Chen Style Tai Chi Nairobi

Mr Yang Wen Hu 杨文笏先生

此录像是1986年在石家庄铁路大厂会议室用4分之3固定式录像机录制。现在看到的是2008年我用录像翻制到光盘的。还有二路拳的录像。

#陈氏太极拳家传功夫架 #陈照奎太极 #杨文笏太极 #老周7853河北

This footage was recorded in 1986 in the conference room of the Shijiazhuang Railway Machinery Factory, using a three-quarter-inch professional fixed video recorder.

What you are viewing now is a copy that I transferred from the original videotape onto VCD/DVD disc in 2008. There are also surviving footages of Chen-style Taijiquan Yilu and Erlu.

Chen-style Taijiquan Gongfu frame performed by Yang Wenhu (杨文笏), a renowned disciple of Chen Zhaokui.
Taijiquan Taiji ’an Tongyi Taiji

Correction by Yang Wenhu disciple :

“This footage is complete and was filmed at the Northern Jiaotong School in Shijiazhuang in 1985.”

我是杨文笏的徒弟，这一段录像是完整的，地点在石家庄北方交通学校，时间是85年。

【陈瑜太极第1230期】四秩拳路—我亲历陈瑜家传功夫架（第五集·上）人生转折，一九八九

1989年的北京，一个正式工的饭碗比什么都金贵。有了它，意味着每月有工资、有粮票、有单位分房的盼头、有一辈子的安稳。丢了它，在那个年代几乎等于把人生推倒重来。就在这一年，命运的拐点悄然降临，彻底改写了陈瑜老师安稳平淡的人生轨迹。彼时，河南驻马店的太极拳爱好者诚心相邀，请他外出授拳。单位没有批准这次长假，可他心中惦念代代相传的陈氏家传拳术，不愿辜负慕名求学的拳友，毅然放下世俗的顾虑，如约奔赴驻马店教拳，在外一去便是一月有余。等他从河南回到北京，等来的却是单位按开除处理的通知。在那个年代，一旦被开除，档案便会留下终身污点，往后的人生处处都要受其牵绊。万般无奈之下，陈瑜老师只能忍痛辞去这份来之不易的正式工作。
命运的轨迹，总是惊人的相似。当年他的父亲陈照奎先生，也曾经历过一模一样的境遇。
陈照奎先生曾应邀远赴上海授拳，一身纯正的家传功夫，深受当地拳友喜爱，众人再三挽留，希望他能够留在上海继续教拳。上海体育宫也热心出面，准备帮他向所在的第五建筑公司办理续假手续。奈何那个年代交通闭塞、通信匮乏，书信往来辗转拖沓，假期严重超期，单位同样要按开除处置。走投无路，陈照奎先生也只能无奈辞职。父子两代传人，隔着悠悠岁月，竟然走上了同一条坎坷的武道之路。这，或许就是传承者与生俱来的宿命。
当一个人立志扛起家族文脉传承的重任，便注定要做出取舍，要舍弃世俗的安稳。人生有舍方有得，想要守护家传拳艺的正统，就要放下世间的安逸顺遂。辞职之后，陈瑜老师的生活瞬间跌落回六年前那般窘迫的境地。
没有工资，没有粮票，没有单位可以依靠，一夜之间，几乎一无所有。堂堂七尺男儿，要谋生、要度日，口袋却常常空空如也。那段日子，清贫到了极致。三块钱一碗面条，就是他一整天的口粮。早上分一半，中午分一半，到了夜里，就只能饿着肚子熬过漫漫长夜。饱一顿、饥一顿，便是那段岁月最真实的日常。为了糊口活下去，他四处奔波，做过各式各样的临时工。可不管白天干活多么劳累，无论日子多么艰难，每一晚回到住处，他做的第一件事永远都是练拳。
生活百般磋磨，却从未动摇他守护家传太极拳的执念。兜兜转转，风雨起落，他依旧将全部心血，寄托在朝夕相伴的拳架之上。自此，他开启了漫长孤寂的闭门苦修。
他主动减少无谓的社交往来，推掉各类应酬，摒除杂念，沉下心来，日复一日、年复一年打磨家传功夫架，从不敢有一日懈怠。
短期的坚持，很多人都可以做到；数日数月咬牙硬扛，尚且不算太难。
可在身无分文、衣食没有着落、前路一片迷茫的绝境里，数年如一日清贫自守、苦修不辍，这份定力、这份坚韧、这份武道赤诚，少有人能够做到。
古语言：欲成大志，必先劳其筋骨。
正是这段清贫艰苦的时光，不断淬炼他的筋骨，沉淀他的心性，精纯他的拳艺，为后来扛起拳脉大道打下根基。
陈氏父子两代人，皆是如此砥砺前行。
斩断世俗退路，方见武道本心；舍弃人间安稳，终成拳艺大道。当生活把人逼到绝境，褪去全部浮华，才真正把拳融进骨血，将传承活成自己一生的宿命。
（未完待续）

