The Internal Arts of China The ‘Internal’ arts of China cover many various practices from Chinese medicine to self defence, for example Acupuncture, Herbalism, Tui Na, Qigong, Taiji, Hsing I, PaKua and many other related methods of health, healing and martial arts. Today among the many ‘internal’ systems and techniques Taiji (Tai Chi) or, to give it its full title Taijiquan (Tai Chi Chuan) is, along with TCM Traditional Chinese Medicine, probably the best known in the West. The Origins of Tai Chi The legendary founder of Tai Chi is said to have been a Taoist hermit who lived in the mountains, his name was Chang San Feng. It is said he lived the Yuan Dynasty (1279-1368) and spent his days wandering throughout the mountains and learning secret Taoist breathing technique’s and other related arts that made him nearly immortal (legend has him living well past 200) In addition he learned Shaolin Temple fighting from other wandering monks. There are numerous stories about Chang, and the super human abilities he developed, but he is best known as the founder of Tai Chi Chuan, the name Tai Chi, is a relatively recent name for the art, early on it was referred to as ‘Loose Boxing’ and other similar descriptions. There are also numerous stories on how Chang came to invent Tai Chi, the most popular being the following. One day while living on Wu Tang Mountain, Chang witnessed a fight between a Crane and a Snake and although the Crane was stronger, faster, and had superior weapons in the form of a beak and talons, the snake was successful in driving off the large bird’s attacks. The snake's soft and circular movements where able to evade and dissipate the Cranes attacks so Chang realized that by adopting the gentle and yielding aspects of the snake's defence, the soft could neutralize the hard; the weak defeat the strong, and slow to overcome the fast. The snake’s vicious strikes were easily warded off by the Cranes wing movements displaying superior sweeps and actions. Legend has it that this battle continued for three days, when at last both the Crane and the Snake retired, neither the victor. And thus putting the principle witnessed into practice Tai Chi was born. The legends about Chang are probably fictional, and there are indications that Tai Chi was practiced centuries before Chang's time, although it is impossible to say when and who really originated the art. Another theory as to who was the founder maintains that Chen Wang-Ting was the founder and creator of the Chen Tai Chi Family. The actual truth is lost in the mists of time traditionally, the teaching of Tai Chi was kept a secret, and it was known only by being passed directly from ones master to student. The secrecy prevailed, and then one of the students, of the Chen Family, Yang Lu Chan broadens this art, and began to teach throughout China. And now around the world, due to the Yang’s willingness to teach, the Yang style of Tai Chi is now the most widely practiced form of Tai Chi in the world (at least in its shortened version). The present form of Tai Chi we see today was developed by Yang Lu-San’s grandson, Yang Cheng-fu, who lived around for the turn of the century.
Tai Chi is two different words, with two separate meanings. The word “Tai” means ‘Great’. “Chi” means the ‘ultimate energy’ or ‘great system’. Therefore, Tai Chi is about generating energy through movement. The symbol we see today often referred to as the ‘Yin’ & ‘Yang’ symbol’ it should be called more correctly the Taiji (Tai Chi) symbol, The modern origins begin with Chen Wang Ting who lived in northern Honan province during the 16th century. Chen was an army officer and probably learned Tai Chi at some time during his military career. After retirement he returned to his native Chen village (Chen being the family name of the village's dominant clan) where he taught his Tai Chi to other villagers. The style has been handed down for generations within the village and even to this day a few Tai Chi practitioners make the pilgrimage to Chen village in China to study the style firsthand from Chen's descendants. During this time the Chen style spawned three offshoot variations the most notable being the Sun style. Later a young man by the name of Yang Lu Chan heard about the Chen village's reputation for Tai Chi expertise and went there to learn what he could. The village elders at first refused to admit anyone who was not from the Chen clan, but Yang persisted and was finally allowed to study. After several years Yang returned to his village to teach the art to his relatives and neighbours. Yang's reputation grew and since his village was close to the capital of Beijing his reputation reached the imperial palace, and Yang was eventually invited to instruct the imperial family and the royal palace guards (bodyguards). Endorsed by the imperial family, Yang's Tai Chi became increasingly popular and today the Yang style is the most well known of all the styles. Unfortunately much of the original power and energy has been lost, or watered down for Western consumption, and in some cases it has become nothing more than a ‘New Age’ dance, originally it was taught as a complete system of health, healing, defence, meditation and medicine. Yang Lu Chan had a student by the name of Wu Yu Hsing who, after studying under Yang for several years, also set off to study Tai Chi at the Chen village. Along the way he met another master, Chen Chang Hsin, who taught Wu yet another variation of Tai Chi. In addition, Chen's brother found a copy of an ancient treatise on Taoist philosophy and sent him a copy to study. Wu combined the knowledge of Tai Chi and philosophy to form another variation known today as Wu style Tai Chi. Today there are five major branches of Tai Chi; Old Chen, Ne Chen, Sun, Yang, and Wu. In addition each major branch has numerous different routines (forms) and slight variations, which form sub styles. The result is confusing to the beginning Tai Chi student since you may learn to perform Tai Chi a certain way from one instructor and a different way from another even though both instructors claim to teach the same style. Regardless of the variations, all Tai Chi styles share the same principles and it is the skill of the practitioner, not the style, which is important. There’s a saying in China that you don’t need patience to learn Tai Chi, you need persistence, because you’ll run out of patience. Contributed by TC