Chen Family Taiji Quan

The definition of Tai Chi is now up for grabs. It has become a complex and contradictory, cultural symbol indeed. Modern people are constantly questioned whether or not to believe in the power of self or the world transformation led by Modernization that is to give it a noble but unrealistic ideal. In searching for peace, harmony, and spirituality, people idolize and mystify Tai Chi in order to compensate for their concerns over the contradictory and potentially destructive nature of modern society.

Millions of Westerners have been exposed to the media images of Tai Chi. When the first rays of daylight shine on the throngs of people in the parks, elderly Chinese of all conditions move their bodies meditatively and gracefully in the purity of the rising sun. Or the Westerners, fitness trainers, and the mystic guru-types, move their bodies slowly and stylishly in the mist of woods or on the shore of ocean.

The idea of elderly Chinese practitioners of Tai Chi in the park is an image created by Westerners that has a romantic resonance with an exotic cultural landscape. The other idea of Western Tai Chi practice is a generic concept, a part of the available stock of pop cultural symbols, an idea about Tai Chi that can be borrowed, distorted, reinvented to fit many different purposes. The simple fact is that anyone who spends a little time surfing on the Tai Chi websites or reading Tai Chi books will most likely to have the following questions:

  • Is Tai Chi a form of martial art, or is it a spiritual/meditative, health/healing practice?
  • If Tai Chi is a form of martial art, can it be used a combative, or practical skills like kicking boxing, or street fighting?
  • If Tai Chi is a spiritual/meditative, health/healing practice, why are some of the most famed Tai Chi masters not particularly associated with spiritual cultivation? Why did some of them die at young ages? For instance, Yang Chengfu, the grandson of the Yang Family Style Tai Chi founder Yang Luchan, the most influential Tai Chi master who made Tai Chi known to the entire world, was not a religious or spiritual figure in any way, and he died at age 53.
  • If one cannot learn Tai Chi from books and DVDs, then how does the idea of lineage and oral/esoteric transmission actually function in the practice of Tai Chi?
  • What is Qi or Chi? How does Tai Chi relate to I Ching, Chinese medicine, calligraphy, or music?

To answer any these questions, one needs to slow down and be patient, just like when one practices Tai Chi. It takes time. It takes time to write, and it takes time to read; it takes time to teach, and it takes time to learn. Both Literati-Tradition.com and Sactaichi.com are offered by YeYoung Cultural Studies, which is designed to answer these questions through the history and theory of Tai Chi studies and the discipline of Tai Chi practice.

It is easier to define what is not Taiji quan than what it is. Begun as a local humble martial art for self-defense and self-healing, Chen Wangting (1600-1680) of the ninth generation of Chen Jiagou or the Chen Family Ditch, completed and established the theory and the form of Taiji quan in the late 1600s in Wen County of North China. Tai Chi had always been practiced and passed on secretly inside of the Chen family. It was the fourteenth generation Chen Changxin (1771-1853) who taught the Tai Chi techniques to the first non-Chen family student Yang Luchan (1799-1875), the founder of the Yang Style Tai Chi. Then Chen Qingping (1795-1868) taught Wu Yuxiang (1812-1880) the founder of the Wu/He Style Tai Chi. Yang Luchan was made the first lineage holder of the Yang Style Tai Chi. The Tai Chi Styles of Wu/He, Wu, and Sun were also branched out of the original Chen Style Tai Chi. Nevertheless, none of the forms should be confused with any other proliferated or Westernized Tai Chi forms or styles.

Taiji translates literally as “the Great Polarities of Yin and Yang,” while Quan means “fist” and/or “balance.” Tai Chi often means “supreme boxing.” Tai Chi belongs to the “dynamic” Qi Gong category. It is comprised of three components: (1) the I Ching and Yin Yang Five-phase theories, (2) Taoist healing, breathing techniques and Chinese medicine as its internal means, and (3) the best of Chinese combative techniques as its external means.

The Large Frame Chen Family Taiji quan taught by Master YeYoung emphasizes the lineage teaching of the 83 original positions from the revered seventeenth generation, the ninth Chen Family Lineage Holder Chen Fake (1887-1957), and his son, Chen Zhaokui (1928-1981), the eighteenth generation, the Tenth Lineage Holder.

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