【Chen Yu Taiji — Episode 1230】

Four Decades on the Martial Path — My Personal Experience with Chen Yu and Chen Shi Taijiquan Jia Chuan Gongfujia

Part Five — A Turning Point in Life: 1989

In Beijing in 1989, a permanent position within a state work unit was considered extraordinarily precious. To possess such employment meant a regular monthly wage, access to ration coupons, the prospect of housing allocated through one’s work unit, and, above all, the security of a stable livelihood for life.

To lose such a position in that era was almost equivalent to having one’s entire life overturned and being forced to begin anew.

It was in this year that a decisive turn of fate quietly arrived, fundamentally altering the previously stable and uneventful course of Chen Yu’s life.

At that time, Taijiquan practitioners in Zhumadian, Henan, sincerely invited him to travel there to teach. His work unit did not approve the extended leave required for the journey. Yet he remained deeply mindful of the responsibility entrusted to him through the generations—the preservation and transmission of the Chen Family’s inherited martial art. Unwilling to disappoint practitioners who had sought him out with genuine dedication to study, he set aside the considerations of worldly security and, true to his commitment, travelled to Zhumadian to teach.

His absence extended for more than a month.

Upon returning to Beijing, however, he was met with notification that his work unit had decided to dismiss him from his employment.

In that era, dismissal could leave a permanent blemish upon one’s official record, with consequences capable of affecting one’s prospects for the remainder of one’s life.

With no alternative, Chen Yu was compelled to relinquish the stable employment he had worked so hard to obtain.

The course of fate was remarkably similar to that which his father, Chen Zhaokui, had experienced years earlier.

Chen Zhaokui had once travelled to Shanghai at the invitation of local practitioners to teach Taijiquan. His authentic Jia Chuan Gongfujia (family-transmitted Gongfu frame) was deeply respected and appreciated by the practitioners there, who repeatedly urged him to remain in Shanghai and continue teaching.

The Shanghai Sports Bureau also sought to assist him, intending to communicate with his employer, the Fifth Construction Company, and arrange an extension of his leave.

Yet transportation and communications in that period were severely limited. Correspondence was slow, and the necessary arrangements could not be completed in time. His authorised leave consequently became substantially overdue, and his work unit likewise intended to treat the matter as grounds for dismissal.

With no viable alternative, Chen Zhaokui was ultimately forced to resign.

Thus, two generations of Chen family inheritors, separated by the passage of time, found themselves walking essentially the same arduous road in pursuit of the martial tradition.

Perhaps this is the fate inherent in those who undertake the responsibility of preserving a lineage.

When a person resolves to shoulder the responsibility of safeguarding a family’s martial and cultural inheritance, choices inevitably follow. The security of conventional life may have to be relinquished.

In life, there is gain only where there is sacrifice. To preserve the orthodox transmission of a family martial art, one must be prepared to set aside worldly ease and security.

