The History and Development of Tai Chi Chuan

If you plan to take up Tai Chi Chuan, it is interesting to know something of it's history and the origins of the styles that are taught today. The history of a particular style of Tai Chi may influence your choice.

The origin of Tai Chi Chuan is unknown although there are several theories. The most popular of these concerns Zhang San Feng, a Taoist priest who lived towards the end of the Song dynasty in the 13th century. A graduate of the Shaolin Monastery, he continued his development at the Purple Summit Temple on Wudang Mountain. A poetic but probably untrue story is that he witnessed a fight between a snake and a crane. The snake, being firm but supple and continuously in motion, was easily able to avoid the repeated attacks of the crane. The crane became exhausted and the snake was unharmed.

This led the priest to modify his relatively hard Shaolin Kungfu into a softer style known as Wudang 32 pattern Long Fist. This later developed into Tai Chi Chuan. Zhang San Feng was the first master to replace hard, external training methods like hitting sandbags and using weights, with an emphasis on breath control, chi channeling and visualization. He is regarded as the founder of internal Kungfu including Tai Chi Chuan.
 
His Wudang Kungfu was originally taught to Taoist priests at the Purple Summit Temple and later spread to secular pupils. The main styles that exist today originated from particular Chinese families. The earliest of these is the Chen style. It is not clear whether Chen Wang Ting, the founder of Chen style belongs in the line of succession from Zhang San Feng.  There is a theory that Chen style was based on Wudang Tai Chi Chuan, passed on by Wang Zong Yue who stayed for many years at the Chen family settlement. But the Chen family maintain that he learned his art in the military from a great 16th century General Qi Ji Guang. It is also suggested that he was directly influenced by Shaolin Kungfu, since the Chen family settlement is not far from the Shaolin Monastery in Henan province. If he wasn’t the founder of Tai Chi Chuan, it was during his time that the name became established and he greatly influenced its philosophy.

Tai Chi Chuan was originally only taught to members of the Chen family. Yang Lu Chan sold all his possessions and went to work as a servant to Chen Chang Xins family in order to learn the Chen style in secret. He became very accomplished and brought great honour to the Chen style. He traveled the country challenging other Kungfu masters in friendly matches. He gained the nickname of ‘Yang the ever victorious’. He later settled in Beijing, becoming the first person to teach Chen style to outsiders. He passed on his knowledge to his sons, Yang Ban Hou and Yang Jian Hou and to Wu Yu Xiang. Wu Yu Xiang also learned from Chen Jing Ping and later founded the Wu style.  Yang Ban Hou taught Wu Chuan You who founded a second Wu style. The teaching passed from Wu Yu Xiang, to Li Yi Yu and then Hao Wei Zhen. His pupil was Sun Lu Tang who founded the Sun style.