History

Chuan fa and tai chi chuan have been practiced in China for centuries, if not millennia, and hundreds of fighting styles and forms have been created and maintained or even altered. Little in China’s written history gives absolute proof of these various styles’ origins. The most well-known story of tai chi chuan’s creation credits Zhang San Feng as the creator.

Zhang San Feng

Legend has it that Zhang San Feng studied external schools of martial arts in his youth and became a well-known bodyguard of the Sung emperors in the 11th century CE. He later met a Daoist monk with whom he practiced for many years afterward and whom he accompanied to Wu Tang Mountain in Hubei Province during the latter years of his life. He and the Wu Tang monks united Daoist martial arts—such as ba gua and xing yi—with shao lin chuan and tai chi philosophy to create the earliest form of tai chi chuan. Some claim the form came to him in a dream. Others say he was taught by a powerful spirit. Some say he developed it through intense study of the I Ching. The most common story is that he created the form while watching a snake and a crane fight on Wu Tang Mountain.

Yang Ban Ho

Although the 64-movement tai chi chuan form was once famous in China, not many people could execute the form properly because instruction was given only to students of Wu Tang School. It was first formally documented in the Tai Chi Chuan Dictionary of Wang Tsung-Yue and in the 16th-century writings of the Chen family. The Chens kept this practice in the family from generation to generation, allowing only two individuals from outside the family to ever learn this style. One of these outsiders was Yang Ban Ho, who mastered the style in the 19th century, then moved to Beijing and opened a school to teach tai chi chuan to royalty and common people.

Wang Chou Yee

Yang Ban Ho took on a dedicated, young student named Wang Chou Yee, who closely practiced Yang’s teachings. In his old age, Wang lived in Li Tsu Temple in the Ho Ping Gate sector of Beijing. Many students came to him in the front yard of the temple during the early 20th century. Among these was Kuo Lien Ying.

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