After leaving his employment, Chen Yu’s circumstances immediately returned to the level of hardship he had endured six years earlier.

There was no salary, no ration coupons and no work unit upon which he could depend. Almost overnight, he was left with virtually nothing.

A grown man had to sustain himself and make his way in the world, yet his pockets were frequently empty. Those years were marked by extreme poverty.

A bowl of noodles costing three yuan could constitute his entire food allowance for the day. He would divide it between breakfast and lunch. By nightfall, there was often nothing left but hunger and a long night to endure.

One meal adequately fed, the next endured in hunger—such was the stark reality of those years. In order to survive, he travelled from place to place undertaking whatever temporary work he could find.

Yet however exhausting the day’s labour, and however severe the circumstances, when he returned to his quarters each evening, the first thing he did was always to practise his boxing.

Closed-Door Cultivation

Life subjected him to hardship in countless forms, but it never weakened his determination to safeguard and preserve the family’s authentic Taijiquan transmission.

Through every turn of fortune, through hardship and adversity, he continued to devote his entire being to the boxing frame that accompanied him from day to day.

From this point onward, he entered a prolonged period of solitary, closed-door cultivation and rigorous refinement.

He deliberately reduced unnecessary social engagements, declined banquets and other forms of social entertainment, cast aside distracting thoughts and devoted himself entirely to his practice.

Day after day. Year after year.
He refined the Gongfu Frame without interruption, never permitting himself to lapse into complacency or neglect.

Short-term perseverance is within the capacity of many. To endure hardship for several days or months through sheer determination, while difficult, is still achievable.

But to remain in poverty for years on end, with neither food nor clothing assured and no clear prospect ahead, while maintaining disciplined solitude and uninterrupted martial cultivation—this demands a degree of 定力 (Dingli: inner stability and unwavering composure), 坚韧 (resilience), and 武道赤诚 (absolute sincerity toward the martial path) that very few possess.

Hardship as Tempering

As the ancient saying teaches:

“To accomplish great undertakings, one must first labour the sinews and temper the body.”

It was precisely this period of poverty and adversity that continually tempered his body, settled his character and refined his martial skill.

The hardships strengthened his physical foundation. The solitude refined his mind and character.
The years of disciplined practice purified his gongfu.

Together, they established the foundation upon which he would eventually shoulder the responsibility of carrying forward the Chen Family martial lineage.

The father and son of the Chen family were both tempered through this same process of adversity and perseverance.

Only by severing the worldly avenues of retreat can the true heart of the martial path be revealed.

Only by relinquishing worldly security can one ultimately dedicate oneself to the greater path of martial cultivation.

When life drives a person to the very limits of endurance and strips away every layer of superficial comfort, what remains is the essence of the practitioner.

It was through such adversity that Chen Yu gradually forged the boxing into his very being—until the Chen Shi Taijiquan Jia Chuan Gongfujia was no longer merely an art he practised, but a tradition embodied through his life and carried as his lifelong responsibility.

The transmission of a martial lineage is not sustained by words, titles or lineage alone. It is sustained through the body, verified through practice, refined through hardship and entrusted to the next generation through faithful transmission.

To preserve the lineage is to accept the burden of carrying it.

To carry it forward is to remain faithful to its root.

To be continued…

我与陈瑜老师四十载（第5集）
#陈瑜太极家传功夫架 #陈氏太极拳
#陈瑜太极天坛培训总部
#家传功夫架
#陈氏太极拳传人陈瑜老师

Written and published with permission from 思雨老师 of Chen Shiwu Taijiquan Academy Fengtai, Beijing.
WeChat ID : cytjw-cn
Tel : 13241704154

这气度绝了！一招一式都是岁月沉淀啊～🔥十年磨一剑，太极真功夫看的就是这份坚持！师兄的名家表演 请您欣赏

#文武则道
#金海陈瑜太极

Amazing bearing of Erlu Paochui! Every move is the result of years of experience! Ten years of honing a skill, true Taijiquan mastery is all about perseverance! Please enjoy this masterful performance by my senior brother, Jin Hai instructor of Gongfujia.

