Me and Chi with Itsy

The History of Tai Chi

The story of Chi Exercise begins with its founder Chang San-Feng, a Taoist hermit who is variously reported as having lived either during the Sung (960-1279) or the Yuan dynasty (1271-1368). According to legend, one day while strolling through the forests surrounding the Wu Tang mountains in China's Hubei Province, Master Chang witnessed a snake engaged in combat with a crane. Master Chang was impressed with the skillful way the snake was able to dodge and counterattack the larger, more powerful crane. That night, so the story goes, the art of Chi Exercise came to him in a dream.

A more likely explanation of Chi Exercise's origins lies in the conjecture that Master Chang, if he existed at all, combined certain fighting movements together with other movements designed to increase internal energy in the body to create a new system which became a physical manifestation of Taoist philosophy.

At the time of its development, Chi Exercise was a deadly art, jealously guarded by a few families and used for killing. It would be unwise for the student to forget this historical fact, because it is within the context of life or death struggle that the techniques of Chi Exercise were refined over the centuries. The proper shapes for the transmission of energy, the methods of single-weightedness, techniques of relaxation and breath control all were developed with the express purpose of injuring the opponent in an efficient, scientific manner. It is probably desirable then, for the Chi Exercise student to be able to appreciate and understand this martial context even if one is not interested in fighting. After all, all of the major Chi Exercise styles (Chen, Yang, Wu and Sun) placed a great deal of emphasis on grasping the meaning of the movements through applications training.

Today, however, we live in a less violent era. So then: what is the place of Chi Exercise in modern society? Now that we have "beaten our swords into ploughshares" how are we to appreciate this precious cultural transmission? The secret lies in enlarging our understanding of who "the enemy" is. Traditionally, the enemy was the opponent in a combat situation. Today the enemy may be fatigue, stress, overwork or lack of understanding of oneself and one's body. All martial arts were designed to increase one's longevity. Sometimes this means preventing another person from killing or injuring you. Nowadays, the same system can be used to help keep stress from killing or injuring you. Daily practice of Chi Exercise promotes mental clarity and a healthy body, assists with balance and helps the circulation of the blood. Chi Exercise is also a vehicle for the realization of surpassing beauty. As Aldous Huxley describes in Island:

"No leaps, no high kicks, no running. The feet always firmly on the ground...movements intrinsically beautiful and at the same time charged with symbolic meaning. Thought taking shape in ritual and stylized gesture. The whole body transformed into a hieroglyph, a succession of hieroglyphs, of attitudes modulating from significance to significance, like a poem or a piece of music. Movements of the muscles representing movements of the consciousness...It's meditation in action; the metaphysics of the Mahayana expressed not in words, but through symbolic movements and gestures."