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Power from harmony - Tai chi master will present workshop this weekend to demonstrate how the sense of 'flow' helps your health and well being

Published: Monday, August 16, 2010, 2:26 AM     
Updated: Monday, August 16, 2010, 2:34 AM
Tony J Hagen 

Some people learn to play a musical instrument at a very young age. Chen Peishan learned to do tai chi starting when he was just 3 years old. 
His father was a "gentle" soul, Chen recalls, but a strict taskmaster, and on through his early years Chen was made to practice up to 10 times a day -- until his legs hurt. His father would teach technique and other qualities thought to be transferable only "through the heart," while his mother and aunt would stand over him and make sure he practiced correctly.
Those were the early days in China when life was a lot more simple. Chen's family didn't practice in a studio. They practiced in his father's house -- where there were many students coming and going -- and they practiced in the garden and along a nearby river bank. Starting at such an early age, and having the blessing of a very skillful master to teach him, Chen progressed rapidly.
By middle-school age Chen was teaching students in the family home when his father was away on business. When the Cultural Revolution swept down upon China, Chen's family was looked upon with suspicion, but he utilized the sense of "flow" he'd learned from tai chi and conformed to the political movement by pairing tai chi demonstrations with the revolutionary banner waving and singing that went with Chairman Mao's new government.
He survived and flourished, went on to establish a Chinese tai chi association and, one day, so impressed a visiting Japanese that he was invited to come and teach in Japan. It was a chance of a lifetime to spread his knowledge of tai chi far and wide. That was in 1988.
From just a handful of students, and an existence living hand to mouth in Tokyo, one of the most expensive cities, Chen added class after class, and eventually cofounded the International Society of Chen Taijiquan, a tai chi association.
Today, Chen is recognized worldwide as a highly accomplished master of the flowing martial art said to promote physical and mental well-being through its slow and subtle movements, which seemingly defy every notion of what a martial art should be.
This weekend Chen, 48, a 20th generation master, will appear in Princeton for a two-day workshop and a free demonstration of his Xiaojia Chen style of tai chi, the original form, he says, of this centuries-old practice once used with lethal effectiveness on battlefields in ancient China.

Chen is being hosted by one of his longtime students, Wonchull Park, a physicist who worked at Princeton Plasma Physics Lab for 27 years and now teaches tai chi full time. Park is the founder of the Wuwei Tai Chi School of Princeton and has himself spawned many new tai chi teachers. 
Even though the art itself is spreading, it is still relatively unknown and misunderstood, both Chen and Park say. Few have learned or fully understood its purest principle, which is that by cultivating peace and comfort in one's mind and action, a person can develop extreme power and timing for all kinds of engagement, both combat and in general, Chen and Park say.
Park says his physics background has helped him to develop a practical understanding of what makes tai chi tick. People oppose themselves, mentally and physically, to an extent that deeply impairs their effectiveness in many things they do, he says. Through tai chi practice you weaken and dissolve this opposition and gradually achieve a commensurate increase in physical strength and capability, and in mental awareness and response. Practicing at the highest levels of tai chi, a practitioner can physically repel an opponent with virtually no effort at all, Park says.
The famed "one-inch punch" used by actress Uma Thurman to break out of a coffin in the popular "Kill Bill Vol. 2" movie is not entirely fictional. In fact, it is a standard part of the tai chi arsenal.
"The promise of real tai chi is truly amazing," Park says. "It may seem too good to be true. Being truly comfortable physically and peaceful mentally leads to optimal action, be it in martial arts, health, or in everyday life actions. Optimal action, be it power, speed, or keen awareness, arises not from effort but from freeing oneself from one's own interference with one's action. Such powers thus enabled seemed mysterious, so ancients explained them through chi. As a physicist, I was able to explain scientifically these seemingly amazing things."
The Wuwei Tai Chi School's workshop with Master Chen Peishan will take place Saturday and Sunday from 10 a.m. to 5 p.m. The free demonstration is Saturday from 10 to 11 a.m. and is open to the public. Admission is $100 for one day or $160 for two days ($100 total for high school or college students). The program will be at the Carl Fields Center, 58 Prospect Ave., Princeton Borough.
Answers from Master Chen Peishan:
1. What was it like during the Cultural Revolution?
"Many political events were carried out in which revolutionary songs and dances and some types of traditional arts were demonstrated to congratulate the revolutionary victory of Chairman Mao and the Communist Party. In my school we did tai chi shows together with other teams doing revolutionary songs and dances. It was a time of disturbance, and there were not very many people practicing tai chi."
2. Describe something you learned from your father.
"My father told me that a teacher should not pass only the technique to the students. The more important thing to do is to teach them by exchanging the feelings of the heart."
3. How about your mother?
"Because I was a very young student, my mother told me that "You are not a teacher, you are only the one passing the techniques to them. Learn how they love this tai chi and work hard on it, because they came here from distant villages."
4. What does tai chi do for a person?
"Tai chi is a type of culture, a strong martial art, which incorporates training for health in body and spirit, and that is tai chi theory, that they harmonize with each other. One can spend one's whole life training in tai chi, and there is neither end nor completeness. No one can reach the highest level. Please do not care what level you have reached, the more important thing is to do it happily, very often."
5. Tai chi practice movements have been shortened to make it easier to learn. What was it like before?
"Traditional tai chi had a long movement with more than 80 or even 100 movements, which is difficult for people to remember and master. To simplify, I made a form, named Sizheng tai chi, which is easy to learn and carries the essence of traditional tai chi."
6. What is this mysterious power that makes tai chi practitioners so strong?
"One should neither fight an opponent with simple hitting directly nor resist directly, but go along a circle together with the opponent. Tai chi teaches you how to use natural power, and how to move according to natural principles, which is the yin and yang. However, the final purpose of training in tai chi is not only to develop strength in the body but also that of the spirit."
From Wonchull Park:
1. How did you arrive at a practice of tai chi?
"My effort for understanding life led me to various different disciplines: philosophy, physics, psychology, zen, yoga, etc. In tai chi I found a unifying discipline where philosophical and scientific inquiries can converge and aspects of mind and body can be understood together."
2. Explain your interest in Xiaojia Chen tai chi?
"I have learned what most people think of as Chen tai chi from teachers, some of them world famous. However, some things I had learned conflicted with physics (from my understanding as a physicist) and taoist philosophy. So I was hoping and searching to find teachings that do not conflict with science and taoist philosophy, on which tai chi is supposed to be based. After 20 years of learning Xiaojia Chen tai chi, I can say that it agrees well with physics and taoist philosophy."
For more information, contact Wonchull Park at wpark@princeton.edu or call (609) 520-8423, or visit www.wuweitaichi.org.