What is Taiji?


Chinese people call the beginning of the universe the "Taiji". Taiji separated into two parts, the "Yin" and the "Yang", meanings the negative and the positive. And then everything in the world evolved from them.

What is Taiji-quan?

Taiji-quan is a famous Chinese kongfu. All the Chinese kongfu can be devided into two kinds, the "In-style" and the "Out-style". Taiji is the representative kind of the "In-style". This kind of kongfu emphisize on the stuffs inside the fighter's body, which include the calmness of the spirit, the sensitivity of the sense and the speed of the reaction. Instead of fighting before your oppoent's move or trying to distroy your oppoent's attack like out-style kongfu, Taiji master always fight in a way that "forget yourself and follow your oppoent". They feel the move of the oppoent and find the proper point that can distory the his balance, and then only use a little power on this point to beat down or even throw out the oppoent. Their training bases on a wholly relaxed way, every move must be with no obstruction.

My teacher once told me that the theory of Taiji may be the best theory of all the Chinese kongfu. And he told me something about his Taiji teacher, who had a bare training room with only a armchair in it, everyone fight him in that room would be beaten correctly into that armchair, no other place. And when one day he mentioned the best masters who can even beat their opponents by their gazes. He mentioned the same master too.

The history and the styles

The oldest style in Taiji is Chen-Style which was only taught in a Chinese village Called "Cen Jia Gou". All the dwellers there were a big family and their last name is Chen. They treated Taiji as a secret and don't taught others. A Young man named Yang Luchan wanted to learn this kongfu so he attended the village and worked for the family. No one taught him but the samrt boy learned it by spying the training of the family. At last his sincerity moved the family and taught him all the secret of Taiji. The story of "stealing learning" is very famous and the young man became the founder of Yang-Style Taiji. After he went to beijing and taught there, all the northern China was shocked by this kind of kongfu. And he was called "undefeated Yang". About him, there're many legends. People think he could put a bird on his hand, when the bird wanted to fly, it pushed its claw, as soon as Yang feel it, he put down his hand a little bit at the same time so that the bird can never fly from his hand. And one day his teenage son beat a famous master in the first move but tore his sleeve. After he came back, Yang laughed at him," I never heard a opponent can touch a Taiji master's clothes, so do you think you've learned Taiji?" Yang and his son's student Wu Quanyou founded the Wu-Style Taiji. Another student of Yang named Li Ruidong, people called him "Nose Li", had some debate with Yang's son and decided to find a way to beat Yang-style Taiji. He absorbed the other two "IN-style" kongfu, Xingyi-quan And Bagua-palm, at last developed his own Li-style Taiji. Yang's townee Wu Yuxiang learned Taiji from not only him but also Chen Jia Guo and combined them to found the Wu-Style Taiji. Later another gifted kongfu master called Sun Lutang founded Sun-Style Taiji. Sun had such a talent that each of the best of the best master would like to teach him. He learned Xingyi-quan from Guo Yunshen, who was said that no one can stand his half-pace-pounch excepet Yang Luchan, Bagua-palm from Cheng Tinghua, the "Glasses Cheng" because of his bisiness, who was the close-door student of Dong Haichuan the founder and was famous of his death, he himself beat down tens of foreign enemies but was shot by guns. And Sun's Taiji was taught by Hao Weizhen, the third leader of Wu-style Taiji. Sun was very small and got a nickname "living monkey". But when one time he fight with a boxing champion from the west, he beat the opponent out like stuck him on the wall. So from then on people descrip Taiji's power as "to beat a person like to stick a picture". He also beat 5 foreign masters from himself lying on the ground after his 70 years old.

Taiji and I

I learned Taiji from many other teachers and friends except my own master. Because of my poor base of Chinese kongfu, my master don't allow me to learn Taiji. But when I was in the university there were many competitions of Taiji but seldom other kongfu competition, so everyone in the kongfu team of the school must learn Taiji to attend the compititions. I learned Yang-Style first but I didn't really like it. Only in a period I got some problem of my breath, when I entered a warm place from a cold place or even climbed to the second floor, I couldn't breath. My lung seemed useless at that time. I went to some hospital but the doctors couldn't tell what was wrong. I could do no exercises but Taiji. After a time I covered from it. I could feel it's Taiji that cure me. After I worked in a university, there's only a Taiji group. I had no choice so I played with them and attended some competitions for the group. In that time I learned Wu-style. All what I learned then are all a kind of performance, not only I but also my teachers don't know the real use of them. At last I met a real Taiji master, Tian Quixin, who learned Chen-style from his uncle Tian Xiuchen, one of the best students of the 17th gerneration of Chen-style, Chen Fake. He taught me the first form of Chen-Style and mentioned some use of it. But because Taiji's training is on a different way to what I had learned. So without those special training such as standing and pushing hands, I can never really use it. I also learned Li-style. A friend learned one form and wanted to learn another from one of my teachers. So I introduced them and learned with him. Because he would go outboard soon so he also taught me his form so that if my teacher wanted, I could teach him. In this progress, I also learned some use of Li-style Taiji. But to me, at last Taiji is more a heath training than a kongfu training.