Taijiquan (Grand-Ultimate Boxing) is undoubtedly the most popular of the Chinese internal martial arts with many millions of people of all ages practicing the art daily in China and around the world.

Taiji deals with the interplay of Yin-Yang, the basic essential qualitative duality of existence: soft-hard, yielding-firmness, insubstantial-substantial, female-male, etc. Physically, Taiji trains one to move continuously alternating between opening and closing the body driven by relaxed internal strength (the unique optimal and sophisticated use of the ground strength in opening and whole-body connectedness augmenting gravity in closing).

According to Tang Hao, a contemporary martial artist and writer, Tai Ji Quan was founded by Chen Wang Ting (1597-1664). Of course there are people who suspect such a hypothesis. Nevertheless, from the existing sources, this hypothesis is more reliable than many others that have been proposed. However, some people refer to a taoist named Zhang San Feng as the founder.

THE MYTH OF CHANG SAN-FENG

Chang San-feng is credited with developing the Chinese internal system known as Taijiquan.

A Native of I-Chou in Liao Tung Province. An external master and court official of the Yuan dynasty (1279-1368), other sources state he was born later in the Sung dynasty (960-1279), who upon retirement retreated with disgust from the world to a Taoist monastery on Wu Tang Mountain, where he acquired his Taoist name of San Feng. Official date of birth is April 9, 1247 and the anniversary of this day is now celebrated by the followers of Tai Ji Quan with food, drink and Tai Ji.

He is said to have learned Tai Ji Quan in a dream, or after watching a bird and a snake fight. More likely, Chang applied the Taoist health principles and knowledge of energy circulation to his vast ability in external kung fu, thus creating something really different - a martial art that dos not use muscle power as a primary source of movement, but qi. Records available in the monastery on Wu Tang Mountain do indeed mention him. Descriptions picture him as being seven feet tall, with the bones of a crane and the posture of a pine tree, whiskers shaped like a spear, and in winter and summer wearing the same bamboo hat, carrying a horsehair duster and being able to cover 1000 Li in a day.

The crane - snake combat gave him the ideas that the coiled movement of the snake was like the Taijitu (the Yinyang symbol) and contained the principle of the soft overcoming the hard. Based upon the transformations of the Grand Ultimate, the Yin and Yang leading to the Bagua eight Trigrams, the Trigrams leading the 10.000 things (everything), and the Wuxing (Five movements or phases) being the basis of their interaction, he developed Taijiquan, to gather the Qi, cultivate it to Jing (essence), and hence transform it into Shen (spirit); all waxing and waning, movement and stillness, action and non-action embodied in the I-Jing.

There are many stories of exactly when Taijiquan was developed by Chang San-feng and no one today knows the accurate story. Some of the accepted facts, however, are that he was a very intelligent man, he studied Shao-Lin Chuan for about ten years and mastered it, and with the foundation in Shao-Lin Chuan he developed the original thirteen postures of Taijiquan.

For many centuries, the secrets of Taijiquan were passed down to a select few, who then passed the secrets down to their students. Grandmaster Cheng Man-Ching was one of the unique individuals that made Taijiquan available to Western students.

Tag: Chang San Feng, 3 times crazy