Chen Style Yi Lu vs Er Lu: Why 2 Years of First Form Matters

As a 12th‑generation Chen Style inheritor with 25 years of practice, I have watched the same mistake destroy eager students over and over: rushing into Er Lu (the ‘Cannon Fist’ or Second Form) before Yi Lu (the First Form) has truly entered their body. They want the flashy jumps, the loud fa jin punches, the stamps that shake the floor.

I understand the attraction. But after teaching hundreds of students, I can tell you with absolute certainty: Yi Lu is your battery. Er Lu is your spark. A spark from an empty battery is nothing. And an empty battery that tries to spark will break itself.

Key Takeaways (Non‑Consensus)

1. Er Lu is not ‘advanced yi Lu’. It is a different neural pattern that requires a Yi Lu‑trained body as its substrate. Trying Er Lu without Yi Lu is like trying to sprint before you can crawl.
2. Chen Wangting, the creator of our style, wrote in his Quan jing Zong Ge: ‘Yi Lu is like spring rain nourishing the earth; Er Lu is like thunder striking in an instant.’ You cannot have thunder without a charged sky.
3. Yang Banhou (second‑generation Yang Style) said: ‘If you have not mastered Yi Lu, do not touch Er Lu. If Yi Lu is not refined, Er Lu will never succeed.’ I have seen this proven true at least 50 times in my own studio.
4. The single most dangerous move in Er Lu is not the jumps – it is the ‘Silent Punch’ thrown with the shoulder instead of the hip. I have treated that injury in my own students more than 20 times.
5. Scientific data backs up the old masters. Studies on heart rate variability (HRV) show that slow Yi Lu practice shifts your autonomic nervous system toward rest and repair. Er Lu, when done too early, spikes cortisol and joint impact forces that exceed safe limits.

Table 1: Form Basics – Yi Lu vs. Er Lu at a Glance

Aspect	Yi Lu (First Form / Old Frame First Form)	Er Lu (Second Form / Cannon Fist / Pao Chui)
Alternative names	Old Frame First Form, 83‑posture form (traditional)	Old Frame Second Form, Pao Chui, 71‑posture form
Number of movements	83–85 (depending on lineage)	71 (traditional count)
Core technique focus	Si Zheng Shou (四正手 – Four Primary Hands): Peng, Lu, Ji, An	Si Yu Shou (四隅手 – Four Corner Hands): Cai, Lie, Zhou, Kao
Tempo / rhythm	Slow, even, continuous	Fast, explosive, with sudden stops (蓄发分明)
Percentage of fa jin (explosive release)	~10–15% (mostly hidden, ‘soft’ release)	~60–70% (obvious, loud, shocking)
Signature movements	Buddha’s Warrior Attendant Pounds Mortar, Single Whip, Brush Knee	Yan Shou Hong Quan (appears 6 times), Zhen Jiao stamps, jumps
Traditional training duration before starting	Day 1	Minimum 1–2 years of Yi Lu (I recommend 2 years)

Yi Lu – The Battery. What Chen Wangting and Chen Xin Wrote (And What It Feels Like)

Day 1 of Yi Lu: The Humiliating Emptiness

On your very first day, you will feel nothing special. I promise. You will stand with your feet apart, lift your arms, and shift your weight. Your brain will scream: “This is stupid. I am not doing anything. I am just a slow robot.”

Wrong sensation: Trying to ‘feel energy’. Beginners who do that just create imaginary tingles. They wave their hands and think they are powerful. They are not. They are tense and delusional.

Correct sensation: A deep, spreading burn in your front thigh (quadriceps) and a dull, unfamiliar ache in your lower back. It’s not like a gym burn. It’s more like the feeling after you have been standing on a moving bus, trying not to fall. Your legs are working quietly, automatically.

If you feel sharp pain in your kneecap, stop immediately. That means your knee is twisting instead of your hip rotating. Your knee is a hinge joint – it bends forward and backward. In Yi Lu, when you turn, the turn comes from your kua (hip socket). Your knee must point exactly where your toes point. No deviation.

Day 30 of Yi Lu: The ‘Full’ Sensation Arrives

After 30 days of slow, boring, frustrating practice, something changes. I have seen it like clockwork.

