Tai Chi: philosophy, deadly martial arts or geriatric dance?

Introduction

Everyone, even non martial artists, has probably heard mention of Tai Chi at sometime, but what is it really? Most people think it’s some sort of yoga or slow gymnastics. A lot of older aged citizens in China and countries with strong presence of Chinese immigrants practice Tai Chi in the parks. Some so called masters of Tai Chi challenged, and were publicly defeated by, MMA fighters. Some actual martial arts teachers and even professional fighters train Tai Chi and can actually apply it in a fight. But what really is Tai Chi? In this brief post I’ll try to give as concise and concrete explanation as I can give.

Part 1: Tai chi, tai chi chuan, tajiquan?

First let’s start with the name and what it means. Tai Chi Chuan and Taijiquan, are two different transcriptions of the same three Chinese characters 太极拳, which are pronounced t’ai chi ch’uen. The taiji is a Chinese cosmological concept for the flux of yin and yang, and ‘quan’ means fist. Etymologically, Taijiquan is a fist system based on the dynamic relationship between polarities (Yin and Yang). So, yin and yang are two philosophical concepts and the taijitu is the graphic representation of their interaction. To sum up, the concept of yin embodies the soft, cold, dark, while yang is hard, hot and light and the interaction between them basically makes the universe what it is.

Part 2: A bit of history

The earliest records of the art date from around 400 years ago, in the last years of the Ming dynasty. As with most traditional fighting styles an exact date of founding cannot really be asserted but most historical sources put Chen Wangting (1580-1660) as the founder. Wangting was an officer in the Ming military who combined his military experience with some concepts from traditional Chinese medicine and the teachings of general Qi Jiguang. Some sources indicate that Wangting also knew some Shaolin boxing from the time which had an influence in the system he developed.

Back then the art may have had a number of different names, and appears to have been generically described by outsiders as zhan quan (沾拳, “touch boxing”), Mian Quan (“soft boxing”) or shisan shi (十三式, “thirteen techniques”). The name Tai Chi Chuan doesn’t appear until mid 19th century when a scholar in the imperial court witnessed a demonstration and wrote a poem relating the movements to the taiji,.

The Chen family kept teaching their style of boxing within the village for years before it started to spread elsewhere. The first outsider known who trained the style and then spread it elsewhere was Yang Luchan. He allegedly trained for 18 years before he started to teach. He became so famous for his fighting he earned the nickname Yang Wudi (杨无敌 “Yang the invincible”). That fame earned him a job teaching at the Imperial Court in Beijing. And the style mostly spread from him and his students.

Part 3: Different styles

To talk about every style of Tai Chi Chuan that exists today would require an entire book. There’s five main family styles. Chen, Yang, Wu, Wu/Hao and Sun. Then there’s Li, Fu, Zhaobao, and a lot of others. Suffice it to say there are a lot. But most styles derive from one of the five main families (or a combination of those). 

Yang style

The one most people have seen. It’s the most widespread and thus most styles derive from this style. Yang style has many branches itself, the main ones coming either directly from Yang Luchan or from his sons Yang Banhou and Yang Jianhou who both developed very different training methods. Jianhou’s son Yang Chengfu developed and spread it even further. Although it’s still a martial art, the soft, slow and relaxed way the forms are practiced makes it very popular as a health oriented exercise for the elderly. It’s also the basis for waterbending in the popular cartoon Avatar.

Chen style

This is probably the most known after Yang. It’s most notable characteristic being the combination of slow and soft movements with fast explosive ones. The Chen family have spread it very far nowadays and they tend to emphasize it’s martial aspects as a selling point. Chen style exponents include renowned masters Chen Xiaowang and Zhu Tiancai, and master Chen Ziqiang who’s very famous for his wrestling-like way of training push-hands. Again there are several branches of Chen style and many who studied Yang or another style went on to train Chen style afterwards.

