In recent years tai chi has become one of China’s most admired exports.
In the lobby of a martial arts school in a Chinese village stands a massive black stone representing 20 generations of devotion to a single pursuit.
That pursuit is the practice and refinement of tai chi chuan, the martial art that was created in this Henan province village of Xulu, China, in the 1600s and has been spread throughout the world by its practitioners.
In parks and studios across China and throughout the world, millions of people practice the fluid sets of movements that resemble a dance, though with potentially lethal applications. And nowhere is tai chi practiced more passionately than among the sturdy peasants of this heartland village near the banks of the Yellow River.
Children barely big enough to walk perform slow, choreographed routines alongside their elderly grandparents on dusty side streets. Youths and middle-age men and women often rise before the sun to practice before heading to the fields. Some practice hours more after returning home in the evening.
Local historian Chen Junling estimates that 80 percent of the village’s 2,200 residents do tai chi regularly for physical, mental and spiritual health, as well as for self-defense.
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“It’s suitable both for the older and younger,” he says through a translator.
Like many things Chinese, tai chi chuan–it translates as “grand ultimate fist”–draws from a deep cultural reservoir. Taoism, Buddhism and traditional Chinese medicine all made contributions to its theoretical underpinnings, and many of its techniques and strategies were taken from China’s other martial arts systems. But despite all of its borrowings, tai chi chuan, as its name implies, is unique.
“At first, it was treated as a family treasure,” Chen said. “It was taught only to direct descendants of the Chen family, and only to males. It was not for performance or to earn money. And it never was taught to outsiders.”
Each generation produced a few outstanding masters, whose names have been chiseled into the stone that stands in the lobby of the school. Among the most revered is Chen Wangting, who lived from 1600 to 1680 and who is credited with being the creator of tai chi.
Chen Wangting, steeped in the martial arts styles passed down ever since clan patriarch Chen Bu founded Chenjiaguo village in the 1300s, became the commander of the local garrison force in the dying days of the Ming Dynasty. According to local lore, his martial skills were such that bandits fled at the mention of his name.
Chen also was a man of letters, a scholar who aspired to a high official rank. Amid the social upheaval surrounding the collapse of the dynasty, however, he withdrew to a life of seclusion in Chenjiaguo village. There, he studied the writings of Taoist philosopher Laozi and contemplated the ancient doctrine of yin and yang.
Yin and yang represent the fundamental and opposing forces or principles of the universe. Yin is feminine, negative and passive. Yang is masculine, positive and active. The interplay of the two, according to Chinese philosophy, pervades all of reality.
Chen incorporated those principles and other esoteric teachings–including yoga-like breathing techniques to cultivate “vital energy”–into the traditional fighting styles he had learned. The result was tai chi, an often counter-intuitive martial art that trains for fast movement by practicing in near slow motion and that promotes the use of “softness” to defeat “hardness.”
That’s not to say tai chi training is soft, however. Serious study of the art is hard work, physically and mentally. Many of the choreographed routines and drills are performed in low stances that require strength, stamina and flexibility. Yet mastery of tai chi’s techniques demands a disciplined and focused attention that many novices find more challenging than the physical rigors.
The mental or meditative dimension of tai chi is a major reason for its growing popularity in the United States, according to Dan Gere, a tai chi teacher in Palo Alto, Calif., who last autumn made a pilgrimage to a nearby village to study with 19th-generation master Chen Qingzhou.
“Many people in the United States are thinking about centering, balance and equilibrium–all of which have been aspects of tai chi from the beginning,” he says.
Gere’s teacher, who suffered from lung and stomach ailments, began practicing tai chi as a youth to rebuild his health. Now 66, Chen Qingzhou not only achieved that goal but also became widely known for mastery of tai chi’s martial aspects. When he was invited to give a lecture and demonstration at San Jose State University during a visit to California in 1994, more than 300 people showed up to meet him.