I recently made a visit to Chenyu’s new Chen Taijiquan school location in Zhuo Zhou, Hebei, about an hour and a half south west of Beijing (without traffic and road construction). Originally Chenyu had basement level school location in a building adjacent to his residence in Liu Jia Yao in Beijing, and then it was moved to an upper level in a different location, but space is at a premium in Beijing and the available space in Hebei is huge and ideal.
Zhuozhou can be reached by train from Beijing west train station, and there is also bus service, if I remember correctly, #838 from Beijing, but one needs to research those details on site. In my case we traveled by car.
At the time we made the trip one of the major highways on the route was undergoing repairs, which made a bit of a traffic snarl at the southern end of the trip. The return trip was a lot faster. The actual distance to Zhuozhou from Beijing is not that far. Without traffic issues I imagine the time required would be about 1.5 hours on the outside by car, maybe 2 hours by bus. The train I was told is a fast train that may make it in less than an hour.
The Zhuozhou location boasts a large sheltered outdoor training space, a large font yard, as well as a large rear yard that will be further developed. Chenyu and family are in residence there and his son Chen Shiwu, and wife, Zhang Yujie assist in teaching as well.
Another convenience is full service lodging for visiting students, including nicely outfitted rooms with decent bathrooms, full meal service, and lodging capability for more than 40 occupants.
This is the large yard to the left upon entry. Further in there are a multitude of animals being raised, some for food (you can see a chicken being readied for dinner in the photo above) and some for fun, including geese, dogs, rabbits and talking birds.
The upstairs lodgings are nice and clean and well arranged. There are single as well as multiple occupancy rooms.
Bathrooms are shared (in most cases as far as I saw, I did not look at everything) and down the hall. The quality level exceeds what you might find in many Beijing small hotels, and definitely above local Hebei level. This is more like what you might find in a middle class Beijing home.
It is not easy to have a gongfu school with this much space and convenience anywhere near Beijing. It is not a long drive and the training opportunity is rare. Any type of travel outside of the big city is also always interesting for those with a spirit of adventure.
Even without such a daring spirit, the lodging and the personal attention such training may afford should be interesting for many Chen Taijiquan gongfu enthusiasts!
At this time I am not exactly sure of the details for pricing for lodging or instruction or class times and other specialized arrangements but may follow up as information becomes available. This is the current contact information for those who want to arrange:
咨询电话：15831521095 思雨老师 咨询QQ群1：33430786 或群2:175958917
