Chen Style

Tai Chi

In 1973 Chen Mao Shen and Wang Xian successfully invited Chen Zhao Kui to return to Chen village. We arranged for him to stay at his sister-in-law’s house. The daily training routine consisted of a 15 minute warm-up followed by Master Chen demonstrations of movements. When he demonstrated he always paid a lot of attention to details. He would always talk when he demonstrated. He had over a hundred students at that time. The students always lined up in rows to watch his demonstrations. The first row always included Chen Tak Hwang, Chen Xiao Wang, Wang Xian, Zhu Tin Cai and Chen Zheng Lei. I always took the third position from the right in the third row. When we were almost half way through Xin Jia, Chen Mao Shen’s nephew invited Master Chen and Chen Mao Shen to teach in Cheng Chau. After they left we had to suspend our class for about 2 weeks.

Many people, including Chen’s own students, wanted to challenge Master Chen. When he first came back to Chen village most people were curious about just how good his Kung Fu really was. But nobody dared to be the first to challenge him. Chen tak Hwang was bold enough to be the first to challenge him. In answer to Chen Tak Hwang;s challenge, Master Chen sat on a bench and told Chen Tak Hwang to come forward. Chen Tak Hwang delivered a punch to Master Chen’s abdomen. At that moment Master Chen withdrew his dantian and the sprung it out forcefully in a split-second. Chen Tak Hwang was thrown like a ball. He landed about 10 yards away. Chen Tak Hwang injured right leg when he landed and it was a week before he could walk again. Later people would ask him how it felt to receive Master Chen’s energy. He said that when he hit Master Chen it was like hitting cotton, but Master Chen’s reaction was lightning fast.

In 1974 Chen Zhao Kui came back to Chen village again. This time both he and Chen Mao Shen stayed at Chen Tin Yang’s home. As before, he always woke up early and started to teach at 6:00 a.m. His routine included Xin Jia. One night when only Chen Mao Shen, Chen Zhao Kui and myself were alone talking about different things I took the opportunity to ask Chen Mao Shen to talk Chen Zhao Kui into accepting me as his formal indoor student. Chen Mao Shen asked Chen if he still remembered a person called Cheng Fa Lin. Chen said he still remembered. Then Chen Mao Shen told him that Cheng Fa Lin was my grandfather. My grandfather and Chen’s father went to Beijing together in 1928. It was also my grandfather who took Chen and his mother to Beijing in 1932. At that time they were still living at the Beijing Vegetable Market. Chen’s father and my grandfather had been good friends for a long time. Also my grandfather was the person who took of Chen’s father’s personal matters. When Chen Mao Shen’s entire family arrived in Beijing, Chen Mao Shen went to work at Chiu Bao. He was responsible for tax collection there. My father has three brothers and a half brother who was a general with the Nationalist Government. They also knew Chen Zhao Pei and Chen Zhao Kui very well. Since my uncles were acquaintances of Chen’s brothers for years, Chen Zhao Kui readily accepted me when Chen Mao Shen spoke on my behalf. Here is a story about my father, Cheng Shu Tao. My father had the temperament of a modern day Robin Hood. Whenever people quarreled he would always intervene and be the moderator. When he saw people in need he would always give them money. Everyone wanted to be his friend. Since Chen Mao Shen was the tax collector, he sometimes went to the village with My father, Cheng Shu Tao. When people saw my father with Chen Mao Shen they would pay their taxes because they did not want to give a good man a hard time. This “giving face” to my father was undoubtedly a factor contributing to Chen accepting me as his indoor student. Chen Mao Shen even asked me to call Chen Zhao Kui “uncle ten” since Chen Zhao Kui was the tenth son in the family. Chen Zhao Kui treated me very well . He never treated me as an outsider. He would talk to me about anything. We formed a committee to the daily operations of teaching classes. Since Chen and I could communicate so well I was responsible to act as liason between the committee and Chen. Chen Zheng Lei told me that he noticed Chen smile whenever he saw me. He told me that he noticed that Chen treated me differently.

Chen taught in many different places in China but always came back to Chen village. In 1976, while teaching in Chen village, he corrected all of his student’s Xin Jia because they had drifted a little in his absence. As he taught he explained the applications of the movements. When he was invited to teach in Jiao Zuo in 1978, he stayed at the home of Chang Xian Chou. He taught Xin Jia and Chin Na in the evening in a city park. Chen did not talk much during these classes but he was very patient. In order to help the students learn the movements correctly, he repeated each movement as many times as necessary. We formed a committee to take care of the daily needs of Chen Zhao Kui. We even hired a cook for him. The committee consisted of 5 people: Cheng Jin Cai (myself), Chang Xian Chou, Zhu Yin Lung, Gong Wei and Chiu Feng. We met every Saturday to plan the details for the coming week. Then we would present our plan to Chen Zhao Kui for his opinion. Usually it was up to me to communicate with Master Chen. After several months the number of students was so great that we decided that we needed to find a bigger place for classes and residence. At that time 2 of his students ,Zhu Yin Lung and Shi Chao Ji, were working at the city hotel so we were able to make arrangements for Chen and the committee to live there. Master Chen was assigned room on the west wing. At 7:00 p.m. one evening I accompanied Master Chen to teach in the backyard of the Staff Club, which was situated on the north side of the hotel. I was his teaching assistant. After class I walked back to the hotel with Master Chen. Originally I stayed in room 31 with Master Chen but one night Shi Chao Ji asked me to sleep in room 29 so that he could sleep in room 31 with Master Chen and I agreed. Room 29 was usually reserved for staff but it was seldomly used. Shi Chao Ji was a member of the staff of the hotel but he never stayed in room 29. At about 3:00 that night all of a sudden I saw a woman dressed in white flying down from the wall with her arms stretched out to choke me. I woke up in a cold sweat. I told myself it was just a nightmare. I sat up, took a drink and went back to sleep. However I had the same dream again. I got scared and ran to Master Chen room to tell him I did not want to stay in room 29 any more. Shi Chao Ji then admitted knowing that the room was haunted but asked me to sleep in there to see if I was brave enough to do it. Shi Chao Ji told me that nobody ever dared sleep in that room because almost everybody who did had the same nightmare. According to legend an Englishman built this hotel and a woman hanged herself in that room.That room has been haunted ever since. Master Chen said that he did not believe in ghosts and he would sleep in that room to catch the ghost. That night Shi Chao Ji and I slept in room 31 and Master Chen slept in room 29. It was a very quiet night and the next morning Master Chen said that nothing happened. Master Chen said that he remained awake all night so that he could catch the ghost if and when she came in. We asked him to go to sleep in the room instead of staying awake and he agreed. Again nothing happened. I guess that Master Chen’s “chi” was so strong that even ghosts were afraid of him. Shi Chao Ji and I were both embarrassed.

One night Chang Xi Tang introduced a young man named Yang Yang to Master Chen. That was the first time I met Yang Yang. At that time Yang Yang was studying at the Shanghai Textile College. He lived in Jiao Zuo and stayed there during summer vacation. Therefore during summer vacation he studied Tai Chi with Master Chen in the evenings.

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