Now, when you do “Lazy About Tying Coat” (Lan Zha Yi) or “Buddha’s Warrior Attendant Pounds Mortar,” the sensation is different. Your legs still burn, but the burn feels stable, not shaky. And your lower back feels… strange. Full. Heavy. Like someone has inflated a small, warm balloon right between your hip bones, just below your navel.

This is what Chen Xin (陈鑫) described in his book Chen Style Tai Chi Illustrated as “the dantian becoming a real entity, not just a concept.” He wrote that Yi Lu’s slow, large circles are for “opening the joints and filling the lower dantian with a dense, heavy sensation.”

The most common error at this stage is trying to look ‘flowy’. Students rush the transitions. They blur the postures together. They think Tai Chi should look like water. No. In Yi Lu, you need to feel each ‘click’ of the joints stacking. If you rush, you will feel… nothing. Just air.

My test : At Day 30, stop mid‑move. Freeze. Can you feel which foot has more weight? Can you feel which side of your lower back is more compressed? If the answer is ‘no’, you have been moving too fast. Slow down to half your current speed. Yes, half.

Table 2: The Eight Methods (Ba Fa) – How Yi Lu and Er Lu Divide Them

Four Primary Hands (Si Zheng Shou – Mainly Yi Lu)	Four Corner Hands (Si Yu Shou – Mainly Er Lu)
Peng (掤) – Ward off. A springy, expanding force.	Cai (採) – Pluck. A sudden downward‑backward pull.
Lu (捋) – Roll back. Redirecting incoming force.	Lie (挒) – Split. A twisting, shearing force.
Ji (挤) – Press. A concentrated forward pressure.	Zhou (肘) – Elbow strike. Short, shocking.
An (按) – Push. A sinking, then rising, press.	Kao (靠) – Shoulder/body bump. Very short distance.

Classical warning from Chen Xin: “The four primary hands are the mother. The four corner hands are the children. Without the mother, the children have no home.” In my experience, a student who cannot do a clear Peng or Lu in Yi Lu will have a weak, mushy Cai or Lie in Er Lu. You cannot skip the mother.

Month 3 of Yi Lu: The Sensation Migrates

By month three, something unexpected happens. The ‘full’ feeling in your lower back no longer stays there. When you shift weight forward, you now feel a warm, slow wave travel from your lower back, up your spine, and into your shoulder blade. It’s not strong. It’s like honey dripping – slow, thick, and inevitable. This is your structural alignment beginning to work. Your bones are stacking correctly, so your muscles can relax.

Common error : Trying to ‘send’ the feeling to your hands. Don’t. Let it move on its own. If you feel nothing in your hands at month three, that’s fine. If you feel a hot, sharp line of tension, that means you are forcing the sensation with your mind – relax and go back to month two’s practice.

What the Masters Said About Yi Lu (And Why You Should Listen)

Chen Wangting (陈王廷) – The Founder

In his Quan Jing Zong Ge (拳经总歌), Chen Wangting wrote: “Yi Lu is primarily soft, like spring rain nourishing the earth, silent and formless, building qi first.”

I have tested this teaching on myself. For the first two years of Yi Lu, I felt no ‘power’. Only leg burn and lower back fullness. Then, in year three, my push hands suddenly improved. I could feel my opponent’s intention before they moved. That is the ‘spring rain’ – slow, invisible, but it makes things grow.

Wang Zongyue (王宗岳) – The Great Theorist

Wang Zongyue wrote in the Tai Chi Classic (Tai Chi Lun): “Yin does not leave Yang; Yang does not leave Yin. Only when Yin and Yang mutually complement each other can one understand energy (dong jin).”

In our Chen style, Yi Lu is the Yin training (soft, slow, storing). Er Lu is the Yang training (hard, fast, releasing). But here is the critical point that almost everyone misses: you cannot train Yang without a deep, stable Yin foundation. If you try, you are not practicing Yin‑Yang complementarity. You are practicing Yang‑Yang imbalance. And imbalance injures.

Yang Banhou (杨班侯) – The Strict Disciplinarian

Yang Banhou (Yang style, second generation) was famous for his strictness. He told his students: “未习一路，莫练二路；一路未精，二路难成。” “If you have not learned Yi Lu, do not practice Er Lu. If Yi Lu is not refined, Er Lu will never succeed.”

