Chen Taijiquan Second Road - Cannon Fist

Nowadays the road has 72 movements, some of which were supplemented by Chen Fake in order to name the postures more clearly. The form is said to have been compiled by Chen Changxing, my teacher's great-great-great-grandfather (I hope I counted correctly :) The counting, some moves and the ingrained methods will like always differ to larger or smaller degrees from lineage to lineage, family to family or frame to frame.

Why Do We Train This Chen Taijiquan Road?

In contrast to the first form of the Chen-Style Taijiquan, the second form is less aimed at the structural development of the body and building up expansive force by adhering to the three external connections (外三合 wài sān hé) and so on, but it rather focuses on the expression of explosive power (爆发力 bàofālì) and the development of looseness, liveliness, elasticity and vibration (松活弹抖 sōng huó tán dǒu). Central points such as the folding of the chest and waist (胸腰折叠 xiōngyāo zhédié) are required to be known to a certain level when we endeavor to learn the second road.

Of course, I don't mean this in an absolute way. Since the second form basically has all the characteristics and principles of the first (and vice versa), the cannon fist could of course be used like the first form to optimise the body structure and to further basic training. It definitely makes sense to practise the second form slowly at times in order to train these characteristics, too. But the main focus of the second form is to train the requirements in a dynamic way, under difficult conditions we could say. It's more about testing the embodiment of those requirements than learning them in the first place.

Because of the general dynamics of the form and the jumps, explosive movements and stomping contained it develops its potential especially with appropriate practice, however, it should never seem rushed and hurried, but should always have a pleasant rhythm.