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The most compelling source of the creation of modern day Tai Chi Ch’uan is attributed to the Taoist sage Zhang San-feng, who lived during the early Ming (1368 – 1644 AD). An accomplished master in the hard-style Shaolin Temple fighting arts, he ventured into the Wudang mountains of central China’s Hubei province to seek deeper inner realization. The myth unfolds that one day after a deep meditation he glanced out the window and was inspired by a fight between the swift, sharp strikes of a stork and the fluid recoil and counterattack by a snake. From this revelation he created a blend of the solid, rooted postures of the Shaolin fighting arts with soft fluid movements infused with powerful inner chi developed from the Wudang Taoist inner alchemy practices. Thus was born Wudang Kungfu, later to be termed Tai Chi Ch’uan.

To be clear, while Zhang developed the martial art for fighting, it was primarily used for preserving health, allowing the Taoist seekers to prolong their life, develop a golden inner elixir and ultimately reach spiritual realization. The Taoist believed that human potential was unlimited and that immortality was possible if the right methods were used to preserve the essence of life.

The origins of these spiritual practices go beyond written history. The earliest compilation of ancient Chinese wisdom was attributed to the great Huang Di, the Yellow Emperor, who reigned circa 3000 B.C. His classic “The Yellow Emperor’s Classic of Medicine” with its insights into external changes – geographic, climatic, and seasonal, as well as internal changes such as emotions and response to them, are as stunningly relevant today as they were over five thousand years ago.

This ancient wisdom was incorporated into the profoundly intuitive verses of the Tao Te Ching by the Taoist sage Lao Tze, and the foundation for the teachings at the Taoist Purple Heaven monastery at the Wudang mountain where we found our sage Zhang gazing out the window.

Tai Chi surfaced in the Chen Village Henan Province in the 1400s, thought to be passed down by traveling Taoist monks from Wudang mountain. By the mid-1800s it was passed out of the Chen family by an enterprising student, Yang Lu-ch’an, eventually finding its way to the Emperor’s palace where Yang taught the palace guards.

While the Cheng family preserved their fighting style over the years, the Yang style spread into many branches and interpretations: Yang, Wu, Hao, Sun styles; all with the fundamentals as laid down by Zhang San-feng.

The most widely recognized and practiced form of Tai Chi Ch’uan was developed by Yang Lu-ch’an’s grandson, Yang Cheng-fu, in Shanghai in the 1920s. He understood the therapeutic advantages of the art, and revised much of the martial techniques into a fluid, healthy 110 posture form. This form is known as the Yang Style Long Form and is the basis for modern day Tai Chi Ch’uan practiced from Beijing to San Francisco.

Notes:
- Bruce Kumar Frantzis, The Power of Internal Martial Arts.
- Douglas Wile, T’ai Chi Touchstones.
- Graham Horwood, Tai Chi Chuan & The Code Of Life.
- Infinity in the Palm of Your Hand, China Daily News, Aug. 15, 2008.
- Maoshing Ni, Ph.D., The Yellow Emperor’s Classic of Medicine.