Recent Chen Xiang; why the art should not be allowed to wander

[Marin]

This is like weaponized aging, the science of slouching. I trained with Chen Xiang back in the day when he was mostly upright and he was a force to be reckoned with, but he was martial before he ever came to Feng Zhiqiang. This idea of following the qi and letting it lead the practice CAN be taken too far.

 

[Zhuolun]

That's pretty different what he's doing. Did he just outright stop practicing upright one day? I will say he always seemed to me to be trying to develop a quality I don't know I can wager even Feng was particularly interested in, but I haven't ever met Feng so maybe that's more for you to say. I associate Chen Xiang with an unusual looseness and length of travel in movements.

 

[angryclown]

It kind of feels like he's trying to out-Feng Feng.

Here are some of Chen Xiang's baji applications:

And here are some taiji applications:

It seems like maybe his baji got some heaviness from taiji, and his taiji applications have a definite baji flavor of just smashing everything. Not that taiji doesn't have that innately, but it is a bit of a baji specialty, I think.

 

[Zhuolun]

Heaviness I can see for sure. But you know what's different there from Feng -- and I do think also from what Marin wants to teach us toward? I think it's how much he lets his spine, neck, head deviate from the perpendicular. As in: Everywhere I'd picture Feng pillar-like, connecting heaven and earth straight through you might say, in many of those places I see Chen Xiang letting himself sway.

Hassler you make me want to bring a certain green Marvel character into this discussion.

 

[Marin]

It kind of feels like he's trying to out-Feng Feng.

Here are some of Chen Xiang's baji applications:

And here are some taiji applications:

It seems like maybe his baji got some heaviness from taiji, and his taiji applications have a definite baji flavor of just smashing everything. Not that taiji doesn't have that innately, but it is a bit of a baji specialty, I think.

CX was not young when he came to Feng and he had a very well developed Baji body habit. Those things are very difficult to break and I don't think he really tried to anyhow. I believe Feng took him as he was and just added on to it. CX is still very much a Baji product, cant be helped. He also fully dedicated himself to Feng's Hunyuan approach. It's already quite extreme as a starting point but then following the teacher's example of being free to take things further, eventually the destination is who knows where.