About thirty people came out on a windy but not too cold
an evening to check out what energetic Chen style had to offer.
Dr Denis Walker, who will be instructing at the weekly Chen
classes, warmly welcomed everybody and the evening quickly
got underway.
There was a wide range of martial arts skill amongst the
audience, mostly Yang style devotees but other arts such as
Karate and Taekwando were also represented along with a few
with no previous history.
The two hour evening presented the following Chen TaiChi
demonstrations which were alternated with talks on a range
of TaiChi topics:
The Two Edged Sword - Malisa Ng & Kelvin Sim
Old Frame One (Chen Foundation Routine) - Malisa
New Frame Two (Chen Fake's adaptation of the 1930s) - Malisa
Broad Sword - Kelvin
Chen 13 Step (From Old Frame One) - Malisa & Kelvin
Push Hands (Two person cooperative Routine) - Malisa &
Kelvin
Fan Routine - Malisa.
The Demos and talks were given by Taichicise Club members
who came down from Auckland especially for this event (Malisa
Ng [club founder], Bernard Williams [secretary], Kelvin Sim
[senior student] and Monica Wang).
The demonstrations were well received and we came to realise
that Chen style was not well known in Christchurch. However
our audience did notice and appreciate the internal character
of the style as seen in the "shaking energy" and
the liquid, Silk-Reeling movements evidenced in Malisa's routines.
Denis warmly concluded the evening with an explanation of how
his Christchurch Branch of the Club was being inaugerated with
the Demonight and interested persons were invited to attend
the morrow's Workshop. People genuinely appeared to enjoy the
evening and a number of enthusiastic spectators stayed on afterwards
for a chat outside.
