Understanding "Tai Chi" - The History of Taijiquan

The Taiji philosophy is very old. During the Yin Dynasty (1200 BC), taiji theories were used to create the Chinese calendar. In the Zhou Dynasty (696 BC), acupuncture was invented and taiji philosophy was applied to cure illness and maintain health.

In the Tang Dynasty (618-905 AD) there was a martial art known as Sanshiqi which means 37 movements (Xu XuanPing, 701-762). It was a single posture practice: there was no standard sequence as in today's tai chi. But after completing the study of all the postures, they were automatically put together as a continuous movement according to the taiji principle (the style was also called LongQuan: continuous form). Consequently, this must have been an early form of taijiquan: fighting based on the taiji philosophy.

During the Yuan Dynasty (1279-1368), Northern China was controlled by Mongolia. Temples didn't have to pay taxes and were free of military duty in the Mongolian army. For that reason, many young men became monks and lived in temples. The Chinese were weak: they had no weapons or horses and were afraid of the Mongols because they were very cruel. Southern China was only controlled by a minority of Mongols so it was possible to study military techniques in the temples. There was a high interest in the Taiji philosophy to find out how to fight the Mongols: how can the weak defeat the strong?

In these turbulent times in history lived a daoist monk called Zhangsanfeng. He is believed to have created taijiquan. One theory says that he created taijiquan in his dreams. According to another story, one day Zhangsanfeng was watching a fight between a bird and a snake and witnessed that softness could overcome firmness. A third version goes that Zhangsanfeng was watching monks boxing on the Wudang mountain. They used too much force and lacked balance. He thought they would be more efficient if yin and yang were more in balance inside the body and thus created taijiquan.

During the collapse of the Ming Dynasty in 1644, there was an army officer Chen Wangting who returned to his birthplace and started teaching taijiquan, amongst others a routine that consisted of 108 movements. Chen-style taijiquan was born. It was kept secret and rarely shown to people outside the family.
Chenchangxin (1771-1853) made an exception to this rule. A man called Yangluchan (1799-1872) was very interested in boxing. An old boxer who saw that Yangluchan was very talented, sent him to the Chens. Since they only taught family members, he was refused as a student but Yangluchan stayed to work on the farm. At night, he would spy on the teacher and his students until he was caught one day. Master Chen made Yangluchan fight one of his best students and Yangluchan was able to beat him. Chen thought this was so remarkable that he decided to teach Yangluchan everything he knew.

Yangluchan later returned to his birthplace where he started teaching taijiquan. He had many students and was very strong. He liked contests and never lost one! He was the most famous empty force master in history.

The Manchurians who established the Ching Dynasty in 1644, heard of Yangluchan and drafted him into royal service[1]. Unwilling to teach the Manchus – native Chinese still regarded them as barbarians – Yang only taught them a kind of slow-moving form without any philosophy or mental exercise! Yangluchan knew that if the emperor would find out about his modifications, he and his family would be murdered. He couldn't trust anyone and for that reason, he only taught the real tai chi to his sons[2].

YangLuchan had 3 sons: the first one died as a child, the second one was YangYu (1837-1892) and the third one Yangjian (1839-1917). YangYu took over from his father and was very good. Yangjian didn’t really like the hard training. He had many students and taught large, medium and small stance. He reached a high level. His opponents were caught in a passive position : they could not approach him!

Yangjian too had 3 sons: Zhaoxiong, a second one who died young, and Zhaoqing.
YangZhaoxiong (1862-1930) had a strong character. He liked to attack and was an aggressive teacher and as a result, he had only a few students. He mastered ‘spiritual force’, also called ling kong jin or empty force.
YangZhaoqing (1883-1936) was also named YangChengfu. It is under this name that he became very famous. He started promoting taijiquan as a health technique. The true reason was that he lost fights (he was an alcohol addict). Yangchengfu said that every student should have at least one student. Because of this, Yang-style taijiquan became very popular and spread widely.
Even though Yangchengfu didn't grow old, taijiquan is good for health: his students became old!

Prof. Yao HuanZi (1903-1962) was another empty force master. He studied YangLuchan's style of taijiquan under Tong Yingjie. After that, he studied Tibetan esoteric practices and learned some secret techniques. He combined this knowledge with taijiquan and became an empty force master. Professor Yao used his strong external forces to heal patients .

Prof. Yao had several students in Shanghai, one of them was Dr. Shen Hongxun (1939-present) who moved to Belgium in 1987. Dr. Shen studied with some other teachers like Tian Zhaolin and YuJifu, but he was so lucky as to have studied with Xia Zixin who taught Nanpai taijiquan [3]. Characteristic of this style of tai chi is the focus on 37 standing postures. Practicing Nanpai taijiquan leads to the development of spontaneous movement which – when controlled – allows you to develop other specific taiji-jin or forces which can be used for fighting as well as healing. Dr. Shen has been teaching 'Taiji 37' for several years. He noticed that the development of taiji forces has strong health benefits for the practitioner.

Roel Strzeminski, Spiritual Healer/Teacher and Qigong Instructor, studied Taiji 37 with Dr. Shen Hongxun, Taijiquan Tiantan Style (Mountain of Heaven style) with his daughter Shenjin and San Shou (free style tai chi partner form) with his son ZhengYu.

Bibliography:
The Dao of Taijiquan, Jou Tsung Hwa
Empty Force, Paul Dong
T'ai Chi Classics, Waysun Liao
Basics of TCM, Shen Ziyin & Chen Zelin
Yang Family Secret Transmissions, Douglas Wile

[1] Teaching for the royal family was one of the reasons why the Yang style became so well-known.
[2] When the revolution of 1911 ended the ruling Ching Dynasty, the noble families scattered all over the country, and so did their tai chi. Many of them became tai chi teachers, saying they had been taught by Masters of the Yang family.
[3] Nanpai Taijiquan is "Southern School" Taijiquan. This was the only school who taught tai chi in the form of standing postures and has ceased to exist since WW II.