Tai Chi

Origins: China. One legendary "founder" is Chang San Feng who lived from about 1391 to 1459. He was a monk in the Wu Tang monastery. He combined Taoist qigong principles, Yi Jing theory and kung fu to create Tai Chi. Many however dispute this story, and even dispute his actual existence.

Most credit the famed Chen village as the birthplace of Tai Chi. There are documents that can trace the existence of Tai Chi in Chen village all the way back to Chen Wang Ting in the late 1500's to early 1600's.

Characteristics: Tai Chi is the epitome of "internal". For the most part (Chen style Tai Chi is not entirely slow), it is a slow moving style which stresses proper breathing and posture to facilitate the flow of chi. Tai Chi does, however, have self defense applications, but they have been stressed less and less as time goes by.

Sub Styles: There are four main schools of Tai Chi today - Yang, Chen, Wu and Sun. They are all unique in method and appearance, but still follow the basic Tai Chi principles of breathing, posture and chi cultivation.

Yang Style: Probably the most popular and well known style of Tai Chi today, Yang style emphasizes a consistent, slower, smooth speed of movement, with continuous motion throughout the entire form. All body parts should move at the same time in a movement, there are no isolation moves. Stances are wide and relatively high. The back foot is at a 45 degree angle in a front or "bow" stance.

Chen Style: Chen style maintains a bit more of a external feel to it, as opposed to Wu and Yang styles. The stances are much lower and look very similar to traditional kung fu stances.

Chen style Tai Chi features slow portions of the form for building and storing chi, and then faster, explosive parts of the form when attacking. The back foot in the forward or "bow" stance is still at a 45 degree angle, but as opposed to being straight in Yang style, the back knee is bent in Chen style.

Wu Style: Wu style is the youngest of the three main styles of Tai Chi. It has much smaller movements and high stances. As opposed to the other two styles, the feet in the front or "bow" stance are kept parallel to each other. Since the stances are also much higher, this form of Tai Chi tends to have alot of leaning or reaching movements in it. The movements are slower and more controlled, making this style of Tai Chi a bit more trying on the legs.

Sun Style: Sun style Tai Chi was created by Sun Lu Tang around 1914. Sun Lu Tang was already a renowned martial arts master in China, having trained extensively in Shaolin Kung Fu, Hsing I and Bagua. He combined his background in those martial arts, as well as Yi Jing theory, Taoist principles and Qigong to create his own style of Tai Chi. Sun Lu Tang passed away on December 16, 1933. His daughter, Sun Jian Yun carried on his legacy as a grandmaster in Sun Tai Chi. She passed away on October 10, 2003.