Grandmaster Chen Quanzhong (陈全忠) is my Chen Tai Chi (陈氏太极) teacher. Today our students had the chance to meet him in person for the first time. At nearly 90 years old, he is the senior most Chen Tai Chi Grandmaster in China and has practiced the art his entire life.
Grandmaster Chen Quanzhong with TCCII Students in August 2011
He greeted our students and gave them a demonstration of his version of the Chen Tai Chi form. Grandmaster Chen learned from his father and several other teachers. He is the only living master to have learned directly from a 16th generation master.* Because of this it is believed that his version of Chen Tai Chi is the oldest one in existence.
The Tang Dynasty style courtyard of our hotel in Xian.
That afternoon our students enjoyed climbing the Xian city wall. There is nothing quite like doing stairs after several hours of horse stance training, so we took our students to climb the Xian city wall after lunch. Since that wasn’t enough for the hardest core group, they finished off the day with a visit to the Wild Goose Pagoda and shopping at the nearby marketplaces. When the day was done, we enjoyed the peaceful courtyard of our Tang dynasty style hotel.
Here is a three part video series based on the question and answer session Grandmaster Chen had with our students.
* Note: Although Grandmaster Chen Quanzhong learned from a 16th generation master and would ordinarily be considered 17th generation he is called 19th generation because Chen family blood descendants keep their family’s genealogy generation number. He is significantly older than the other 19th generation Chen masters such as Chen Zhengli and Chen Xiaowang.
