CULTIVATING INTERNAL STRENGTH IN CHEN STYLE TAIJIQUAN

While there are many debates regarding the exact origin of Taijiquan, all the major styles practiced today can be traced back to Chenjiagou (Chen Village) in China’s Henan province.  Over the course of a number of visits to the Chenjiagou Taijiquan School, I have had the opportunity to question some of the leading instructors in the school about different aspects of Taijiquan practice.  This article looks at the often-misunderstood issue of how to cultivate internal strength. 

First we should be clear what the term “internal strength” (jin) actually means.  People are often quick to explain that Taijiquan, alongside arts such as Bagua and Xingyi, is an internal martial art.  Yet, at least in modern times, many pay little more than lip service to really trying to understand this subtle aspect of Taijiquan.  Often individuals lose themselves in an endless search for new forms or train multiple systems without ever really grasping the underlying essence of the internal arts.  Others seek to mystify what is at heart a practical discipline with a well-defined training methodology.  The following article was been gleaned from a number of conversations with Chen Village instructors Chen Xiaoxing, Chen Bing and Chen Zhiqiang.  In it they speak about the development of internal energy in Chen style Taijiquan.

 Certainly the internal aspect is far from obvious and cannot be grasped or learned in a short time.  Emphasising the importance of Taijiquan’s internal aspects Chen Zhiqiang explained, “The saying is if you train quan (martial arts) without training gong (internal skill), the end result is emptiness (lien quan bu lien gong dao tou yi chang kong). This saying is applicable to all wushu disciplines.  If you look at two old people: one can’t stand and can’t sit, just lying in bed, no gong in his legs; the other standing up very firmly with strength in his legs – people would say he has good gongfu”.  Within Taijiquan this internal aspect is considered the source of all external actions. Internal energy refers to a state of whole body co-ordination, where the body’s joints are loosened and elastic in quality, the tendons stretched and elongated and the power and strength of internal qi is manifested in external movements.  Generations of Chen Village Taijiquan practitioners have passed down a systematic means of training this internal skill or neigong.

Chen Xiaoxing, the Principal of the Chen Village Taijiquan School, was born in Chenjiagou and has resided in the village his whole life. He comes from an illustrious line of Taiji luminaries.  His father was the highly regarded Chen master Chen Zhouxu, and grandfather was the renowned Chen Fake.  He explained that since Chen Wangting created the system, form training has provided the blueprint for accessing all of Chen Taijiquan’s intricacies.  He stressed the importance of Laojia Yilu (Old Frame First Routine) as the classical routine for developing fundamental skills:  “Every movement has to be learnt individually and accurately before practicing them together in a continuously flowing set”.  This stress upon the accuracy of each individual movement cannot be over-emphasised.  In Chenjiagou, it is not uncommon to spend days working on a single movement.  The body principles such as keeping one’s head erect, shoulders relaxed, elbows sunk down, chest contained, hips loosened, knees bent, etc., must be trained until they become second nature.  “The training principles have got to be strictly adhered to and every movement must be painstakingly studied and practiced over and over again.  In this way you will continue to gain new insights each time you practice”.   

His son Chen Zhiqiang, who is responsible for the day to day training in the school, reaffirmed this point saying: “Taolu (form training) is the basic training method for everybody”.  He then touched upon some of the issues facing modern day coaches: “Having said that, for youngsters it can get very monotonous.  You have to keep their interest and motivation levels high, so sometimes I mix in other stuff to lighten up the training – taolu is the foundation, but you can’t ask them to just do this day in day out.  The main thing is that they have to be stimulated and happy and want to be there”.

Chen Bing, the eldest of the next generation of Chen Taiji adepts said, “Practicing Taijiquan follows a process.  In a sense it is like going to school where you have to spend a certain amount of time on certain things.  Different levels have got different training times and different training requirements.  For example, if you haven’t achieved the quality of song (looseness and pliancy) and start to do the Erlu (Cannon Fist) routine or to perform fajin, what you produce is not the proper kind of jin.  The power you emit is not the quality you look for in Taiji.  It is stiff strength.  Really the time should be spent training looseness into the body and that can only be brought out with the Yilu”.

Ultimately Taijiquan seeks to co-ordinate every movement, whether it be soft (rou) or hard (gang) or fast (kwai) and slow (man).  The forms are arranged in a systematic manner to achieve this.  Chen Xiaoxing explained that the first routine provides a logical starting point in training Taijiquan’s unique type of movement; the quality of movement required when performing the routine being predominantly soft and slow.  “From this starting point you must practice until the body’s posture is correct and until shape and qi are harmonized”.   To achieve real martial skill, he explained, the quality of a practitioner’s movement is essential: “All movements require the body and the qi to move together, with the qi moving the body.  Anyone who knows Chen style Taijiquan will instantly recognise whether or not the qi and body are moving together.   Looking at someone practicing Taiji, if the quality of movement is correct it should seem like water”. 

