diego for teaching and demonstration.
http://www.sdtaichi.com/chensitanseminar.html
Now, my question is: What's in your mind when you perform a Taiji routine? I will share my experience in a future blog.
3 comments:
What's on one's mind during a taiji lesson/practice? There can be so much all at once the inital thought for one to just to focus can be overwhelming if you think about it. MY first thought is how happy taiji is making me in my life with just much more happiness. Then I just really get into the whole form when starting with the opening form; then going into the parth the wild horse's mane. I've only been into taiji qijongh yang style for about 3 months and I love every minute of it. Even IF I do have to repeat a procedure over, and over and over, and over some more.I am also into the whole art of taiji i every aspect from starting for the working of the inner peace of the mind, and then the whole health benefits that come with the progress. I am also into the taoist beliefs and whatever religious aspects and mind opening aspects to all the extent of taiji. Take care and I hope all of your days to all are continuously happy and peaceful and beneficial to everyone that reads this!
Thanks for sharing your thought and experience! The more you think about the principles of Taiji, the more benefit you will receive physically, mentally and spiritually. During the course of practicing a form, focusing on observing the movement flow makes me feel great both during and after the practice.
Inner peace, from Taijiquan, is a sublime cool feeling of wakeful wonder coupled with a hot sense of imminent danger. Many times, people can fool themselves into wakefulness by pretending bliss. Remember to act like a warrior. Ruthlessness is not nice.
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