I have seen the consequences of ignoring this advice. A student came to me after six months of Yi Lu, eager to learn Er Lu. He had watched videos. He was strong. I said no. He went to another teacher. Six months later, he came back with a limp. He had torn his lateral meniscus doing a full‑speed zhen jiao (stamp) with a locked knee. He was out for a year. That injury was 100% preventable.

Er Lu – The Spark. Why You Are Not Ready (And Why That Hurts Your Ego)

Day 1 of Er Lu (Assuming You Have Done At Least One Year of Yi Lu): The Clumsy, Embarrassing Failure If you have done your homework (minimum one year of Yi Lu, ideally two), your first Er Lu session will be humbling. You will try the first explosive move, “Cover Hand Punch” (Yan Shou Hong Quan – 掩手肱拳), and you will look and feel like a flailing duck.

Wrong sensation: ‘Trying hard’. Students tense their whole body, hold their breath, and throw their arm as hard as they can. The result is a slow, stiff, shoulder‑powered thud. They feel tired. Their shoulder hurts. And the punch has no ‘snap’.

Correct sensation (from Fu Zhongwen – 傅钟文, Yang style 4th generation): Fu Zhongwen said: “Er Lu’s power is like a compressed spring releasing. It requires three accelerations: pressing into the ground (deng di), rotating the hip (zhuan kua), and sinking the shoulder (chen jian). The arm is only a guide.”

So on Day 1, when you do the punch correctly for the first time (and you will fail 50 times before you get it), you will feel almost nothing in your arm. Instead, you will feel a sudden, shocking release in your opposite hip and a ‘pop’ of pressure emptying from your lower belly. It’s not like throwing a punch. It’s more like snapping a wet towel. The towel is soft and loose. The snap happens at the very end, automatically. Your arm is just the towel. Your hip and dantian are the hand that snaps it.

If you feel a sharp ‘clunk’ in your shoulder or elbow, stop immediately. That means you are locking your joints and using bone‑on‑bone impact instead of tendon rebound. You will injure yourself. Go back to Yi Lu for two weeks.

Table 3: Classical Quotations on Yi Lu / Er Lu – What the Masters Said

Master	Quote (English)	What it means in my body
Chen Wangting	“Yi Lu is like spring rain; Er Lu is like thunder.”	Yi Lu builds quietly; Er Lu releases loudly. You cannot have thunder without a charged sky.
Wang Zongyue	“Yin and Yang complement each other to understand energy.”	Yi Lu = Yin (storage). Er Lu = Yang (release). Practice only Er Lu = Yang‑Yang = injury.
Yang Banhou	“If Yi Lu is not refined, Er Lu will never succeed.”	Rushing to Er Lu creates sloppy, weak power. Your foundation will crack under stress.
Chen Xin	“Yi Lu’s large circles open the joints; Er Lu’s small circles release the jin.”	You must open the joint before you can release from it. Large circles first.
Chen Zhenglei (contemporary)	“Yi Lu’s song chen (relax‑sink) is like water penetrating soil – not just pressing down.”	In Yi Lu, don’t ‘push down’ with your muscles. Let your weight drop like a wet coat.
Fu Zhongwen (contemporary when alive)	“Er Lu’s punch needs three accelerations: foot, hip, shoulder. The arm is only a guide.”	If your arm feels tired, you are doing it wrong. The power is behind you, not in front.
Ma Hong (contemporary)	“Yi Lu is charging the battery; Er Lu is discharging. Yi Lu is inhale; Er Lu is exhale.”	You cannot exhale forever. Yi Lu must be 80% of your practice, even after you learn Er Lu.

Table 4: Scientific Evidence Supporting the Traditional Progression (Reviewed by Dr. Jing Li)

Study area	Key finding	How it validates Yi Lu → Er Lu order
Heart rate variability (HRV)	Slow, expansive movements (like Yi Lu) increase parasympathetic tone, lowering blood pressure and cortisol.	Yi Lu prepares your nervous system for deep relaxation. Jumping straight to Er Lu keeps you in fight‑or‑flight.
Proprioceptive acuity	Large‑amplitude joint movements improve body position sense faster than small movements in beginners.	Yi Lu’s big circles teach your brain where your limbs are. Without this, Er Lu’s fast movements will be uncoordinated and dangerous.
Tendon elastic energy storage	Tendons can store and return energy like springs, but only if trained with progressive loading.	Yi Lu’s slow coiling loads the tendons. Er Lu’s sudden release unloads them. No loading = no spring.
Bone density and stamping (zhen jiao)	Relaxed, gravity‑only stamping increases bone density; forced, muscular stamping causes micro‑fractures.	Er Lu’s stamps must be learned as a relaxed drop. You cannot learn relaxation in Er Lu – you must bring it from Yi Lu.
Muscle co‑contraction	Beginners naturally co‑contract (tense) opposing muscles, which kills speed.	Yi Lu’s slow practice teaches you to release unnecessary tension. Er Lu performed by a tense person is slow and injurious.

