Living in china?

[imron]

Taiji is Gong-fu and/or Wushu. Gong-fu can pretty much be used to describe any skill that takes time and effort to master - cooking, juggling, Taiji whatever. Wushu is more broadly used to mean martial arts, and can be applied to either internal or external martial arts.

Chinese people (at least those I know who have a proper understanding of Taiji as a martial art), will happily intermix these terms when talking about Taiji and describing what Taiji is.

Zhang Sanfeng (张三丰) was the originator of the internal styles of martial arts, and from this came Taiji, Bagua and Xingyi. So although he can be considered the "grandfather" of all Taiji, the oldest style of Taiji as commonly practised and known about is Chen Style Taiji, and it did originate in Chen Village.

Chen style Taiji is a much more martial style of Taiji than any of the other styles. Yang style and the other major styles - Sun, Wu (吴) and Wu (武) all came later, and all have their roots in Chen style (if you trace back through the lineage of various masters) but also have additions that the originators of those styles made to them.

Although Chen style originated in Chen village, in the early 1900's, the inhertor of the style, 17th generation master Chen Fake (陈发科）moved to Beijing to begin teaching there. It was through this that Chen Style Taiji started to become well known outside of Chen Village. Some of his top disciples were not from Chen village and so today it is possible to find Chen masters in various other places around China.

If you are serious about learning Taiji as a martial art, you will probably find that just going down to the park is not enough to find a good teacher. Nor is it enough to go to a place that is supposedly "famous" for Taiji (Wudang Mountain, Chen Village etc). Most Taiji practioners have no ability to use it effectively as a martial art, and many don't even realise that it is a martial art (and may even laugh at the suggestion).

To find a good instructor, you first need to find someone who can demonstrate and *absolutely* convince you that Taiji can be used effectively as a martial art. You may find this hard to do if you have already trained in another style of martial art, as you will obviously need convincing at a much higher level. Anyway, such masters do exist but they are few and far between - 练拳者如牛毛，练成者如麟角.

[Shadowdh]

Cheers for the clarification Imron although I would dispute the Zhang San Fang part... imho hes a nice myth or legend but thats about it... I am doing a brief presentation on him in my Chinese Culture class this semester as a part of the myths and legends segment, and would appreciate any info you may have.. (hmm perhaps thats for another thread though...)... Cheers mate...

[imron]

Yeah I guess what I meant to say is that Zhang Sanfeng is *attributed* as being being the originator of internal martial arts.

Most of the information surrounding him definately belongs in the mythical arena, thanks in part to Wuxia (武侠) novelists who were more than happy to take his name and attribute all sorts of amazing powers and skills to him.

However most myths and legends have some basis in fact (however small that basis might be) and at some point in history, someone applied internal Daoist techniques to martial arts, and from that point on the internal styles of martial arts began and gradually developed into the styles that are around today. The person attributed as doing that was Zhang Sanfeng, and beyond that, there's not much more that I would believe about him.

[Gireesh]

Hi Imron,

Thanks for the details. Is it possible to get some good Taiji instructors to teach in India /

Gireesh Nambiar

South India