• GENERAL
• CHEN XIAOWANG
• FENG JINGCHUN
• FENG ZHIQIANG
• HUANG ZHENHUAN
• TIAN QIUXIN
• WANG BO
• WEI SHUREN
• ZHAO ZENGFU

TIAN QIUXIN

PRESENTATION

Master Tian Qiu Xin (Tian Qiuxin) was born in Beijing in 1942. He belongs to the 19th Chen style generation. As a child he started to practice the Chen style with his uncle Tian Xiu Chen (18th generation in Beijing, Chen style representative). Later on, he became a disciple of Feng Zhi Qiang. His two masters, Feng and Tian, were high skilled disciples of the famous master Chen Fa Ke.

Tian Qiu Xin is the director of the Wu-Shu Society Hua Cheng in Beijing. Master Tian began to give classes on tai chi chuan in the early 60s, but these teachings had to stop during the Cultural Revolution. Later on, in the 80s, he started again to teach Chen style tai chi chuan to people. Once in the 90s, his teachings were mainly imparted in universities (more than 10 different ones in Beijing, e.g. Qing Hua Da Xue, Bei Da, Hang Tian Hang Kong Da Xue, Yu Yan Xue Yuan, Shi You Xue Yuan, etc.). He has also instructed many tai chi chuan groups at the Zhong Guan Cun Scientific Research Centre.

Master Tian likes very much young people because he believes they are the future of China. He thinks that after their graduation they will spread out to all parts of China or to foreign countries and propagate the Chen style teachings all around.

The disciples of Tian Qiu Xin, more than 200, are all university students and teachers. Some of them are foreigners (not Chinese).

After 1992, master Tian sent many of his disciples to the big competitions of tai-chi chuan and tui-shou in Beijing, awarding, both in the masculine and feminine categories, several gold metals and other first positions. In national tournaments they got two silver medals. In 2001, his disciples got the silver medal in the Taiji Quan World Championship hold in San Ya, Hai Nan.

ANECDOTES AND PERSONAL IMPRESSIONS

Tian Qiu Xin (the third on the left, back row; the one on his left is Zhang)
In one occasion that Zhang attended one of master Tian’s classes, Tian was explaining the martial application of certain movement in the routine. In that precise moment one of his students got closer to him from behind to see better the application. When master Tian, without noticing the presence behind of this other student, performed the application and pushed the student in front of him, the one behind was also pushed away by the strength of Tian’s hip movement. This is a good example of the peng strength, because although Tian’s application was focused in front of him, it involved the whole body.

Tian Qiu Xin used to recite the following verses:

 

"qî shì zôu luó xuán, lì cóng zú dî fä, jié jié yào guàn chuäng, zhöu shën shì yï jiä"

"fù nèi rú hâi xíng tú cháo, chuân huàn zhè dié zài yú yäo.
jìn tuì qî fù shën yào wên, shàng xià guàn chuäng lì dà shäo"

 

Their meaning is, approximately, the following:

Since the beginning movement the spiral rises, and the force comes from the feet.

One after the other it passes through all joints, therefore all the body being a unity.
The belly is like the sea, and the form like the tide. When changing the movement, folding comes from the waist.

Although forwards and backwards the level changes, you must keep stability. Upwards and downwards go through each other, and then the force reaches the extremes.