Jim Russo
The Waist is the Commander – Waving the arms like silk scarves It is a defect to move the arms mechanically using the musculature to make a ward off shape. It is more effective to let the arms wave like silk scarfs as a result of turning the waist. The […]
The Waist is the Commander – Waving the arms like ...
Practical kung fu – bending to touch your toes There is a relationship between the upper and lower parts of the spine . When the chest is full , then the lower back will hollow. If you maintain this fullness in your chest when you’ve bend down to do daily […]
Practical kung fu – bending to touch your toes
1 Fall asleep, and wake up – the genius of Grandmaster William CC Chen Grandmaster William CC Chen was my first teacher in Taijiquan. He was also a inner door student of Professor.Cheng Man Ching and lived with him as a child. William was very good at pointing out things that […]
Fall asleep, and wake up – the genius of Grandmaster ...
“Give up yourself to follow others” – moving effortlessly as one piece One of the aspects of single hand push hands is defending against being plucked or pulled out of center. When we yield, we generally do this in piecesp. When someone pulls your hand and you follow their movement […]
“Give up yourself to follow others” – moving effortlessly as ...
1 I have trained under various lineages that have entirely different perspectives on the art of Tai Chi Chuan. Whether talking about how forces are neutralized or how people interact in various exercises, the differences are mind numbing . Generally speaking, I have observed practitioners allegiance to one lineage create an […]
Mining for gold – perspective from an open mind/heart
Opening the spine or suspending from the Crown point is always the first aspect discussed when it comes to the internal martial arts. It is also one of the least understood, and the most difficult to acquire when left to one’s own devices. I have spent decades training, and it […]
from natural to natural” opening the spine with one trigger
Something that I have observed over the years is that when practitioners are training the transformational exercises, they train up to their comfort level and they count repetitions. They literally accept their level of incompetence as if it is carved in stone. When training the Gong Fa , it is […]
Transformation – don’t accept your level of incompetence
BP Chan used to say “it’s easy to get it from the neck up, it’s much more difficult to get it from the neck down”. What he is saying is that understanding a concept and actually internalizing that concept into your movement are vastly different things. Most practitioners run around […]
Taijiquan is not A to B to C to D…, ...
The line from the Taijiquan Lun by Wang Zhongyue ” if you miss buy a hairsbreadth , you missed by 1000 miles” can only be understood when one starts to understand what is meant by being in Center. When the body is in Center, then the tissue is neutral and […]
“If you miss by a hairsbreadth , you miss by ...
1 BP Chan would often try to simplify things into quotes like the one above. I use a mic stand with the Coca-Cola bottle on it as a practice partner sometimes. The point of this example is to show that by turning my waist to the right and then to the […]
“It’s easy, turn to the left , turn to the ...
The kidneys and the Ears are related to each other in traditional Chinese medicine. All of the organs open out to the surface of the body in some form or another. The nose being the external of the respiratory system and the mouth being the external of the digestive system […]