chen tai chi

Grandmaster Wang Hai Jun was born on 10th January 1972 in Zhengzhou, Henan province, China. At an early age, he decided that his life’s goal was to study martial arts. Fortunately for him, circumstances were at that time ripe to make this feasible.

Due to his then geographical location as a resident in Zhengzhou, and due to the fact that his father was the best friend of Grand master Chen Zheng Lei, it was feasible for arrangements to be made for him to study as a student. So at the age of 9, he was able to commence his studies at his new teacher’s house whilst at the same time undertaking his academic education, attending school in Chenjiagou village. He was the first non-Chen family student in modern times to be traditionally trained in Chen village in Henan. To begin with, he was taught in the traditional way, learning lao jia yi lu, Old Frame, First Part. At that time, Chan si jing, Silk Reeling Energy wasn’t taught as a separate skill, but was incorporated into the forms sets.

Due to his diligence in practicing for many hours every day, he was able to make significant progress. Grand master Chen Zheng Lei provided personal guidance and made the most subtle and nuanced adjustments to his posture, and slowly but surely passed on his vast wealth of knowledge and skill. His initial practice routines concentrated on improving his posture, without any emphasis on the breathing methods and the sinking of his qi.This is known as molding like a statue or Nie Jia Zi, the third stage of the six stages in advancement to the taijiquan Chen style taijiquan mastery.

He initially found some of the practice routines somewhat frustrating. Being young, he considered the method of having to learn slow movements as being counter to his desire to release his energy in an overtly yang fashion; for example by running around. This is natural for all young people. His practice seemed like an interminable routine of repeat sets of the form and at times, he was tempted by the Shaolin martial arts that were taught nearby and that seemed very athletic and energetic. Regardless of the early reservations and impatience that he had, he persevered with his practice. For the first three years of training, he found the practice very hard and his legs were always tired; from the time when he work up in the mornings through to when he retired at night, his muscles constantly ached.

When Japanese students first started to arrived in Zhengzhou, he assisted Grand master Chen Zheng Lei in teaching, traveling throughout China. A breakthrough in his practice occurred when he was seventeen years old and he felt for the first time the harmony of total co-ordination and mind power harmonized with his internal energy. This was a feeling of effortless effort, a relaxed awareness whilst performing the movements. He continued to practice and sometimes this was with the movements performed so slowly that the form would take 2 hours to complete. As the training and dedicated teaching began to bear fruit, his level became so high that, he started to take part in competitions, winning titles at provincial and national competitions.