Chen Style Sanshou (Fast Form) Workshop
Weekend workshop — 2 days, 12 hours total — available worldwide for hosting
I wish I had learned this form a half-century ago when I first started practicing martial arts. If I had, I believe my progress, understanding, and skill would be much further along than it is today.
That is not a casual statement. I have been practicing tai chi every day since 1969. I trained privately with Grandmaster Wang Xi’an for ten years at Chen Family Village in China — five hours daily, one on one. I have practiced and taught on five continents. And I am telling you that Sanshou changed something fundamental in my understanding of this art.
If you are a serious martial artist, a Chen style practitioner, or a teacher looking for something you cannot find anywhere else in the United States, read this carefully.
What Sanshou Is
Sanshou is a 48-movement solo fighting form created by Grandmaster Wang Xi’an himself. It did not exist before him. He synthesized it from a lifetime of mastery — combining his knowledge of basic training, the Chen style solo forms, and decades of partner training into a single concentrated sequence designed to develop one thing above all others: the fighting spirit.
This is not slow tai chi. Other styles have their own fast forms — the Dong family fast form being the most well known — but Sanshou is Chen style’s answer, and the difference in explosive power, precision, and internal integration is immediately apparent to anyone who has seen both. Sanshou is performed with explosive power, rapid footwork, and full martial intention from the first movement to the last. Every posture is a real self-defense application. Every transition is designed to flow directly into the next attack or defense without hesitation.
Grandmaster Wang created this form because Laojia Yilu, the standard Chen style first routine, does not by itself develop the fighting spirit. Laojia is yin dominant — soft on the outside, internal power cultivated gradually through years of slow, detailed practice. Sanshou is the complement, the yang dominant counterpart. Hard on the outside, still with softness inside, but the emphasis is completely reversed.
In Laojia, you could say the emphasis is on yin with a touch of yang. Softness on the outside with a touch of hardness inside. Complete calm on the surface, like water boiling underneath. In Sanshou it is the exact opposite. You express full intention and power while maintaining calm inside. The bomb is on the outside now.
Where It Comes From
I learned Sanshou during my ten years of private training with Grandmaster Wang at Chen Village. By the time he taught it to me, I had already learned Laojia Yilu and Erlu, sword, broadsword, and had been training the standard curriculum intensively for years.
All of my training with Grandmaster Wang was done privately, one on one, five hours daily. He taught me according to my abilities and adjusted continuously as my skill developed. I was a perfectionist about form. I studied every tiny detail using all of my senses — watching him, sensing what was happening inside the movement, feeling when something was right and when it was not.
At a certain point he decided Sanshou (his fast form) was what I needed. I had developed well in the slow work. He felt I needed training specifically for explosive power and speed. That is when Sanshou entered my practice.
As far as I know, I am the only person in the United States authorized by Grandmaster Wang to teach his Sanshou form. I have not personally seen or heard of anyone else teaching it here.
What It Feels Like to Practice
Sanshou means fighting. From the moment you begin the form, you are in the center of an actual attack and must protect your life. This is not visualization as an add-on to the practice. It is the essence of the practice from the first movement.
Practicing Sanshou feels like you are engaged in an actual fight. Every posture, movement, transition, and detail of the form is designed to produce the feeling that you are under attack and dealing with it directly in the moment. Whether you are practicing slowly to learn the movements or at full speed, that fighting spirit is present throughout.
When I first began practicing Sanshou fast, I was surprised at how much tension I was storing. Moving quickly makes it impossible to hide tension the way slow practice sometimes allows. In Laojia, between movements, there is time to let go, to soften, to reset. In Sanshou — Chen style’s fast form — that time does not exist. You must learn to express explosive power continuously and release tension immediately after each Fajin, without hesitation, flowing directly into the next movement.
The best way I can describe a correct Fajin in Sanshou: every explosive movement feels like the whole body is exploding outward from the center in all directions simultaneously. Like a bomb detonating. Although your strike is focused in one direction, the entire body feels the explosion — rapid expansion in every direction at once. This is what Grandmaster Wang designed it to produce.
It is extremely physically demanding. The heart rate increases significantly. Muscles respond quickly and with more force than in slow practice. The sympathetic nervous system activates — the fight or flight response is real, not simulated. And simultaneously, the mind must maintain balance and control throughout. That combination — full physical intensity with a calm mind — is what Sanshou trains specifically.
