I spend a few months of the year in Germany near Frankfurt. Well.......this is the time that I cannot catch up with my teacher Chen Yingjun. Jan Silberstorff has lived and studied in China, has extensive teaching experience, winner of several prizes in many countries, disciple of Grandmaster Chenxiaowang, the standard bearer of Chenjiagou and Chen Yingjun's father.
His genius idea is the "Temple Park", a training venue in a park in St. Pauli Hamburg. The training methods and intensity is quite close to what happens within the confined walls of Chenjiagou. 6 until 8 hours of intensive training including a ring for full contact sparring.
It was fortunate that there were a few rooms left at the Holiday Inn Hamburg at a last minute price. This included a train ride for 60 EUR and 50 EUR for a large room with views on the river Elbe. The breakfast buffet was also included and I virtually ate for the whole day. Good coffee, different types of eggs, ham, cheese, assorted breads and the yummy yummy streusselkuchen, German apple crumble fresh with butter and dough.
I trained with the group for one week. There was a good spirit among the students in the group but hard work. Whole day training every day. I have always been surprised how Jan could handle a group of more than 10 students in such a relaxed manner. He had a good eye for details and I received quite a few individual corrections on just one day.
For a posture like " Shan tuishou(double push hands" in laojia yilu or old frame he let us stand on one leg for some time. The one who did not have the right posture lost his balance immediately. We did a small segment of the form and then let us hold our posture. He put his fingers on my shoulders and told me to sink them and then put more stress on the legs.
Although my stance is normally low, he lowered it a bit further.
It was painful and unusual in the beginning but my legs were not burning. This happened when the week was over. He said that the feeling was unusual for me and he was right.
But......I could feel my qi flowing despite the slight discomfort, the pronounced difference between full and empty(yin and yang). Jan let us hold the posture for some time and I started to breathe deeply. It widely depends on the posture, e.g. single whip I could feel the energy going to my hand as in reeling silk.
The following days I received a lot more corrections but also very balanced with praise. One day I would try too hard and my face became strict and serious. He smiled in my face but didn't say anything than just moving my arms slightly to the right. Sometimes he would start an individual conversation with each of us.
The hard part of the form the transition between"Cross foot kick(shi zhi jiao)" and "punch the crotch(zhi dang tui) because we have to slap the other side of the other foot and then turn nearly 180 degrees. I turned and swayed around like a ballerina. "No. You can't turn with brute force. You can use power but swinging with brute force is not jing" he said. In a quiet unobserved moment I "turned" in my head from the dantien and see: everything was effortless.
Grandmaster Chenxiaowang always compares corrections with food. If you would like some light corrections on your posture he said:" Do you want soup?". Cooked slowly on a low flame but take longer before it's ready. Or a casserole with spaghetti? A little faster on a medium flame i.e. corrections in a high stance but challenging enough to make some people feel burning legs.
Or do you want pizza, cooked within 10 minutes on maximum flame, very fast and intensive, too hot to handle. You will get every correction from the grandmaster you can get, stretched, your fingers positioned, squeezed on every part of your body, pain.
I'm used to the chilli pizza from Chen Yingjun all the time. Jan's pizza is not less spicy. Exactly like the grandmaster and his son, he would use his whole body including his knees to adjust my posture.
The die cha or fallen lotus and the "que di long" or "dragon on the ground" were the hardest. He showed mercy on the novices but about 5 of us were put in the lowest posture and let us hold it for 5 min. Again I felt that it was the right posture but my legs started burning. I lost my balance and fell on the ground.....
My God, my freshly washed new jogging pants dirty!!!!!
After this we had a couple of push hands drill and form work for everybody who wish to work on corrections. Jan still had time to look at my sword form and give me a couple of adjustments. At one move I didn't have my foot right or the sword in the right position. He could teach in two languages English and German as though it was the easiest job in the world.
I made friends with a Scottish guy whose name was Russell and his friend Rainer. On the last evening we went together to the Hamburg Dom, the summer fair. "Dom" is the German word for cathedral and in fact during the middle ages, the fair was held inside the cathedral in Hamburg.
I spent the last day sightseeing in Hamburg with Russell and I brought an apple crumble from the breakfast buffet for him. I only can say it is a real pity that I don't live in Hamburg to join the intensive training everyday and not just for one week. This time I realized that I did not need to go to China for the Chen family secrets.
