A Brief History Of Tai Chi Chuan
The origins of Tai Chi Chuan are obscured in legend. One main belief is that this martial art traces its roots back to about 530 B.C. in India. That is when a Buddhist monk named Bodhidharma (also know as Ta-mo) traveled from India across the Himalayas to China to spread Buddhist teachings. He established himself at the Shao-lin monastery in Hunan province of northern China and taught the monks meditation techniques as part of their evolution towards self-mastery. The monks’ health was poor from sitting and lack of activity, so Ta-mo decided to teach them martial arts for health and self-defense against marauding bandits.
Ta-mo’s new fighting discipline was a combination of meditation, the martial arts he had learned in India, Chinese boxing techniques, and breath-movement exercises from Indian ayurvedic medicine (similar to Chinese Qigong). Shao-lin Temple Boxing was born out of this combination and centuries later it gave rise to several martial arts throughout Asia.
Chang San-feng, a Taoist priest (1279-1368) is generally regarded as the founder of Tai Chi Chuan. Legend has it that he got the idea while watching a crane and a snake engaged in mortal combat. He noticed how the snake would recoil to avoid the crane's’s attack and use that same recoil to launch its own attack. The crane would use its wings to softly cover the snake. He was inspired by the practical uses of yielding, pliability and softness. He felt that this soft style of fighting was in harmony with Nature and the teachings of Taoist philosophy and so founded his Wu Tang school of meditation and soft martial arts.
In the centuries that followed, Tai Chi Chuan evolved into three major styles passed down among three Chinese families: Chen, Yang and Wu. Yang style is the most popular today. Cheng Man Ching (1900-1975) developed a shortened Yang form, more suitable to the shortened attention span of Westerners, that he began to teach at his school in New York City. Many modern-day U.S. teachers trace their lineage to Professor Cheng.
Today, Tai Chi is practiced more for its health benefits than for self-defense. Every morning, the parks in China are filled with millions of people flowing through the gentle movements. Across Europe and the United States, people are beginning to reap the benefits of this art from the East.