The form itself is a work of genius in its construction. Each movement grows naturally out of the one preceding it. There is nothing arbitrary about the sequence. The entire form flows like one long string of explosive power generation, with the movements connected in a way that is both powerful and dynamic while maintaining the fighting spirit from beginning to end.
Why Wang Xi’an Created It
Grandmaster Wang wanted to reproduce in the practitioner the fighting spirit — the absolute mental focus that happens under the pressure of a real life-threatening situation. Not simulated pressure, but the real internal state that emerges when survival is at stake.
He understood from experience that the mental focus required in a genuine self-defense situation is paramount. It is different from anything produced by slow practice alone. And he wanted a training method that developed this quality from the very beginning of practice, not as something that emerged gradually after years of slow form work.
Sanshou achieves this because it reproduces the fight state from the first movement. As soon as you begin the form, you are in it. There is no warm-up period, no gradual entry. The practitioner trains the fighting spirit directly, from day one.
Who Can Learn Sanshou
The beauty of Sanshou is that anyone can learn it regardless of prior experience with tai chi or other martial arts. The movements are direct and purposeful. Their meaning is immediately clear — this is fighting, not abstraction.
That said, the workshop is most valuable for:
Serious martial artists who want to understand the combat root of internal martial arts. Chen style practitioners who have a foundation in Laojia Yilu and want to develop the complementary yang training. Martial arts teachers looking to offer their students something that exists nowhere else in the United States. Practitioners of any system who want direct exposure to authentic Fajin training under a lineage holder.
The nervous system gets a complete recalibration in Sanshou training. Nerves fire at a faster rate. The whole body must coordinate into one seamless connected movement while reducing the tension associated with genuine self-defense preparation. This takes time and practice. The workshop introduces the form, develops the spirit, and gives you the foundation to continue.
The Weekend Workshop
Sanshou (Chen style fast form) is offered as a weekend workshop — two full days with approximately 12 hours of training total.
The workshop covers the complete 48-movement form with detailed breakdown of each posture. Emphasis is on footwork, hand forms, and how to coordinate the whole body as one piece to generate Fajin. Every movement is demonstrated and explained. Hands-on correction is provided throughout. Partner work develops the application of each movement for real self-defense.
You will leave with the complete form, an understanding of its principles, and a training practice you can develop independently.
To host this workshop at your school or organization, or to attend an upcoming event, contact me directly.
Bring this workshop to your school or organization
Available worldwide for martial arts schools and Tai Chi schools. Contact Dr. Bob Bacher to discuss hosting.
For the complete range of workshops I offer, see the Workshops page.
Frequently Asked Questions About Sanshou
Do I need prior tai chi experience to attend the Sanshou workshop?
No prior tai chi experience is required. The movements are direct and martial in nature, and their purpose is immediately clear to anyone with a martial arts background. That said, practitioners with a foundation in Chen style Laojia will find that Sanshou deepens their understanding of everything they have already learned. It is the yang complement to Laojia’s yin foundation.
How is Sanshou different from push hands training?
Push hands develops sensitivity, listening skill, and the ability to neutralize and redirect force in close contact with a partner. Sanshou develops explosive power, speed, and fighting spirit through solo form practice. They train different but complementary qualities. A complete martial arts practitioner benefits from both. Sanshou specifically addresses what push hands alone does not — the direct expression of Fajin at full speed in a realistic fighting context.
Is this the same Sanshou practiced in competitive fighting sports?
No. The term Sanshou is used in Chinese martial arts to refer to various things, including a competitive full-contact fighting sport. Grandmaster Wang Xi’an’s Sanshou is a specific 48-movement solo routine he created as a synthesis of his lifetime of Chen style mastery. It is not a competitive sport format. It is a training form for developing the fighting spirit and explosive power of authentic Chen style tai chi.
Where else can I learn Wang Xi’an’s Sanshou form in the United States?
As far as I know, nowhere. I have not personally seen or heard of any other instructor in the United States who is authorized by Grandmaster Wang to teach this specific form. That is not a marketing claim — it is simply the reality of how rarely this material has been transmitted outside Chen Village. If you want to learn it in the US, this workshop is currently your only option.