A Brief History of Tai Chi 太极拳起源  

In the central years of the Ming Dynasty (1400 A.D.) there lived a Daoist priest of the Wudang（武当） monastery named Zhang San Feng（张三丰）. According to legend, this revered ascetic often ventured deep into the wilds of the mountains to gather apothecary herbs. During one of his journeys, he chanced upon a fight between a white crane and a snake, and the combat of the two beasts struck him with inspiration[1]. Combining concepts from the Book of Changes (I Ching) with the Doctrine of the Mean and Neo-Confucian thought, Zhang San Feng（张三丰） united these philosophies with the traditional forms of Chinese martial skill to create a new style of martial art, a style that could be practiced by all ages, which would strengthen the body and teach self-defense. After his epiphany, Zhang San Feng（张三丰） left the monastery and gave his new martial art the name of “Tai Chi Chuan[2]”—a name that continues to be used by generations today.                                                                                           

Later, Tai Chi Chuan was passed on to the Shanxi（山西） native Wang Zong Yue（王宗岳） who perfected the theory of Tai Chi in the Treatise on Tai Chi Chuan. This volume, which he penned for posterity, has since become known as the Tai Chi Chuan “bible.”                                                        

Wang Zong Yue（王宗岳） was also responsible for spreading the art of Tai Chi Chuan into the plains of central China when he taught his skills to Master Jiang Fa （蒋发）of the town of Zhao Bao（赵堡） in the Henan（河南） province.                                                                                                                                                                                      

The quintessential objective of Tai Chi is to become as “hard as iron, soft as cotton, slippery as a fish, and tenacious as glue[3]” and its stances express these ideals with an understated elegance that makes it one of the most beautiful martial arts in the world. Tai Chi movements are natural and unforced, and seek to emulate the grace of passing clouds and flowing water: drifting apart and then gathering together again with quiet finesse. But its philosophy of attack and defense draws inspiration from the sudden and deceptive nature of ocean waves—emphasizing change and malleability—to attack at the most unexpected moment to leave an opponent senseless.                                                                                                                                                                              

Over time, the original style of Tai Chi has since evolved and branched into six major schools: Zhao Bao style（赵堡）, Chen style（陈式）, Yang style（杨式）, Wu style（武式）, another Wu Style（吴式） and Sun style（孙式）.   Although all originated from the same source, each has developed its own unique fighting flair as Tai Chi Chuan practitioners have spread all around the globe.

Zhao Bao Tai Chi Origins赵堡太极拳简介

The Zhao Bao style of Tai Chi (赵堡太极拳) originated from the town of Zhao Bao (赵堡镇) in the sixteenth century. Located fourteen kilometers east of the county of Wen (温县) in the central Chinese province of Henan (河南), Zhao Bao is known for its idyllic atmosphere. The town looks south over the Yellow River’s northern banks, and gazes north into the Taihang foothills, turning east into the capital（京畿）, and extending west toward Luo Yi (洛伊). Since antiquity, this propitious location has made Zhao Bao a center of travel and trade. According to legend, Zhao Bao was once the elaborate Jin Yin Zhong burial grounds of the soldiers of Zhao Dynasty during the Warring States Period (500 B.C.–221 B.C.); thus earning the town the title of “Zhao Bao” or “Zhao’s stronghold,”a name which has continued into usage today.                                                                                                      

In the closing years of the Ming Dynasty (1368–1644), the town’s name became well-known in the world of martial arts when a Zhao Bao native named Jiang Fa (蒋发) studied Tai Chi under Shan Xi (山西) master Wang Zong Yue(王宗岳). Jiang Fa later chose fellow townsmen Xing Xihuai (邢希怀) as a worthy disciple to on pass his own skills to, and thus began an illustrious new tradition of martial arts in Zhao Bao Zhen. During the Kanxi Dynasty (1654 A.D.--1722 A.D.), the later emperor Yong Zheng (雍正) visited Zhao Bao and admired the Tai Chi grandmasters so much that he gifted a handwritten inscription[1] to the local Temple of Guandi (关帝庙) to commend the martial prowess of the Zhao Bao Tai Chi masters.      

The tenets of Zhao Bao Tai Chi emphasize simplicity, stressing that one should be as “hard as iron, soft as cotton, slippery as a fish, and tenacious as glue.”[2] Its philosophy is expressed in the composition of its stances, in movements that harmonize and flow with the anatomy of the human body. Its aesthetic draws inspiration from nature with the goal of achieving movement as light as a cloud and as fluid as water. The martial art derives the structure of its theory from canonical Chinese scriptures including, “I Ching”（易经） (The Book of Change), “Zhongyong”(中庸) (The Doctrine of the Mean), as well as Neo-Confucian thought (“理学”), uniting “The Three Teachings” (Confucianism, Buddhism, and Daoism), under a new umbrella of thought. Its art of attack and defense emulates the inscrutable shifts of clouds as well as the deceptively smooth pull of powerful ocean waves, attacking at the most unexpected to leave an opponent senseless.                                             

Zhao Bao Tai Chi is still evolving in the long river of history. For seven generations Zhao Bao’s conservative leaders kept the art exclusively within the clan, giving rise to the saying that, “Zhao Bao Tai Chi would never leave its village.” Towards the end of the nineteenth century, however, this direct line of descent was broken, and many new practitioners entered the school. Then, in the 1930s, tenth generation Zhao Bao Tai Chi Grandmasters Zheng Wuqing (郑悟清, 1895–1984) and Zheng Boying (郑伯英, 1906–1961) both left Zhao Bao, respectively, and brought a definitive end to the axiom that “Zhao Ba Tai Chi would never leave its village.” The two Grandmasters both settled in the nearby city of Xi’an and dedicated their lives to cultivating and promoting the art of Tai Chi to the greater public.    

In the 1990s, Zhao Bao Tai Chi’s eleventh generation Grandmaster Song Yun-Hua(宋蕴华) and Master Wayne Peng(彭文), the twelfth generation master of Zhao Bao Tai Chi, took the reach of Zhao Bao Tai Chi even further to Hong Kong as well as overseas and their work has received worldwide acclaim.