Who Is Mr. Chen?: Xingyiquan Training Begins

Soon after we began our training with Mr. Chen, he told us through a translator: "If you learn from me for one year, it is equal to ten years with another teacher." We had been learning mostly self-defense methods and Ba Fan Shou from Mr. Chen, and I was in some of the best shape of my life. Mr. Chen advised that I should practice two hours a day--once in morning and once at night, and I followed his advice, usually putting in more than an hour at each session. I really wanted to learn Xingyiquan, a famous internal fighting art of great renown in China. During the mid to late 1800's and even during the early 1900's, Xingyiquan was the art practiced by famous bodyguards, caravan escorts, and famous boxers of China. It had a reputation as a no-nonsense style that combined power with intention, hence it's name means "Mind/Intention Fist". When I learned that Mr. Chen was from Taiyuan, Shanxi Province, I became all the more excited because I knew that Shanxi Province was where the art of Xingyiquan, the Mind/Intention Fist originated!

Mr. Chen's lineage in these arts was traceable back six generations, and he came from a very famous traditional martial art lineage. His teachers were famous and one of his kung fu brothers (fellow classmates in martial arts) is Zhang Xi Gui, who is known as one of the top 100 Martial Arts Masters in China today. And here was Mr. Chen, living in his daughter's house in Randolph, New Jersey, and no one knew who he was. Mr. Chen began teaching me the Shanxi Style of Xingyiquan, and I was in my glory. The basic training of the wu xing or Five Shapes is practiced back and forth with very specific stepping patterns and physical alignments. Mr. Chen taught us the Squatting Monkey exercise from Dai Style Xingyiquan--this training stance developed one's power but was not very pleasant to practice.

After some time, my understanding of Mr. Chen's speech improved. He still spoke hardly any English words at all, usually just: "no", "no no no" or "okay!" I began to understand Chinese and would translate for him somehow, usually just the martial arts related phrases which I began to hear all the time. "Mai man" (do it slowly); "Dui" (right, correct); "jin bu" (step forward); "tui bu" (step back), etc. Mr. Chen would repeat the phrase "Kung fu duo lian", meaning to learn martial arts required practice of the fighting sets. As time went on, Mr. Chen would move his arm and shoulder gingerly, he seemed to feel some pain there. In our big indoor garage/training area (where we would go in bad weather), he would sometimes stand with his back to the woodstove, allowing the heat to make his shoulder feel better.

After a couple of years, Mr. Chen's daughter decided to sell her house, and Mr. Chen's period of roaming began. He and his wife moved into a condominium with some other Chinese people, with Mr. Chen and his wife occupying the basement apartment. So I began traveling to train with Mr. Chen at his new location. After a couple of months, Mr. Chen's arm was bothering him too much to teach. He went to the doctor to be checked out, and when I called to speak to his son-in-law, he told me Mr. Chen would need surgery, but he did not tell me what the surgery was for. Eventually his daughter told me that Mr. Chen had lung cancer, and was going for a big surgery to remove a cancerous tumor. She had not told him he had cancer, because she felt it would be better not to. It's hard to explain how I felt upon hearing this. Mr. Chen had become more than a teacher to me, he was much like a father in many ways. I had been spending more time with him than his family, and he was a big part of my life. I knew that he smoked a lot, but he was so powerful; I never expected he could get this sick.

When he came out of the surgery, I went to visit him in the hospital. I went to the hospital every day that he was there, and would talk to him about xingyiquan. One day he began speaking earnestly to me from his hospital bed. There was no one available to translate to me, but I knew it was important so that night I called his daughter on the phone. "There's a big international competition being held this summer in China, my dad thinks you should go to it." I was really excited: "Wow, that would be amazing, to visit China and watch an international competition."
"Yes, it will be quite an experience for you, but my dad says he wants you to compete at this tournament...."
"Compete? Me?"
"Yes" Jinling replied, "of course you can't win a prize there, because those people have been doing xingyiquan all of their lives. But, it will be a tremendous opportunity for you."

Next blog: Training For China