I was pleasantly surprised to see Chen Xiaowang on the cover of "KungFu Tai Chi" magazine on the magazine stand at Border's yesterday. I bought a copy and found it to be a good article. You can read the article online here.
Grandmaster Chen, at age 64, says he has fully recovered from knee surgery in 2001 and last year, felt his abilities jump a level. He now practices forms for 2 1/2 hours each morning, able to go through the long forms 10-20 times without a break. His injury caused him to explore ways of using less strength to achieve more -- something he has worked to achieve for decades.
Grandmaster Chen is the great-great-great-grandson of Chen Changxing (1771-1853), who taught Yang Lu Chan, the founder of Yang Tai Chi. I was interested in the comments Grandmaster Chen makes in the article about Yang tai chi and fajin, about how fajin was lost when Yang Lu Chan taught the art to the Imperial family in Beijing, where the people were lazy and it was slowed down and guided more toward a health rather than a martial pursuit.
There are also good photos of Grandmaster Chen doing jajin. Anyone who has seen him do this in person knows just how powerful it feels, just standing across the room as he does it.
The article is written by Gene Ching and Gigi Oh.
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