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Translated by Wu Ta-yeh and Wu Teng Shu-hsien

Translators’ Note: Taichichuan is differentiated from calisthenics not because of the forms or postures, but in the way the individual forms and postures are merged with each other. Without methodical transitions, what is called Taichichuan may simply be a different set of calisthenic forms linked together.

None of the published books or literature has given the techniques of continuing the energy. The following two abstracts from Chen Family Taichichuan (1833) by Chen Hsin tell the prerequisites of making good transitions. These passages complement and amplify each other. The principle described is general to all schools.

Chen Hsin (1849-1929) was a renown master and theoretician of the Chen family Taichichuan. It took him 12 years (1908-1919) to complete his 458 page book.

1. "In doing each posture, you must consider the places from which your hands should start, where they should pass through and where they should stop. You also contemplate what is the external form and what is the internal strength. All these should carefully go through your mind.

"Between two postures, you should carefully study how the end of each posture should be merged to the movement of the next posture so that the energy is continued smoothly. When movements of each two consecutive postures are smoothly continued as if they were one posture, all postures in the whole series will be connected up with continuous energy as if you were doing a single posture. ...

"If you do the exercise with solemnity and not just conforming to the external forms, your spirit will fully reach the destinations and you will avoid the apparently aimless movements." (pp. 156-157)

2. "A principle in Taichichuan is to have full, continued spirit without interruption. People who try to stop before they finish a posture will have their energy interrupted and spirit scattered. Some people try to start a second posture before they finish the first one. With such haste, how can they carefully examine the starting and ending points of their energy and how can they do it with full spirit! People who want to speed up usually fall into such pitfalls and never succeed.

"To do Taichichuan, you must contemplate how the end of one posture is connected to the next posture, and how the energy is continued during the transition without interruption, At the end of the previous posture, you must wait until your spirit is fully expressed before that posture is considered concluded. When the previous posture is fully arrived, and the surplus spirit goes beyond your physical reach, the opportunity of starting the next posture begins. The starting of the next posture is interlocked with the ending of the previous posture, not only in movements but also in spirit.

"When the ending and beginning are skillful, there is no gap between the two postures. This is the meaning of gaining the opportuneness. When you always gain such opportuneness, the movements will all be smooth as splitting bamboo without effort." (pp. 189-190)