Chen Zhiqiang added that to achieve a good level of proficiency in Taijiquan and to begin the process of cultivating internal energy one must first “master the body mechanics of the different Taiji movements”.  This, he said, is an on-going process, but is particularly important in the early stages of training.  Training in the Chen Village is a no-nonsense experience.  All the teachers continually stress the importance of being capable of practically demonstrating one’s understanding rather than just talking about it.  He explained,  "Every movement within the form has different characteristics and expressions of energy".  These must be studied down to the smallest detail if one is to achieve a level of skill where Taiji can be utilised effectively in a combat situation."  Chen Zhiqiang has a formidable reputation in push hands competitions, being a China national champion and is responsible for training the school’s competition team.  He believes that a failure to fully understand the different energy possibilities contained within the form is a recipe for failure when it comes to push hands: "time and again during push hands, you can see people's energy quickly getting dispersed. At that instant throwing them to the floor is very easy”.

A common saying in Taijiquan is that energy starts from the ground, is directed by the waist and manifests through the hands.  Chen Xiaoxing explains, “You bring the energy into play by means of the feet”.  Expanding upon this Chen Zhiqiang said, the most important thing to look for in Taijiquan training is “what is beneath your feet”.  To realize Taijiquan’s unique internal energy the practitioner must cultivate a strong feeling of rootedness.  Within the body there should be a sense of extreme heaviness in the lower body and at the same time, the upper body should be characterized by lightness and pliability.  Chen Zhiqiang explained:  “Di pan (lower plane) is representative of Taijiquan as a whole.  Di pan is like a big tree with deep roots, that won’t get blown over by a strong wind.  Consider the tree - from outward appearance it looks very balanced and doesn’t look as though it is going to topple or lean. Leaves are abundant and all together it gives off a feeling of balance and strength.  In training we look for this same quality – you have to get this strength and balance.  The most important thing is to have tong yi, which means literally “whole body oneness”.  This refers to the integration of structure and co-ordination, with the whole body taken into account rather than separating the different parts of the body.  The Taiji saying is that “everything moves together to give oneness in co-ordination and oneness in structure”.

As a student’s posture and movement becomes more standardised, then they begin the search for Taijiquan’s primary energy – peng jin. Chen Bing describes peng jin as “an expansive sensation directed outward from the body”.   Throughout one’s Taiji practice each movement requires you to maintain this energy and direct it to the appropriate part of the body.  With prolonged training the sensation of qi becomes fuller and stronger, filling the dantian, breaking through blockages in the jingluo (energy paths) and then saturating the entire body.  The body of a skilled practitioner is often compared to an inflated ball, full of buoyancy and peng jin.   This energy can then be circulated throughout the body by means of Chen Taijiquan’s silk-reeling movement.

People often assume that there are some “special secrets” that only the Chen family members are privy to, making it easier for them to realise the complex process of cultivating internal energy.  Chen Bing says this is completely untrue.  “The only real advantage we have is the constant access to high-quality coaching and training partners.  Aside from this, all of the training methods are taught openly.  Then it is down to your own hard work and understanding”. 

Taijiquan’s primary focus is situated around the development of internal strength, which in actual combat can be manifested externally.  At the same time an often-repeated maxim is that Taijiquan practitioners should use internal strength rather than muscular strength, and that one should yield rather than resist the strength of the opponent with one’s own strength.  This has caused many people to downplay and even denigrate the importance of physical strength in the internal arts.  Sparring with the students and teachers of the school it is apparent that not only are they soft, balanced, pliant etc, they are also physically very strong.

Chen Zhiqiang, advocates a holistic approach whereby gong training is supplemented by training to improve the range and fluency of fighting techniques (jishu), training one’s basic body conditioning (shuzhi), and developing one’s physical strength (li liang).  While the idea of incorporating strength training into Taijiquan may seem slightly blasphemous to some, strength training is not a new phenomenon in Taijiquan.  In the past, it represented one aspect of an all-encompassing training process.  In Chenjiagou, within the garden where Chen Changxin is said to have taught Yang Luchan, founder of Yang style Taijiquan, can still be seen an eighty kilogram stone weight that they are said to have regularly trained with. Traditional strength training methods such as pole shaking and practicing with heavy weapons continue to be used up until today.  On top of this, past generations of Chen Village boxers were used to the daily heavy physical labour required in a non-mechanised rural community.  Consequently they already had a strong base of physical strength.  Today’s more sedentary practitioners perhaps need to consider this aspect as well as the soft side of Taijiquan. 

According to Chen Zhiqiang, “The strength training method is highly specialised.  You are not training to develop “stupid strength” (localized strength).  This is training strength in the waist.  Your hand strength is like the hook you use when you are towing a car.  You have to remember that your hand is the hook.  Your strength is coming from the waist and how you push into the ground. Combining the strength of the car and the rope.  The hook is only the implement that connects the two.  So when you lift the big rock, it is the strength of the legs and waist and not the hand”.

While the subject of internal strength is an often-misunderstood subject, training at the source of Taijiquan leads one to the conclusion that it should be sought through practical and logical methods.  Cultural misunderstandings and the deliberate mystification of the art can lead people down a fruitless path.   Chen Zhiqiang concluded that in today’s contemporary society, “The thing we need to bear in mind is to embrace scientific explanations to unlock a very old philosophy.  You have to use modern language to explain the art.  You cannot shroud it in ancient philosophy and language.  The old Chinese Taijiquan philosophy should match with modern scientific language so people understand the discipline for what it is”.