The video clip here begins at the moment I come to the end of the backward stepping, about to continue into the section of XinJia that links these steps to "White Goose Shimmers its Wings". In LaoJia, the link is brief, the sparseness certainly requiring subtlety of technique; how more so, in the elaborate windings of this section in XinJia.

Looking at the clip casually, it appears to be a fair rendering of a difficult passage in XinJia; I have worked hard to get this far! Still, there are unsatisfactory details, like the right arm, for example. At several moments, it betrays a stiffness, an interruption of flow along the arm, the shoulder tight and the connection from it to right hip not firm enough. Whenever I have viewed frame by frame a clip of Chen XiaoWang taken in recent years, I have rarely, and perhaps never, caught him in a compromised position; he twists and turns, but always within the frame set up between the shoulders, between the hips, and each shoulder to each hip. The connections are dynamic, reinforced by the diagonal tautness from each shoulder to the opposite hip.

Looking closely, I see me at good and bad junctions in this section of XinJia. Good – the entry into Middle Winding, at least it is not bad. I am pleased to see this section played out decently, with a good dynamic, through to the rise up on left leg, with the close-range fajin through both hands. However, before this fajin on one leg, the part where the right elbow jabs behind as the right foot sharply steps back: examined closely, the right upper arm does not give fullness to the elbow. Looking past the arm to the posture itself, I find it a little collapsed, the feeling is too inward. Let’s examine this carefully ~

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27th July 2012 : When the Redstarts were mating again, nights in the valley were aglow with fireflies. The chicks fledged on 24th, there are at least two, for I saw them yesterday making little short flights from persimmon to walnut, from willow to field maple. Parents after initial fuss let me stay near the chicks. The fireflies have gone but there are still some glow-worms in the black bamboos.

From XinJia, I was led back to chansigong, and from chansigong back to zhanzhuang. Arms in zhanzhuang—the places where they are kinked, the way they are kinked—show up in chansigong. Kinks in the arms, and the lack of proper twining in the legs shifting weight during the chansi exercises, are played out in the form.

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