The Chen Taijiquan Xiaojia of our lineage is divided into five learning levels.
First level: jichujia 基础架
Learning the basic form. This is where you learn the individual movement patterns of the form, the outer framework. This is where the foundations are created and the body is organized. You create the tools, so to speak, with which you can then continue working. It's like the skeleton of a building.
Second to fifth level:
Once you have mastered the basics in sufficient form, you begin to study the "neijin", you start the actual Taijiquan training. Only when you have learned to establish the inner spiral connection and movement in your body do you truly practise Taijiquan.
The study of the individual levels merges into one another, and you always go back in your training to check and improve your basics.
Second level: dongjin 懂勁 or dongquan 懂拳
Building on the framework you have developed in the jichujia 基础架 level, you learn the internal movement (neijin). You learn to understand the principles of jin and how to train and use it. We also learn to understand the jin of another body (e.g. the practice partner) (tingjin 听勁). It is therefore a development process.
Third level: sanbianquan 三遍拳
Here you learn to use your yi in such a way that the qi can move the body. Once you have mastered this, you are already able to develop different forms of jin, such as expelling the jin (fajin).
At this stage, you can expel jin in many places in the basic form. Here the xiaojia taolu becomes gongfujia. Here the external movements also become much more complex and there are also jumps, for example.
Fourth level: sibianquan 四遍拳
At this level, you develop more and more, more and more inner and smaller and smaller circles; the segments multiply ad infinitum. The form appears more straightforward and direct to the observer, but in reality the circles are now very small and penetrating. In the old Taijiquan texts, this is often referred to as penetrating into the bone marrow.
Fifth level: wubianquan 五遍拳
The fifth level is no longer a learning level in the true sense of the word, although the learning process is infinite and never ends.
At the fifth level, a transformation of body and mind has taken place.
It is a state of absolute naturalness, serenity, an existence of complete freedom of body and mind. You are in harmony with the universe, in harmony with being.
When practicing Taijiquan, it is said that the form is free, which means that there is no longer a form, a form without form.
You can sit and still practise Taijiquan. The arms, the legs, the mental work, the walking, the lying down, the whole way of life, everything becomes taiji. This is a very high level.
