Chen Yu doing "Lao Jia"?

teesid

Jingang
Hi @Marin. I found these on the Gongfutube channel.


They spark a few questions.

1. How to Chen Yu himself call this kind of form? "Lao Jia"?
2. Who did he learn this from?
3. What does he think about it in terms of applications? He seems to have taught it too so I'm also curious why as for historical reasons I guess he doesn't think highly of it.
 

Marin

Lao Tou
Staff member
1. How to Chen Yu himself call this kind of form? "Lao Jia"?

He referred to it as the 74 form (Chen Zhaopi choreography).

2. Who did he learn this from?

He didn't. I myself filmed some of these because he asked me to. He specifically told me that if people asked me how he learned it, to tell them he simply watched his relatives. And this is the answer that frustrated and confused many, and yet I believe it is the truth. From his perspective and even mine at this point this form is very easy to understand after learning our much more challenging CZK (83) approach. Learning, in this case is not required.

3. What does he think about it in terms of applications? He seems to have taught it too so I'm also curious why as for historical reasons I guess he doesn't think highly of it.

I do not think he cares very much about this issue to be honest. If you have a good understanding of our approach you will begin to see that although he demonstrates the 74 form here, the stance foundation, and body method are all derived from our line and his normal method. All he did was change the choreography, but people who do not train our line may think that is important. It is not important really. The important part is the gongfu within. In those days if people were to ask him the difference between the 74 and 83 forms he would say (publicly) "no difference, Dan bian is Dan bian, right?" Privately he would be a lot more nuanced; the big difference is the important structural and mechanical methods the either cultivate gongfu- or not.

At this time he was asked to send students to teach "Lao Jia" for some organization in Beijing so he trained some to teach it and sent them. Since he was working on that at the moment he decided to video and asked me to post some videos to, basically, confuse people. I think it worked.
 

Edmond

Wuji
At this time he was asked to send students to teach "Lao Jia" for some organization in Beijing so he trained some to teach it and sent them. Since he was working on that at the moment he decided to video and asked me to post some videos to, basically, confuse people. I think it worked.

That's some strong business acumen (i.e. sell people what they want, regardless of own opinion), and trolling all in one action. Brilliant!
 

teesid

Jingang
He didn't. I myself filmed some of these because he asked me to. He specifically told me that if people asked me how he learned it, to tell them he simply watched his relatives. And this is the answer that frustrated and confused many, and yet I believe it is the truth. From his perspective and even mine at this point this form is very easy to understand after learning our much more challenging CZK (83) approach. Learning, in this case is not required.
Wow! This is not what I expected but after reading your answer I think it is the most likely explanation.

The important part is the gongfu within. In those days if people were to ask him the difference between the 74 and 83 forms he would say (publicly) "no difference, Dan bian is Dan bian, right?" Privately he would be a lot more nuanced; the big difference is the important structural and mechanical methods the either cultivate gongfu- or not.
Thins is interesting, thank you. What would be your definition of gongfu? Does the word have an all encompassing definition applicable to all styles of taijiquan or even all martial arts alike? Or does it actually depend on the specific from of practice or context?
 

teesid

Jingang
The "grammar" of it all?
This is a very interesting take. My nerd gland got aroused after thinking about it some more. Regardless of the real meaning of gongfu, suppose grammar could be a candidate for a good analogy for gongu, I could say this would depend on whether gongfu has both the syntactic and semantic aspect in itself. When it comes to languages, grammar only captures the syntax and the meaning can be anything. For example, "A loaf of bread laughed at a stray tree on its way to school" is grammatically correct but does not make much sense. We can also think about programming languages and their grammars too, one can write piece of code that "compiles" (meaning it passes all the grammar checks) but does nothing much when it executes, on the other hand, a piece of well written code can implement a beautiful algorithm.
 
This is a very interesting take. My nerd gland got aroused after thinking about it some more. Regardless of the real meaning of gongfu, suppose grammar could be a candidate for a good analogy for gongu, I could say this would depend on whether gongfu has both the syntactic and semantic aspect in itself. When it comes to languages, grammar only captures the syntax and the meaning can be anything. For example, "A loaf of bread laughed at a stray tree on its way to school" is grammatically correct but does not make much sense. We can also think about programming languages and their grammars too, one can write piece of code that "compiles" (meaning it passes all the grammar checks) but does nothing much when it executes, on the other hand, a piece of well written code can implement a beautiful algorithm.
I miss-framed my question a bit I think. To Marin's "the important part is the gongfu within", asking something like 'Could the "gongfu within" be considered the rhetorical result of our line's grammar (jibengong, rules, ba fa, yilu, etc.) when applied through it's body method (logic)"?

I think that line of thinking was a result of "day dreaming" about recent practices; sat at the kitchen table before bed largely failing to stay awake. Perhaps take it with a grain of salt.
🙂
 
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Edmond

Wuji
real meaning of gongfu

Maybe a more generally relatable metaphor would be a car engine, or something that "powers" or "drives" something. When we train Gongfu, we are developing our "engine" to have more horse power, torque, etc.

After a lot of sweat and tears, we'll (hopefully one day) get to the Porsche level of development. We can drive around in our Porsche body Yilu form, and people can say "Wow, that's really Gongfu Jia right there". If we decide to one day swap the body with a Mercedes Laojia body Yilu form (I notice we might be in a public section so I should be a bit careful with examples ;)), people will say "Hey, that's a nice Mercedes there". The ones who know cars, and can differentiate the engine sounds, will be able to tell the engine is a Porsche engine.
 
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