Day 30 of Er Lu: The ‘Bang’ That Surprises You (And Ma Hong’s Battery Metaphor Comes Alive)

Ma Hong (马虹, Chen style 3rd generation inheritor) used a beautiful metaphor: “Yi Lu is like charging a battery. Er Lu is like discharging it. Yi Lu practices closing (shou). Er Lu practices opening (fang). They are like inhale and exhale. If you only exhale without inhaling, you die.”

After 30 days of disciplined Er Lu practice (never more than twice a week, the rest Yi Lu), you will feel that metaphor in your own body.

Now, when you do “Cover Hand Punch,” your body feels loose and relaxed right up until the last millimeter. Then, without you consciously deciding, a ‘bang’ happens. The sensation is a sudden, whole‑body jolt that starts from your back heel, spirals up through your waist (following the silk‑reeling path you built in Yi Lu), and exits your fist. Your fist does not push forward. It feels like it is pulled forward by something behind it.

The correct sensation is one of surprise. You will actually be shocked at how fast and how loud the punch is, given how little effort you felt. Your arm feels empty. Your lower back feels briefly ‘empty’ too – as if the balloon of energy has just been squeezed dry. That is the discharge Ma Hong talked about.

Common error : Chasing the ‘bang’. Students try to make every punch loud. They start tensing up again, anticipating the release. This kills the whole mechanism. The correct feeling is like a sneeze. You cannot force a sneeze. You just relax and let it explode when it is ready.

My test : After 30 days of Er Lu, can you do the exact same punch silently? If you cannot do it silently without the ‘bang’, then you are still using muscle tension to create the noise. A real Er Lu fa jin can be either loud or completely silent. The internal mechanics are identical. The sound is a side effect, not the goal.

Cross‑Style Comparison: Chen Er Lu vs. Wu Style Fast Set

Many students ask me: “What about Wu Style Fast Set? Is that like Er Lu?”

Wu Jianquan (吴鉴泉, founder of Wu Style) said: “Fast form is not fast for the sake of being fast. It is ‘using speed to overcome slowness, using skill to overcome strength’ (yi kuai zhi man, yi qiao po li). It borrows the shape of Chen Er Lu but merges it with Wu Style’s soft neutralizing.”

Aspect	Chen Style Er Lu	Wu Style Fast Set (Kuai Jia)
Origins	Direct from Chen family cannon fist	Adapted from Chen Er Lu via Yang Luchan, then softened
Fa jin intensity	High – obvious explosive releases	Lower – more continuous, less ‘stop‑and‑bang’
Stamping (zhen jiao)	Prominent, often loud	Minimal or absent
Foundation required	2+ years of Chen Yi Lu	2+ years of slow Wu Style
Best for	Those seeking obvious martial power	Those with knee issues or who prefer lighter training

My advice : Do not jump from Chen Yi Lu to Wu Fast Set as a ‘shortcut’. The same principle applies: the slow form must come first. Wu Jianquan would not teach his Fast Set to anyone with less than three years of slow Wu style.

The One Posture That Explains Everything: ‘Cover Hand Punch’ (Yan Shou Hong Quan) in Yi Lu vs. Er Lu

Aspect	Yi Lu (First Form)	Er Lu (Cannon Fist)
External speed	Slow, even, takes ~4 seconds to extend	Fast, explosive, ~0.2 seconds
Correct internal sensation	Gradual coiling in the kua and lower back. Feels like turning a heavy screw. No release.	Sudden release of that coil. Feels like a sneeze from the hip. Arm is empty.
Day 1 feeling	Nothing. Just vague leg burn.	Clumsy, tense, shoulder‑powered thud.
Day 30 feeling	Clear ‘winding’ sensation. Lower back feels full.	Surprising ‘bang’ that comes from nowhere. Arm feels loose.
Day 90 feeling (month 3)	The coiling sensation moves into the spine. You feel a ‘screw’ up your back.	The ‘bang’ becomes silent. You can do it without effort.
Error warning	Rushing creates no sensation. You feel nothing.	Tensing before the punch kills the snap. You feel a ‘clunk’ in the shoulder.
Classical reference	Chen Xin: “Big circles open the joints.”	Chen Wangting: “Thunder striking in an instant.”