·梨花颂
简简单单小练习
#宋清编舞


Ode to the Pear Blossom
A simple little exercise
by Song Qing
North America

Biography of Chen Yu & Siyu

Episode Four — Four Decades on the Martial Path — Hearing from Chen Yu About the Hardship and Tempering of His Formative Years

From 1986 to early 1989, life proceeded quietly and uneventfully. Chen Yu continued his daily commute by bicycle to the Tiantanghe Chemical Factory. Regardless of the demands of his employment, he maintained his evening martial practice without interruption. His training was governed by an unwavering discipline: day after day, without exception.

In 1988, I was appointed as a teacher at a kindergarten under the Education Commission. With the obligations of regular employment, I could only seek instruction from Chen Yu during weekends, holidays and whatever free time my schedule allowed.

It was during these years of regular association and study that Chen Yu gradually began to recount aspects of his childhood and youth: years marked by poverty, adversity, responsibility and relentless training. Through these accounts, I came to understand that the solid and authentic gongfu embodied in his Chen Shi Taijiquan Gongfujia was not acquired through convenience or privilege, but forged through decades of disciplined hardship and uncompromising practice beginning in childhood.

In 1972, Chen Yu’s grandmother, the wife of Grandmaster Chen Fake, passed away.

Chen Yu was only ten years old. From that point onward, he and his father, Chen Zhaokui, were effectively dependent upon one another.

With the loss of his grandmother who had previously managed the household, Chen Yu was compelled to assume responsibilities well beyond his years. He understood that his father spent much of his life travelling to different places to teach martial arts and earn a livelihood.

Consequently, even as a child, he undertook household responsibilities: washing clothes, preparing meals and attending to his father’s daily needs.

The material conditions of that period were austere. During the winter months he had to wash clothes by hand in freezing water, repeatedly working his small, unprotected hands in the cold.

These seemingly ordinary hardships constituted an early form of tempering. They cultivated the endurance, self-reliance and capacity for bitter hardship that would become enduring characteristics of his martial character.

Seven Years Old: Entering the Martial Tradition

Chen Yu began formal martial training under his father at the age of seven.

Chen Zhaokui was exceptionally exacting in his instruction. Any deficiency in the 拳架, however slight, or any deviation in the expression and direction of 劲力, was subject to immediate correction.

For a child, such discipline was difficult to comprehend. Chen Yu sometimes felt aggrieved by his father’s severity and, on two occasions, left home in anger. Yet after wandering outside until late at night, he ultimately had no alternative but to return home.

At that age, he could not yet comprehend the purpose behind his father’s severity. Only many years later did he understand the deeper meaning of his father’s admonition:

“You are my son. Therefore, you must endure hardships that others are unwilling or unable to endure.”

This was not merely a demand for physical endurance. It was an instruction concerning the character required to inherit and preserve a martial tradition.

Learning to Endure Hardship

That same year, Chen Zhaokui frequently travelled away from Beijing to teach in order to support the family.

On one occasion, he was compelled to leave his ten-year-old Chen Yu alone at home. Before departing, he left three yuan with a neighbour, instructing the neighbour to provide it to his son in small amounts each day and reminding him to spend it carefully. But Chen Yu was still a child. Without experience in managing money, he would occasionally spend his small allowance on an ice lolly, leaving himself without sufficient money for food.

These periods of solitude were difficult. Neighbours, seeing the circumstances of the child, would occasionally offer him food. At other times, when there was nothing to eat, he would climb onto the roof and pick dates to alleviate his hunger.

He would sit alone on the rooftop and look across at the surrounding homes, where cooking smoke rose into the evening air and families gathered around their dinner tables. He remained alone without such companionship.

Through countless such days and nights, he endured in silence. When Chen Zhaokui eventually came to realise the difficulties his son had experienced, he was deeply concerned. Thereafter, whenever circumstances permitted, he took Chen Yu with him when travelling to teach.

