The shoulder blade

During training, I saw one of my classmates performing Chen's taiji cannon fist form. If you haven't seen Chen's form before, it involves a lot of twisting, large wide stances, slow and fast movements, heavy stamping and strong shoulder blade and trunk movements. The one aspect of Chen's taiji that stood out to me was the strong shoulder blade movements.

I thought to myself (after watching and copying the form), why the emphasised shoulder blade movements in the form.

If you look into the history of Chen's Taiji, it originated from a chinese general called General Wangting. It was told to me that when he was a retired general, he collected all the information he knew from his battles and from others generals (with a bit of help from some *wudang monks) and formulised it into the style called Chen's Taiji.

*Wudang monks specialise in the internal fighting arts. Hence Chen Taiji having chi gong influences.

So if you think about it, the style was created to fight against an army of soldiers (I'm assuming). These soldiers will wear heavy armour who will also carry/use heavy weapons. To win against these opponents, you need to generate a certain strength, flexibility and quickness to fight against these opponents. For example, a soldier will have to swing a *kwan do or halberd accurately and quickly, whilst riding on a horseback or on land with heavy armour. Also, if you noticed in the form, you use a lot of double back fists from the chest (if you seen it, it's very powerful), jump and chop, locking, shoulder barging, shaking off, spearing with hands and feet and so forth. So generating and issuing power is very important in Chen's Taiji.

*Kwan do can weigh as heavy as 72kg. (I don't think they will be that heavy, I reckon it's half that weight, but what do I know?) They can easily make armour such as helmets melt like butter. It was also known as a horse cutter. That is, it was used to take down horses (like chopping off their legs) from a distance or on horseback.

A Statue of General Kwan with kwan dao. Also, take notice of his armour.

But back to the main point, to generate power in the upper limbs, you have to have strong and flexible shoulder blades. That's what I noticed in Chen's Taiji.

For example, try to do an uppercut or a cross punch whilst not moving your shoulder blade. It's impossible or it's very weak. You notice that when you do an uppercut, your shoulder blade wants to move up. If you block the shoulder blade, it stops you from doing a full range uppercut because the shoulder joint needs space to move. The only way to open up the shoulder joint more is to move the shoulder blade. (hard to explain, sorry)

Also, try to do an elbow. You notice that your shoulder blade is tensed and flexible when elbowing. Now try swinging a heavy object, around your body, above your head, side to side, throw and catch. You will notice that your shoulder blade is working like crazy!

I have also noticed that when your shoulder blade is flexible, your distal upper limbs becomes more flexible too! Try reaching behind your back with one hand and then reaching further away from your body. Take notice what your shoulder blade is doing!

When your shoulder blade and spine is flexible and strong, you notice that you can use your limbs like a whip now. That is, you can perform those fajing movements in taiji and also put power into your weapons. So your hands, elbows, shoulder become strong and flexible weapons now which is especially useful if you're wearing armour or weapons.



So in training (in any style), be aware what your shoulder blade is doing. Notice it for example when punching, elbowing, push hands and chi sao etc. That's what I noticed.

Sorry for the long post, but I hope that I got the point across.

Peace