The approach to jin ji du li (金鸡独立 ‘Golden Rooster Stands on one Leg’) is elegant and spare, yet—true to Chen technique—richly underlaid with complexity.

Chen XiaoWang explains the sequence in terms of the counting system which he uses for the single-arm twining silk exercises. The two sides of the body move in differing rhythm through a complete cycle of four stages, numbered 4, 1, 2, 3 and finally again 4. Initially the left side progresses more quickly than the right, and reaches the latter part of the cycle (stages 3 and nearly 4) while the right side, still in stages 1 and 2, elaborates a subtle winding up. Then the right side draws up alongside the left, and together they arrive at a strong final state 4.

That explanation is a simplification. Describing in such terms the multi-directional swirls and eddies that constitute the taiji forms is an occasional teaching methodology. Generally, the movements are too complex for this kind of analysis to be meaningful. Sometimes, however, as in the present example, there are aspects of the twinings which are near enough to the simplified windings of the basic exercises to make it worth counting them through in obvious terms. For the student, such explanations offer glimpses of how the simplified windings of the basic exercises occur fleetingly in the complex movements of the taiji forms, a doorway to the understanding of the subtleties of chansijin. Acquiring 'simplicity' is in any case a lifetime's endeavour. See below a truly skilled master enacting the simplest barest movement between one phase and another.

Here, at left and right, we can see the essentials of that first change which initiates jin ji du li, pared down to the form which it takes in the basic exercises. In these video clips, Master Chen is showing the double-arm exercise, one arm at a time. In the left-hand clip, the right arm moves from stage 4 towards stage 1; in the right-hand clip, the left arm similarly moves from 4 to 1. The beginning of this teaching sequence enacts these very changes!

It needs to be said that these changes do not occur simultaneously in the twining silk exercises, whereas they do occur, approximately together, at the beginning of the cycle that leads through to the final pose of jin ji du li.

The heraldic opening has both arms in full phase 4 (‘qi to fingers’). What follows is one of the toughest changes in the Chen forms, the transference of power from one side of the body to the other, in a markedly wide and deep stance.

In the video clip on the left, Chen XiaoWang emphasizes the initial change in the left side, which marks the beginning of the cycle. He makes clear that the first outward sign of the internal manoeuvre that empowers the movement is in the left hand. He points out that in learning the form, it is important to act out the left side's change from phase 4 to phase 1, even though in this instance, it flips in a snap from 4 to 1. He is insisting on the need to be clear with the left hand's change: qi expressed outwards to fingers winding back along the arm to the the torso's left flank.

See also, however, the video clip above on the right. Here Master Chen is more concerned with showing the way in which the whole body moves together. The body in its entirety expresses the change. He emphasizes how the weight shift from right to left must be controlled, so that the stored power of the right side feeds into the left's emerging force. In moving swiftly, the left side must not detach from the rest of the body, leaving a vulnerable gap behind. An initial impulse deep in the body sets every part aquiver.

Although Master Chen repeatedly points out the turning of the left hand, this is a teaching device; in actuality, it is with his entire body that he is demonstrating what makes the hand turn. After this is understood, there is no need to be so emphatic with the hand. When Chen XiaoWang performs the movement less pedagogically and more flowingly (see examples at left and right), interior impulse and exterior expression mesh seamlessly in a single sweep. While the left side snaps from state 4 to state 1, the right side moves further into state 4 and then, almost invisibly, silkily changes and reaches state 1 (‘qi to waist side’) by a route which it is by no means easy to find. Although the first outward sign of the internal changes is on the left side, with deepening practice it becomes increasingly clear that real power behind the movement initiates on the right side.

Consideration of both the teaching instances and the 'fully in action' clips here make obvious that it is in fact not possible to separate left and right sequentially. To begin with, the student learns that one hand must move before the other; that if that order is reversed, the movement as a whole will not progress effectively; or that if both sides make their changes simultaneously, they can become divorced from one another, depleting collected force. There is clearly a sequential development between the two sides, but what we see happening on left or right originates centrally, the place deep in the body that always remains unified within itself. For left and right to move in such a way that every alteration re-inforces the other side, the unified place within must rotate 3-dimensionally : right side from forward to back and under; left from back, under and through forwards. If the central unit suceeds in turning smoothly along these trajectories, it will affect the two sides of the body in such a way that from the starting point of phase 4 on both sides, left can move into phase 1, and right in its own right moves from 4 to 1. Here in this brief moment, is a test of skill in chansi, twining silk. Never negating the fundamental logic of the exercises, mastery of fundamentals endows the player the power to transform incessantly.

In the next part of the sequence, Chen XiaoWang will show in detail the stages by which the right side becomes increasingly wound up as it moves through states 1 and 2. This will be meaningless, however, unless the winding is correctly initiated, and it is worth looking carefully at the following snapshots of the earlier part of the progression.

The two sides of the body are moving at this point through opposite phases of the Chansigong cycle. While the right side moves through state 1 and approaches 2, the left side moves through state 3 and approaches 4. So far as regards the direction of the winding, the combination is similar to the part of the double-arm twining silk exercises shown in the little video clip on the left.

Once left is in phase 2 and right in phase 1 (first frame), the next challenge is to modulate the speed of changes in the two sides so that the stable relation of phases 1 and 3 will hold the stance firm for the ascent onto the left leg. At this point, we can refer to the logic of the double hand exercise of Chen XiaoWang's : when one side of the body is in phase 1, the other is in phase 3, likewise one side in 2 when the other is in 4.

In the next part of the sequence, the left side of the body reaches state 3, while the right side approaches state 2.

On the right, the whole of the last part of the movement...