Chen Yu was still of primary-school age and therefore had to take repeated leave from school to accompany his father. His childhood education consequently became intermittent, while much of his youth was spent travelling from place to place.

Where others experienced the relative stability of ordinary schooling, Chen Yu’s formative years were shaped by movement, hardship and martial discipline.

Forging the Root

By the age of sixteen or seventeen, whenever Chen Yu returned to Chenjiagou, he would practise beside the village well.

He deliberately trained Golden Rooster Stands on One Leg (金鸡独立) to cultivate courage, composure, balance and, above all, the stability of the lower body.

The location itself constituted a severe test. Beside him was a deep well; beneath his feet was potentially dangerous ground. The practice therefore demanded complete concentration, mental composure and structural integrity.

The body had to remain centred and upright. The supporting foot had to establish a firm connection with the ground. The slightest instability in the lower frame or deviation of the centre of gravity could result in losing one’s footing and falling into the well. There was no tolerance for carelessness.

The physical conditions were equally austere. In winter, ice formed around the well, rendering the ground both cold and slippery. After summer rainfall, the earth became muddy and unstable.

Every standing exercise and every repetition of Golden Rooster Stands on One Leg therefore required the practitioner to settle the mind, regulate the breath, maintain structural alignment and establish the root through the feet. Such practice became fundamental to the exceptionally stable lower-body structure that characterised Chen Yu’s later gongfu.

Chen Yu frequently emphasises that the essence of martial practice does not lie in elaborate technique. The essential work is the cultivation of the root.

Authentic Taijiquan gongfu must be rooted in the ground.
When the foot establishes a genuine connection with the ground, the relationship of 虚实 (emptiness and fullness) becomes clear and the foundation becomes stable. The feet should not shift without necessity, nor should they engage in excessive twisting, swivelling or unstable movement.

He refers to such excessive twisting and vacillation beneath the feet as “拧钻子” (ning zuan zi).

In his teaching, disorder beneath the feet produces disorder throughout the entire frame. A practitioner whose feet continually twist and shift cannot establish a true root; the 架 becomes浮, or floating, and the 劲 cannot沉, or settle.

He often explains this principle through the image of a tree:

“The body is like the trunk of a great tree; the limbs are its branches. The branches may move freely in every direction, but the trunk must remain rooted, stable and immovable.”

This, he explains, is one of the essential principles of the Chen Shi Taijiquan Gongfujia:

Root is stable.
Frame correct.
Body centred and settled.
Jin deep and rooted.

This is the authentic essence of the family transmission.

The poverty of his childhood, the solitude of his youth and the adversity together with his own relentless practice, ultimately forged a lower body as stable as rock and cultivated within him the resilient composure of a martial artist; one capable of remaining unmoved by either honour or humiliation.

The hardships of his youth did not defeat him. They were gradually absorbed and transformed into the mature, refined and substantial gongfu that became the foundation of his martial expression.

In retrospect, however, they became the very conditions through which his character and gongfu were forged.

The hardship of life tempered his will.
The hardship of training established his foundation. The passage of time refined his character and bearing.

It was through precisely these extraordinary hardships, hardships that few would willingly undertake and fewer still could sustain, that Chen Yu’s 家传功夫架 was forged into the character for which it is recognised:

- deeply rooted, structurally precise, centred, substantial, restrained, austere and pure in character.

Through this cultivation, the authentic Chen Family Taijiquan tradition has remained firmly rooted and continues to be transmitted from generation to generation.

The lineage endures not through words alone, but through the preservation of its foundation in the body, the transmission of its principles through practice, and the uncompromising discipline required to carry the tradition forward.

Written and translated with permission from 思雨老师 of Chen Shiwu Taijiquan Academy Fengtai, Beijing

WeChat ID: cytjw-cn
Tel : 13241704154

Copyright & Attributes : 思雨 （家传功夫架）