When I first met Master Chen a few years ago at a workshop, I had learned some of the basics and choreography so he could begin teaching me. He said ” you do a pretty good ‘ copy ‘, your movements are actually pretty good but you have no Rod inside your body, inside there must be a stick that does not move… “. Saying that the ‘ rod is the gongfu ‘ ( which he later told me) is like saying, it’s not easy to accomplish it. You train very hard according to the principles and methods and gradually the ‘ axis ‘ will begin to bare out.