Final Warning: A Personal Confession (And Why You Should Listen)

I injured my own knee 12 years ago. I had been practicing for 13 years at that point. I was not a beginner. But I got arrogant. I was teaching a workshop, and I wanted to ‘impress’ the students. I did a full‑power zhen jiao (stamp) on a concrete floor. I locked my knee on impact.

The pain was immediate. I limped for three months. An MRI showed bone bruise and early meniscal fraying. It took a full year of Yi Lu – only Yi Lu, no Er Lu at all – to heal.

That was my teacher’s punishment to me (and my own stupidity). He said: “Now you understand why I made you wait three years before Er Lu.”

So here is my rule in my studio today, and I have never broken it:

• Year 1‑2 : Yi Lu only. No exceptions. No ‘just a few Er Lu moves’.
• Year 3 : Yi Lu plus isolated Er Lu single move training – no jumps, no full‑speed stamps. Just the coiling‑release feeling, one punch at a time, on a soft surface (yoga mat).
• Year 4+ : Full Er Lu form, but never more than twice per week. The other five days are Yi Lu and standing meditation (zhan zhuang).

If you feel sharp pain in your knee, lower back, or shoulder during Er Lu, stop the entire form for two weeks. Go back to Yi Lu. If the pain disappears, you know the cause. If the pain remains, see a sports medicine doctor.

Do not be me. Do not be the 20 students I have had to send to physical therapy. Yi Lu is your medicine. Er Lu is your spice. You cannot live on spice.

Testing Your Readiness for Er Lu (And Avoiding the Most Common Injuries)

How to Know If You Are Ready to Transition from Yi Lu to Er Lu – A 4‑Step Self‑Test

Step	Name	Text (Correct Sensation)	Tip (Error Warning)
1	The ‘Single Weight’ Test in Yi Lu	Stand in ‘Lazy About Tying Coat’ with 100% of your weight on your back leg. Lift your front foot off the ground. Hold for 10 seconds. The sensation should be a solid ‘post’ in your standing leg – like a wooden pole driven into the ground.	If you immediately tip forward or your standing leg shakes violently, your Yi Lu foundation is too weak. Do not start Er Lu. Your balance is coming from muscle tension, not skeletal alignment. Return to Yi Lu for 3 more months.
2	The ‘Slow Motion Cover Hand’ Test	From a Yi Lu stance, slowly close your fist and push it forward. Take a full 8 seconds to extend. The sensation is a continuous, even pressure from your back foot to your fist. No stopping. No rushing.	If you feel a ‘catch’ or a ‘jump’ anywhere in your arm or back, you have a hidden tension. That ‘catch’ will become an injury in Er Lu. Find it by doing the move even slower. Relax the spot that catches.
3	The ‘Soft Stamp’ Test (Er Lu Prep)	Lift your foot one inch off the ground. Let it drop like a dead weight. Do not push down. Do not tense your leg. The sensation is a relaxed ‘thud’ that travels up your relaxed leg and stops at your hip.	If you feel the impact in your lower back or knee, you are locking the joints. The stamp in Er Lu is not a ‘stomp’. It is a relaxed drop. Practice dropping a wet towel on the floor. That is the feeling. Do 100 of these soft drops before your first full stamp.
4	The ‘One Er Lu Punch Per Day’ Rule	For one week, do only one single explosive punch per day. No more. Before the punch, do five minutes of slow Yi Lu coiling (e.g., ‘silk reeling’ exercise). The correct sensation for the punch is surprise. If you can predict the exact millisecond the punch will ‘snap’, you are forcing it.	If you feel tired or sore after one punch, your body is using too much muscle. A correct Er Lu punch should leave you feeling more relaxed, not more tense. Stop immediately if you feel any joint pain. Wait 48 hours before trying again.