Tai Chi

Quick Facts

Founder

Zhang Sanfeng(by tradition)

Masters & notable people

Chang Dsu YaoChen ChangxingChen FakeChen Pan-lingChen Qingping6 more →

Country of OriginChina

RegionAsia

Primary FocusGrappling

Contact LevelLight contact

Character & Origin

Training

Who It Suits

Organisation & Competition

What the style is built from

Editorial rating on a 0–3 scale, based on how much room each area gets in ordinary training.

Comparisons

Catalogs & Databases for Tai Chi

About Tai Chi

Tai Chi (taijiquan) is a Chinese family of internal martial art styles. The exact origin is not known. The most fully documented practice begins in the transition between the Ming and Qing dynasties in the villages of Chenjiagou and Zhaobao in Henan province, and UNESCO places its emergence in the mid-17th century. Chen Wangting (1580–1660) may have founded the Chen style. The Taoist Zhang Sanfeng, to whom tradition attributes its creation, is a legendary figure. Five family styles are distinguished: Chen, Yang, Wu (Hao), Wu and Sun. The technique includes partner practice in tuishou with eight gates, of which peng, lu, ji and an are considered basic. The Chen style also alternates slow and fast movements and uses silk reeling and explosive bursts of force called fajin. Training rests on forms. Alongside the family forms, standardized ones are practised, for example the simplified form 24 from 1956 based on the Yang style, form 48 from 1976 and the competition form 42 from 1989. In the Chen style, teachers often assign standing zhan zhuang and qigong before the forms. Taijiquan and taijijian are separate taolu disciplines in the IWUF rules. In 2020 UNESCO inscribed taijiquan on the list of the intangible cultural heritage of humanity. A 2019 Cochrane review reports 20% fewer older people who fell among those practising taijiquan.

History

The exact origin of taijiquan is not known. The most fully documented practice begins in the transition between the Ming and Qing dynasties in the villages of Chenjiagou and Zhaobao in Henan province, and UNESCO places its emergence in the mid-17th century in Wenxian County. Chen Wangting (1580–1660) may have founded the Chen style. Two theories exist for his teaching: according to one he built on Wang Zongyue and Jiang Fa, according to the other, which the Chen family accepts, he combined military experience, daoyin and the teaching of General Qi Jiguang. The Zhaobao style is usually classed as a close relative of the Chen style, and the dispute over the origin of both remains open. Yang Luchan (1799–1872) studied for 18 years with Chen Changxing, then taught in Yongnian and in Beijing. Five family styles gradually became established: Chen, Yang, Wu (Hao) linked with Wu Yuxiang and Hao Weizhen, Wu linked with Wu Quanyou and Wu Jianquan, and Sun named after Sun Lutang. Before the middle of the 19th century the art was called by other names, for example zhanquan, mianquan or shisan shi. The historian Tang Hao travelled to Chenjiagou in 1932 to study family documents, and his book challenged the myth that taijiquan was created by Zhang Sanfeng. Zhang Sanfeng is a legendary Taoist, and the historian Stanley Henning questioned even his existence in 1994.

How it differs

According to UNESCO, taijiquan has developed into several schools, often named after a family or a master. At the world championships in taijiquan, the International Wushu Federation (IWUF) works with five family styles, Chen, Yang, Wu (Hao), Wu and Sun. According to the rules of the 5th World Championships, each has its own routine, Chen with 56 postures, Yang with 40, Wu with 45, Wu (Hao) with 46 and Sun with 73. The rules specify standardized taijiquan and taijijian routines only for the Chen and Yang styles, lasting 3 to 4 minutes. The other styles compete together in the Five Styles routine with a limit of 5 to 6 minutes. In the traditional demonstration category, the rules list the Yang, Chen, Wu and Sun styles bare-handed and with a weapon, and Wu (Hao) only with the taijijian. Outside the family styles stands the simplified 24-posture routine from 1956. According to Qi magazine, it arose by shortening the traditional Yang style, has fewer repetitions than family routines and proceeds along a straight line, so it can be practiced in a small space and a large group. We have not yet found a technical comparison of the five family styles from the federation or an independent expert.

Technique

Partner practice in tuishou works with eight gates. Four are considered basic: peng (upward deflection), lu (retreat to the side), ji (pressure away from the body with the forearm or back of the hand) and an (palm pressure). Competitive tuishou usually includes contact, but not strikes. The Chen style has its own characteristics: silk reeling (chansijin), an alternation of slow and fast movements, and explosive bursts of force called fajin. Chen Changxing narrowed the material of the style to two forms, known as Laojia. The first form Yilu is large and flowing at a slow to medium tempo, the second form Erlu, also called Cannon Fist, is faster and more explosive. The newer frame Xinjia works with smaller circles and more compact stances.

Training

In the Chen style, teachers often assign standing zhan zhuang and silk-reeling qigong before the forms. Practice with shaking the pole or spear transfers silk reeling and fajin into the weapon, and the historical manuals of the Chen style describe training with the spear, staff, broadsword and straight sword. Alongside the family forms, standardized forms came into being. In 1936 Chen Panling created a guoshu form of 99 positions. The simplified form of 24 positions was compiled in 1956 for the Chinese Sports Committee by a group of masters led by Li Tianji, it is based on the Yang style and takes about six minutes. Form 48 was created in 1976 in a group of wushu coaches around Men Huifeng, and form 42 in 1989 for competitions.

