page_title: Chen-style taijiquan
section_title: Large frame: new frame tradition
hierarchical_section_title: Chen-style taijiquan / Chen forms / Existing Chen Village Forms: Frames - Large and Small, Old and New / Large frame: new frame tradition
caption_attribution_description: An image of an older Chen Fake, Chen style Tai Chi Chuan Master, playing the form
context_page_description: The Chen family-style or Chen-style Taijiquan is the oldest and parent form of the five traditional family styles of Taiji. Chen-style is characterized by silk reeling, alternating fast and slow motions and bursts of power.
  Contemporary t'ai chi ch'uan is typically practised for a number of widely varying reasons: health, external-internal martial art skills, aesthetics, meditation or as an athletic competition sport. Therefore, a teacher's system, practice and choice of training routines usually emphasizes one of these characteristics during training. The five traditional schools, precisely because they are traditional, attempt to retain the martial applicability of their teaching methods. Some argue that the Chen tradition emphasizes this martial efficacy to a greater extent.
context_section_description: The Xin Jia (New Frame; 新架) is attributed to Chen Fake, and some regard him as the author of the style, while others see him as the inheritor of a mix of different older methods held by the family that he developed as his own practice. Credit for actual public teaching/spread of these two new routines probably goes to his senior students (especially his son, Chen Zhaokui).
  When Chen Zhaokui returned to Chen Village (to assist and then succeed Chen ZhaoPei) to train today's generation of Masters (e.g. the "Four Buddhas") he taught Chen Fake's, unknown (to them) practice methods. Zhu Tian Cai, who was a young man at the time, claims that they all started calling it "xin jia" (new frame) because it was adapted from classic old frame.
  Some of the main differences that 'new' frame has compared to 'old' frame are xiongyao zhedie (chest and waist layered folding), which is the coordinated opening and closing of back and chest along with a type of rippling wave (folding) running vertically up and down the dantian/waist area, connected to twisting of the waist/torso. The stances tend to be more compact in the goal of better mobility for fighting applications, while they still remain quite low. This form tends to emphasize manipulation, seizing and grappling (qin na) and a tight method of spiral winding for both long and shorter range striking.
  Zhu Tian Cai has commented that the xinjia (new frame) emphasises the silk reeling movements to help beginners more easily learn the internal principles in form and to make application more obvious in relation to the Old big frame forms.
  It was also recounted that by the time of the cultural revolution, Chen Village was losing qualified teachers of Taijiquan, and the resident students (who are now the more famous exponents of the style) had not been taught much in the areas of tuishou (push hand) or martial application methods. It was not until the return of Chen Zhaokui that these methods were covered in detail, over a series of visits. What some called "Xinjia", or Chen Zhaokui's form, was explicitly practiced with the purpose of developing tangible and effective martial arts methods and strengths. This is another reason it was said to be exciting for younger students.
  In Chen Village xin jia is traditionally learned only after lao jia. Like lao jia, xin jia consists of two routines, yi lu and er lu (cannon fist). The new frame cannon fist is generally performed faster than the other empty hand forms, at the standardized speed its 83 movements finish in under 15 minutes.!
caption: An older Chen Fake plays the "xin jia" form he introduced to the world
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