Recently I've read in the martial arts press a couple of articles on styles of Tai Chi Chuan. I have been told by certain instructors that what certain people were doing was either not Tai Chi Chuan or was bad Tai Chi Chuan.
As readers of my musings are well aware, I rarely believe what I read or am told and only sometimes believe what I see. I have been lied to, misled and deceived by friend and foe alike over the course of many years; so often in fact, that it no longer surprises or even disappoints me. When something is widely believed or published, for many people it then becomes true.
That is sad enough. What is sadder is that believers in this "truth " then seek to impose their beliefs on others. The Great Helmsman, Mao Tse-tung, said, "No investigation, no right to speak." and "Seek truth from facts." I have encountered precious few people who follow the Great Helmsman's admirable advice, indeed the Great Helmsman himself was not always noted for following these precepts.
There exists now in both East and West a plethora of what purport to be different styles of Tai Chi Chuan. This raises two fundamental questions; what is a style ? and is the style being practiced Tai Chi Chuan ?
Firstly the Chinese use four main terms to denote a style of martial arts. The first and most obvious one is Chuan which literally means fist as in Tai Chi Chuan. But of course there is more than one type of Tai Chi Chuan.
The next term in common use is Jia or family, as in Sun Jia or Sun family. Those practicing such a system are not always family members, but invariably believe themselves to be learning the secret transmission of the family in question.
The third term is in common use is Shi which literally means work done after a model or pattern. So for example Wu Shi or in the model of Wu - but which Wu ?
Finally the term Pai is used to denote a school or sect - and is often used also in connection with schools of philosophy or religious sects.
To my mind a style can be said to exist where a leading exponent of a particular martial art possesses certain unique features which set apart the art he practices from others. For example people only began referring to Wu family/ style Tai Chi Chuan and Yang family/style Tai Chi Chuan when they noticed technical differences between Wu Jian-quan and Yang Cheng-fu who were contemporaries.
The question of whether a style is or is not Tai Chi Chuan is a thorny one. Two words:- Chee Soo. The old man died recently and possibly with him to his grave went the full story of the origin of his system called Feng Shou (Hand of the Wind), which he claimed to be Li style Tai Chi Chuan.
There is no doubt that Chee Soo had martial arts knowledge and ability. What is in doubt is the origin of his art and the extent to which, if at all, it is connected with the greater Tai Chi Chuan community. As I write, the jury is still out on this one.
For a style to be called Tai Chi Chuan it is not enough that it contains slow and relaxed movements. I could teach Karate or Wing Chun in this way with no difficulty and some people are actually doing this very thing. There must be a lineage; there must be a clear connection between what is being practiced and The Tai Chi Chuan Classics.
Having set out some of the background, I'd like to look at some of the styles of Tai Chi Chuan and their special characteristics.
The Yang style of Tai Chi Chuan is the best known and most widely practiced - or is it?
Pretty well everyone accepts that a gentleman named Yang Lu-chan came to Peking in the middle of the last century with an art called Tai Chi Chuan which he had learned in the Chen Jia Kou Village in Honan Province from Chen Chang-xing. What few people are aware of is that a number of Chinese martial arts historians are of the opinion that in the first three generations of Yang family Tai Chi Chuan exponents there are at least 4 different variations of so-called Yang style Tai Chi Chuan.
OK, so let's go back to the Chen Village. Different family, same problem; at least 4 variations of Chen style in 4 generations.
All right, forget the Village, let's look at some of the techniques. It has been claimed, and with some truth that certain Tai Chi Chuan techniques are to be found in the 32 techniques of the Chuan Jing (Classic of Boxing), which was written by General Qi Ji-guang (1528-1587) of the Ming dynasty, which in turn was supposed to represent a synthesis of 16 different schools of boxing.
Of the 32 techniques of the Chuan Jing, it is true that many bear the same or a similar name to an existing Tai Chi Chuan technique from one of the "recognised styles". For example the second technique of the Chuan Jing is Golden Cockerel stands on one leg, which bears a strong resemblance to the Tai Chi technique of the same name. Likewise, technique three, Pat the Horse is similar to Tai Chi's Pat the Horse High.
Other techniques of the Chuan Jing , however, neither in their names nor in the illustrations or descriptions shown bear a resemblance to any Tai Chi techniques I can think of.
If Tai Chi Chuan techniques did come from the Chuan Jing, then why do only
some have a connection with the Chuan Jing while others do not and why are the
techniques of Tai Chi Nei Kung, pushing hands and weapon forms not mentioned
in the Chuan Jing at all ?
It is possible that someone selected a variety of techniques from a copy of the Chuan Jing and proceeded to build a martial art around them. Possible but unlikely.
It is entirely possible that Tai Chi Chuan or an art from which Tai Chi Chuan was derived was the actual source of those techniques in the Chuan Jing which bear a resemblance to Tai Chi Chuan techniques. This I believe to be the most likely explanation. However, I'd also point out that in the long history of Chinese martial arts and in particular Tai Chi Chuan, perhaps as much has been forgotten or lost as has been remembered.
Many techniques have through problems of incorrect transcription or different dialects lost their original names and either ended up with similar sounding or similarly written names - for example what in most Tai Chi styles is known as Fan Through the Back (Shan Tong Bei) is in Wu Yu-xiang's style known as Three Changes of the Back (San Tong Bei).
In other cases techniques have been entirely renamed or have come to have more than one name. For example Tai Chi's famous advanced pushing hands exercise, widely known as Da Lu, has two other names, both of which are much more expressive of the purpose of the exercise than the name "Da Lu", which merely means "big diversion to the side" - hardly poetic.
I concede therefore that it is entirely possible that there are techniques in Tai Chi Chuan which were either copied from the Chuan Jing, or altered to look more like similarly named techniques in the Chuan Jing or which copied names of techniques given in the Chuan Jing. So we have, because of the dearth of reliable written sources from the time of the Chuan Jing to the present - a period of more than 400 years, an insoluble chicken and egg question only there's more than one chicken and even more eggs.
I shall further pursue this theme by looking at the individual Tai Chi families and their variations in some depth in a later article.