Ranks and progression

In 1998 the General Administration of Sport of the PRC issued and introduced the nationwide duanwei grading system. According to a specialist article, it has nine duans in three levels, and taijiquan is one of the twelve fist disciplines of the examination, with the Chen, Yang, He, Wu and Sun styles. The examination covers morality, technique and theory. Theory is not examined at the first duan, and higher duans are also assessed by specialist works and contribution to wushu. According to the Hong Kong daily HK01, one can enter for routines from the age of 8, and the first duan requires only a year after entry. In competitions taijiquan is governed by the International Wushu Federation IWUF, founded in 1990 in Beijing and recognised by the IOC in 2002. The first World Taijiquan Championships took place in 2014 in Chengdu. Events include routines of 42, 36 and 24 positions, with age groups from 14.

Who it suits

Taijiquan often appears in health studies that measured specific outcomes in selected groups. Li et al. (JAMA Internal Medicine 2018) randomized 670 independently living people aged 70 and over at high risk of falling. Over six months the group on a modified taijiquan programme had 152 falls, the multimodal exercise group 218 and the stretching group 363. Li et al. (New England Journal of Medicine 2012) followed 195 people with Parkinson’s disease. After 24 weeks of exercise twice a week, the taijiquan group achieved greater displacement in the stability test (73.6%) than the resistance training group (68.0%) and the stretching group (61.9%). It had 62 falls against 133 and 186, but the difference from resistance training was not statistically significant. No serious adverse events occurred. Wang et al. (BMJ 2018) randomized 226 adults with fibromyalgia, 92% of them women with a mean age of 52 years. After 24 weeks the Yang-style taijiquan group differed from aerobic exercise by 5.5 points on the FIQR questionnaire. In the world junior wushu championships, age groups A, B and C compete, and we have not found their age limits.

Competition

Taijiquan is a taolu discipline at the world wushu championships. The 2019 IWUF rules set a length of 3 to 4 minutes for the free forms of taijiquan, taijijian and taijishan and for the compulsory taijijian form, so taijiquan and taijijian are separate disciplines. At the 1990 Asian Games, where wushu appeared for the first time, taijiquan was represented by form 42. We have not found IWUF rules for tuishou. An example of national rules is the Swedish federation SWKF, which adopted them in 2018 and last revised them in 2025: bouts of 2 × 2 minutes, points for lifting a foot or touching the ground with the body, weight categories and, in the fixed-step variant, a ban on strikes, kicks, throws and locks. Wushu is not an Olympic sport. At the 2014 Youth Olympic Games in Nanjing it was a demonstration sport, and in 2020 the IOC announced its inclusion in the Youth Games postponed to 2026.

Philosophy

The philosophical background of taijiquan is often explained by Laozi’s saying that the soft and yielding overcomes the hard and strong. The link of the art with the concept of taiji is, however, late. The first public evidence is a poem by Weng Tonghe about a performance by Yang Luchan in the 19th century. In China taijiquan is classed in the Wudang group. This label is meant to distinguish the internal arts from the external Shaolin ones, it does not denote origin in the Wudang mountains. The internal styles are linked with the Taoist monasteries on Wudang by legends and fiction, and wuxia novels and films often exaggerate their practice.

Today

In 2006 Chen-style taijiquan was inscribed in the first batch of the PRC national intangible cultural heritage list, with the Chenjiagou region in Wenxian County. In 2005 the city of Jiaozuo received the title Holy Land of Taijiquan. In 2020 UNESCO inscribed taijiquan on the Representative List of the Intangible Cultural Heritage of Humanity. In healthcare taijiquan appears in reviews and guidelines. The Cochrane review by Sherrington et al. (2019) reports 20% fewer older people who fell (8 studies, 2,677 participants, high certainty of evidence) and a 19% lower rate of falls with low certainty of evidence. The 2019 guidelines of the ACR and the Arthritis Foundation strongly recommend taijiquan for osteoarthritis of the knee and hip. NCCIH cites the review by Cui et al. (2019, 24 studies, 1,794 participants), according to which adverse events linked with taijiquan were minor and none serious was attributed to it. According to NCCIH there are no published studies on safety in pregnancy.

Did you know

According to UNESCO, the master-student relationship in taijiquan is formalized by the traditional ceremony baishi. According to UNESCO, the foundation of practice consists of wubu (five steps), bafa (eight techniques), routines, exercises and tuishou, and in China taijiquan was incorporated into the formal education system. The simplified 24-posture routine was choreographed under Li Tianji by four teachers, Chu Guiting, Cai Longyun, Fu Zhongwen and Zhang Yu. Besides taijiquan and taijijian, the IWUF rules list a separate discipline, taijishan, the fan routine. The legend of Zhang Sanfeng as founder has its own history, according to the historian Benjamin Judkins. Huang Zongxi first linked Zhang Sanfeng with the so-called internal school of fighting, in an epitaph for Wang Zhengnan from the early Qing dynasty. Sun Lutang's 1919 book, according to Judkins the first commercially published book on taijiquan, publicly declared him the founder. According to Judkins, the Yang family supported the myth also to distance itself from the heritage of Chen village.

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