太
極
拳
What is true stillness? Stillness in movement
– Bruce Lee
Where and how Tai Chi really began is lost in those famed mists of antiquity you keep hearing about. Common belief has it that a quasi-mythical person by the name of Zhang San-feng was the originator of what we now call Tai Chi. He is thought to have lived in the late 1200’s but some experts have him being born as early as 960. You will also hear some mention of much earlier sources but accurate information is sketchy at best. Legends usually read better than reality and this one is probably no exception. The story goes that this Zhang San-feng character had been a Shaolin monk who had studied not only Ch’an but the hard styles of Kung Fu for over ten years before he left the temple to study Taoism and eventually become a hermit on Wu Dang Mountain.
As the story unfolds, one day he heard a commotion outside his hut and when he looked out he saw a bird and a snake engaged in a battle of survival. The bird would stab at the snake, but the snake would evade every blow by twisting and turning its body and in turn strike back at the bird with either its fangs or tail. This scene provided the basic concepts that Zhang San-feng formulated into a new fighting style. He went on to observe the movements of other animals and various natural phenomenon and added these to this new discipline. This combination of Kung Fu and Taoist principles evolved into the martial art that we know today as Tai Chi.
Wang Zongyue was another apocryphal individual who was purported to have been a student of Zhang San-feng. He is attributed as being the person who may have written the Tai Chi Ch’uan Treatise which is a part of the so-called Salt Shop Manuals; which were discovered in Bejing in the middle of the nineteenth century. Speculation has it that it was he who inherited the real arcane and esoteric knowledge of Tai Chi from Zhang San-feng and thus was responsible for its propagation from this point on.
Little else is known about the evolution of Tai-Chi until around the late 1500’s when the first well known and documented historical character comes into focus; Chen Wangting who is known as the founder of the modern Chen school. Chen purportedly also had some background in Shaolin Kung Fu. Tai chi continued to be practiced apparently mostly in isolation by the Chen family until around the early to mid-1800’s when it was finally taught for the first time to an outsider; Yang Lu Chan, thus starting the Yang style. It is around this time when the various modern schools of Tai Chi started to formulate and spread. Today we have five major styles: Chen, Yang, Wu, Sun, Hao. These are named from the families where the styles originated from. There are also numerous splinter and hybrid styles, including one developed by the Chinese sport commission in 1956 to be used as a common and simplified platform that was easy to teach and easy to learn, especially in group settings. This particular form is an abbreviated version of Yang style, with elements from some of the other schools thrown in for good measure. Many of the proponents of these various styles are very passionate about their particular school. Most of them however all have the same underlying philosophy and principles; the differences often are very subtle, being in the actual training methods and nuances in the execution itself.
In today’s society practitioners usually study Tai Chi for a variety of reasons including competition, martial application, health, and meditation, but I think that unfortunately much of its original soul and purpose has been lost along the way. It takes some doing to find an instructor that has the background and experience to share true Tai Chi.
In theory at least, as a martial art Tai Chi is without parallel in its effectiveness. With a translated name as: ‘supreme ultimate fist’ it had better be, even if it probably isn’t. Its essence is in moving with the incoming attack, blending with the opponent’s centre of gravity and giving way to the onslaught before responding. Wang Zongyue was alleged to have coined the phrase about a force of four ounces deflecting a force of one thousand pounds. In practice however the effective martial application is very difficult to learn and requires many long years of diligent practice before it can be considered even remotely practical in a real world situation. Don’t for one minute think that you can use the Tai Chi you study at your local rec centre on Wednesday night to defend against even a beginner Muy Thai boxer or Brazilian Jujitsu practitioner, or worse yet, some thug out to do you harm; you will be in for a rude awakening. Many Tai Chi instructors that do understand the real martial applications either do not teach it or do not focus on this aspect of the art; and when they do it is usually only with advanced students. But it is important to note that every Tai Chi movement was developed for a martial purpose. If you cannot manifest that purpose in your practice then you have lost the very essence of the movement, and in my mind you are not doing Tai Chi.
From a health perspective there are numerous ‘scientific’ studies and claims that suggest that Tai Chi has many benefits, ranging from the subtle to the wondorous. I am not going to narrate all of those here, nor do I necessarily subscribe to them all. What I do know however is that from my own personal practice I have seen improvements in balance, joint mobility and relief of muscle tension that have translated into real world health improvements. And yes one can successfully argue that any gentle exercise of a similar nayure would most likely achieve the same benefits. Another very real aspect that I use it for though is as an insurance policy. There will undoubtedly come a day when I can’t do all the hard stuff I do today. I plan to be ready for that.
I find the meditative and contemplative aspects of Tai Chi are among the most important for me. I like to enjoy the calmness and focus of being in the so called flow state as often as possible. And while this is relatively easily arrived at in climbing and things like surfing it’s not just every day I can climb or surf. Tai Chi however allows a small bit this possibility on a daily basis.