Grandmaster Tse’s Tàijí Fist 239

The Theories of Chén Cháng Xìng 陳長興 Part 1

During his life, the 14th Generation of Chen Style Taijiquan, Chén Cháng Xìng 陳長興 (1771-1853) wrote the ten main concepts of Tàijíquán 太極拳. Now, every classic book on Chén Style Tàijíquán has his writing in it. Today I will introduce his first article about his theory of Tàijíquán. It is very long so I will pick out only some of it and explain it to you. During his life time, there was only one style of Tàijíquán, and he was the first person to teach anyone from outside his family. The student he taught became very famous and spread Tàijíquán out to the whole world and created his own style of Tàijíquán. The student’s name was Yáng Lù Chán 楊露禪 (1799-1872). Today most popular styles of Tàijíquán move gently and slowly and this is most likely his style – Yáng Shì Tàijíquán 楊式太極拳 – Yang Style Taijiquan

Chén Cháng Xìng’s theory of Tàijíquán begins:

夫物，散必有統，分必有合，天地間四面八方，紛紛者各有所屬，千頭萬緒，攘攘者自有其源。蓋一本可散爲萬殊，而萬殊鹹歸於一本，拳術之學，亦不外此公例。

Fū wù, sàn bì yǒu tǒng, fēn bì yǒu hé, tiāndì jiān sìmiànbāfāng, fēnfēn zhě gè yǒu suǒshǔ, qiān tóu wàn xù, rǎngrǎng zhě zì yǒu qí yuán. Gài yī běn kě sàn wèi wàn shū, ér wàn shū xián guīyú yī běn, quánshù zhī xué, yì bù wài cǐ gōng lì.

It means:

Everything spreads out everywhere and one day will come back together. Every separation will join back together, between Heaven and Earth and all directions. Each area belongs to a certain group, with very complex relationships, but they all come from an original source. Therefore something can spread out to ten thousand, and ten thousand can go back to one. It is the same in martial arts.