Master Chen Huixian's workshops

Master Chen and Michael Chritton demo Push Hands

Bally’s invited Taichi Master Chen Huixian to host two Chen Style Taichi workshops in St. Louis during the last week and was a great success. Some attendees read about Master Chen before and wanted to learn from her, some just heard her name and decided to give it a try. However, regardless of the student backgrounds, this 28-year old Taichi master did not just charm all the attendees with her bubbly personality, but she impressed everyone with her profound knowledge on Taichi theory, skills, and applications. She is also familiar with the Chinese meridian theory and hard style martial arts.

Born and raised in the Taichi birthplace, Chenjiagou, Chen Huixian started learning Taichi at the age of six and teaching at the age of 18. After graduating from college and winning several Taichi competitions, she became a formal instructor at Chen Village Taichi Training Center of China, which was founded by her uncle and Grandmaster Chen Zhenglei in 2002. She then was certified as a Senior Level Coach.
 

Master Huixian explained how to relax the hips

To promote traditional Chen Style Taichi in a systematic and methodical way, Grandmaster Chen Zhenglei designed an entire teaching system that combines Taichi fundamentals, theory, forms, techniques, and its applications in martial arts and health. Master Chen Huixian’s workshops in St. Louis have kept the same principle and method. She even used the same routine for thorough warm-ups. The Saturday workshop was on Taichi Ba Fa (or Eight Kinetic Movements of Taichi) and Chen Style Push-hands. The Sunday workshop was Silk Reeling and Chen Style 18 Form.

Michael Chritton, who has studied Chen Style Taichi for over ten years, is a certified Junior Level Coach of Chen Village Taichi Training Center of China and Master Chen’s husband. He assisted with the workshops by providing demos as well as helping students with practice. The team work of Huixian and Michael made the workshops more effective.
 

Insert Saturday Workshop: Michael Chritton (sitting left), Master Chen (sitting center), and Dan Barbatti (sitting right)

Among the workshop, there were many Taichi veteran practitioners including 11 local Taichi and martial art instructors. Master Leroy Alsup normally practices and teaches the Yang Style Taichi. But to support this event, he also participated in the workshop of Push-hands. Master Justin Meehan of Chen Style Hun Yuan Taichi, who witnessed Master Chen performing Taichi and judging competition before, thinks that Master Chen represents a new generation of Chen Style instructors, who are well trained with the traditional system, understand American culture and speak English. With this, he forecasts that the Chen Style Taichi will be more popular in the U.S.

There will be four articles on the workshops. See below for the titles.

	Topic	Publish Date
	Taichi Ba Fa by Chen Huixian	02/05/2010
	Master Chen Huixian on Push Hands	02/07/10
	Master Cen Huixain on Silk Reeling	02/14/10
	Master Chen Huixian on Chen Zhenglei Taichi 18 Form	02/18/10