Chen Xinjia Yilu

Quick Facts

About the kata

Xinjia Yilu (新架一路) is the first form of the new frame of Chen-style taijiquan, with 83 movements according to both the English and Chinese Wikipedia. It builds on the old frame, laojia: Chen Xiaoxing tells David Gaffney that his grandfather Chen Fake (1887–1957), after arriving in Beijing in 1928, added new movements to the old frame in which the combat application is more clearly visible. Chen Xiaoxing sees the main difference in smaller circles, more pronounced wrist rotation, and visible folding of the chest and waist. It gained more fajin force releases, qinna joint locks, springing movements, and jumps, making the new frame physically more demanding. The Chinese Wikipedia highlights its spiral winding and the passage of force joint by joint. The Madison Chen Style Taijiquan school divides the form into six sections, as with laojia, and estimates a run at normal tempo takes 15 to 20 minutes. The third section is short but concentrates most of the kicks and jumps, including a double kick in a jump and the spinning kick xuanfeng jiao. Jingang daodui, the Buddha's guardian pounding mortar, repeats four times, the last just before the close.

The kata in different styles

Creator and history

According to the English Wikipedia, the name xinjia did not originate in Beijing but in Chenjiagou. When Chen Fake's son Chen Zhaokui taught there at the end of the Cultural Revolution and after Chen Zhaopei's death in 1972, villagers began calling his forms the new frame, since they differed from what they knew from Chen Zhaopei, as Zhu Tiancai described it. Chen Yu, Chen Zhaokui's son, denies that his father or grandfather ever used this name. Chen Xiaoxing explained to Gaffney that Chen Fake adapted the form for his Beijing students, who already knew martial arts and wanted to see the application hidden in the old way. Chen Zhaokui began spreading it after his father's death in 1957, in the sixties in Shanghai, Nanjing, and Zhengzhou, and in the seventies every year in Chenjiagou. The Chinese Wikipedia sums up that Chen Fake put the form together and Chen Zhaokui fixed its shape.

Differences between styles

Compared with the first laojia form, for which the English Wikipedia gives 74 movements, the new frame counts 83. According to the same source, the stances are more compact, for greater mobility in combat, though they stay low. The Madison Chen Style Taijiquan school gives a concrete example: in the xie xing ao bu position, the torso leans in the old way but stays upright in the new frame. Chen Xiaoxing insists, however, that both frames share the same principles of posture and movement, and that both are foundational forms.

Prerequisites

The teaching order differs by place. According to Gaffney's article, in Chenjiagou one always starts with the old frame, calmer and more flowing, where the principle is easier to grasp; in Beijing the new frame is taught first. Madison Chen Style Taijiquan writes it is traditionally taught to students who already know laojia. Chen Xiaoxing adds that its smaller spirals are harder to perform, and the form's inner feel comes later.

Related katas

• Derived from: Chen Laojia Yilu