Wu style

Wu family comes from Wu Quanyou and Wu Jianquan, who were father and son and hereditary members of the Manchu cavalry. Quanyou was a student of Yang Luchan and his son Yang Banhou. Wu style training emphasize small circle hand techniques, parallel footwork and horse stance training with the feet relatively closer together than the modern Yang or Chen styles. It is also known for its fast form, an unusual feature in Tai Chi Chuan. Wu Yinghua and Ma Yueliang were arguably the most famous exponents of the style in the 20th century. They taught in the original Shanghai school established by Wu Quanyou.

Wu/Hao style

Wu/Hao style comes from Wu Yuxiang (unrelated to the other Wu family) a wealthy scholar and friend of Yang Luchan who financed his endeavor to study the art. Yang Luchan taught Wu Yuxiang what he had learned and the later eventually went himself to study with the Chen family. By combining and refining ideas from both of his teachers he developed his own style. The style is also called Hao after a very famous student of the Wu family named Hao Weizhen. Wu Yu-xiang’s Tai Chi Chuan is a distinctive style with small, subtle movements; highly focused on balance, sensitivity and internal development. It is a rare style today, especially compared with the other major styles.

Sun style

This style comes from Sun Lutang, arguably one of the most celebrated masters of Chinese martial arts from the late 19th and early 20th centuries. He was already a renowned master of Baguazhang and Xingyi Quan before he studied Wu/Hao style with Hao Weizhen. This is a syncretic martial art. It retains the footwork and small movements from Wu/Hao style while incorporating aspects from both Baguazhang and Xingyi Quan. Sun’s son Sun Cunzhou and daughter Sun Jianyun were renowned teachers. Sun Wanrong, Cunzhou’s second daughter, still teaches in Beijing.

Part 4: Training methodology (or why is it slow?)

Tai Chi Chuan is a martial art. Still many people ask “why are the forms so slow?”, or “what’s with the emphasis on softness and relaxation?” and more often than one might hear “you can’t fight at that speed”. All valid concerns which I will try to answer.

First of all, yes you can’t fight slowly. People who train Tai Chi Chuan as a martial art do train sparring and how to apply the art’s principles. The emphasis on relaxation is one of the main principles. Mainly to try not to oppose force with force. If you feel you can’t overcome your opponent’s force, let it flow and use it against him. If you’re relaxed you can feel better what your opponent is doing and react to it. The slow speed of the forms works towards developing that relaxed state. Relaxed doesn’t mean loose, you still do kicks and pushes and punches but you need to apply strength without tension. Slow and uniform speed help develop that. After you can do it slow, you can do the same but fast.

The other part of training Tai Chi Chuan is doing push hands. Push hands or tui shou (推手) is a sparring excercise to train listening or ting jin (听劲). Not that different from the skills that wrestlers or judo players develop. You learn when to push, when to pull, when to be firm and when to be loose, according to how your opponent moves. The main idea is to throw your opponent off balance. There are many different push hand methods and progressive exercises to train it. Push hands is a stepping stone towards applying Tai Chi Chuan’s principles in combat.

Aside from empty hand training most styles train a set of weapons, straight sword and broadsword are the most common but staff and spear are not rare.

Part 5: Conclusion

In conclusion, Tai Chi Chuan is a martial art that thanks to its training method is good for your health and a slow impact gymnastics good for the elderly. The philosophical concept of Tai Chi was later added to the system. On the one side it enriches the theory. On the other sadly it also adds to the myth and attracts people who focus solely on that. There are legit fighters who train in the art and there’s a lot of frauds.

I hope this brief article helped you understand a bit more about the art, it’s history and training methodology.

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Ezequiel Davidovich Caballero

I'm from Argentina, Spanish is my mother tongue, and English my second language. I've been into martial arts for as long as I can remember. I've been doing Hung Sing Choy Li Fat (aka Choy Lee Fut or Choy Lay Fut, same thing) for almost two decades now with bits of other Chinese styles in it. Hope you like what I write.

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