Yang Style Tai Chi
楊式太極拳A family style of taijiquan founded by Yang Luchan and settled by Yang Chengfu. The hand form of the large frame is flowing, without explosions of force, jumps or stamping.
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ChinaCharacter & 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.
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About Yang Style Tai Chi
Yang style is a family style of taijiquan founded by Yang Luchan (1799–1872) from Yongnian County in Hebei province. He studied with Chen Changxing in Chen village as the first documented student from outside the Chen family and later taught in Beijing. When he began studying and whom exactly he taught in Beijing, the sources state differently. Stories of his invincibility remain tradition. The present form of the style was settled by his grandson Yang Chengfu (about 1883–1936), who taught in Beijing and from 1928 in Shanghai. He smoothed the hand form of the large frame, emphasised wide steps and large arcs of the arms, and removed from it explosions of force, fajin, jumps and stamping. The weapon forms with sword, sabre, staff and spear preserve them. The long form is counted as 85, 88, 103 or 108 postures depending on the way of counting. Wu style also came out of the Yang family: the first student of Yang Banhou was Wu Quanyou. From Yang style come the simplified routine 24 from 1956 and the shortened form of 37 postures, which was created by Cheng Man-ch’ing and which the Yang family does not recognise. The line after Yang Chengfu was carried by his son Yang Zhenduo, who in 1998 founded the international association of Yang style. Classic Yang style was used in a randomised study of people with fibromyalgia (BMJ 2018).
History
Yang style (Yang Style Tai Chi) was founded by Yang Luchan (1799–1872) from Guangping in Yongnian County in Hebei province. He was recommended to Chen Changxing in Chen village by Chen Dehu, the owner of a pharmacy in Yongnian, where Yang worked. The sources do not agree on the year he began studying, and one places the beginning in 1820, though without a source. The sources also differ on whom Yang Luchan taught in Beijing from 1850: one states teaching of the palace guard, another only teaching at court and paid teaching for wealthy residents. The second son Yang Banhou remained an instructor to the imperial family, and his first student was the Manchu officer Wu Quanyou, who with his son Wu Jianquan stands at the birth of Wu style. The third son Yang Jianhou taught his sons Yang Shaohou and Yang Chengfu and passed on the form of the middle frame, more martial and closer to Chen style. Yang Chengfu (about 1883–1936) taught from 1914 to 1928 at the Beijing Institute for the Study of Physical Culture together with Yang Shaohou, Wu Jianquan and Sun Lutang, and in 1928 he moved to Shanghai. He unified and expanded the inherited form, and the books Application Methods of Tai Chi (1931) and Essence and Applications of Tai Chi (1934) were published under his name.
How it differs
The Yang style arose from Chen. According to China's national intangible cultural heritage portal, Yang Luchan (1799–1872) simplified the old frame and, for Beijing students including wealthy, physically weaker patrons, removed jumps, falls and stamping. The portal characterises it by an expanded frame and solid structure, whereas the Wu (Hao) style has a compact frame and strict footwork and the Sun style agile footwork in a high stance. The style of Wu Quanyou and Wu Jianquan grew directly from Yang teaching. The Yang style's national listing gives the large, medium and small frame, the fast frame, 32 short strikes and weapons. Only the Chen and Yang styles have standardised routines at the World Championships. According to Nick Scrima, Yang Jianhou practised the medium frame, Yang Shaohou the small and Yang Chengfu the large, on which today's routines are based.
Technique
Today’s hand form of Yang style is the so-called large frame (da jia). Yang Chengfu smoothed the inherited form, emphasised wide steps and large arcs of the arms, and removed from the hand form the sudden explosions of force fajin, jumps, stamping and sudden movements. In the weapon forms with sword, sabre, staff and spear he kept them, so those preserve fajin and jumps. Compared with Chen style, from which it came, Yang style is thus in its hand form more flowing and without explosions of force. The middle frame passed on by Yang Jianhou remains closer to Chen style. The long form of the large frame has about 150 movements, originally 300. Teachers count it as 85, 88, 103 or 108 postures, so the number depends on the way of counting, not on the content.
Training
Alongside the long form, the Yang style practises a standardised 88-position form and shortened forms. Cheng Man-ch’ing (1902–1975), a student of Yang Chengfu in 1932–1936, created a 37-position form by 1946 and spread it after moving to Taiwan in 1949 and the USA in 1964. The Yang family does not recognise his shortened forms. The simplified routine 24, compiled in 1956 for the Chinese Sports Committee by a group of masters led by Li Tianji, also derives from the Yang style. At the World Taijiquan Championships the Yang style is performed in a 40-position routine, while the 46-position routine belongs to the Wu (Hao) style. We have not been able to confirm who created the competition routines and when.
Ranks and progression
We found no grading system for students specific to the Yang style in official sources. According to a specialist article, taijiquan is one of the twelve fist disciplines of the Chinese Wushu Association's national duanwei examination. In January 2022 the Huaxia Culture Promotion Association issued a group standard for coaches with three levels, basic, intermediate and higher, which are taken in order. For the basic level the candidate must perform a routine of 85 positions, have at least three years of practice and pass a theory examination, and the higher level requires, among other things, a written thesis with a defence. This is not a standard of the Chinese Wushu Association. At the World Taijiquan Championships the Yang style had the most competition categories of all styles, standardised and traditional taijiquan and taijijian. Yang Zhenduo (1926–2020), holder of the family line, is listed in the family association's obituary as a holder of the 9th duan.
Who it suits
The study that explicitly worked with classic Yang style is Wang et al. (BMJ 2018). It randomised 226 adults with fibromyalgia, 151 of whom practised taijiquan according to a standardised protocol of 60-minute lessons once or twice a week for 12 or 24 weeks. The lessons were led by three experienced instructors, recorded on video and checked. The article does not name a specific routine. After 24 weeks the taijiquan group differed from aerobic exercise in the FIQR questionnaire by 5.5 points. 12 adverse events were associated with exercise, 8 with taijiquan and 4 with aerobics, mostly mild musculoskeletal complaints. We did not find a separate injury study of Yang style alone. The known taijiquan studies on falls and Parkinson’s disease (Li 2012 and 2018) and the Wolf 1996 study do not name Yang style, and therefore cannot be attributed to Yang style.
Today
The family line after Yang Chengfu was carried by his third son Yang Zhenduo (1926–2020). He was born in Beijing, in 1960 he moved to Taiyuan in Shanxi province, and in 1982 he founded there the Shanxi Yang Style Tai Chi Chuan Association. In October 1998 he founded the International Yang Style Tai Chi Chuan Association. Legends persist around the founder. The nickname Yang Wudi (“invincible”) and the stories of his clashes with the household of Prince Duan cannot be independently verified, nor can the older names of the art Mianquan (“cotton fist”) and Huaquan (“neutralising fist”), which are given as tradition. Firm written evidence of the term taijiquan comes only from the turn of the 19th and 20th centuries.
Did you know
According to the historian David Wile, there is only one contemporary written source on Yang Luchan, Li Yiyu's preface from 1881, which describes his study in Chen village and return to Yongnian. Wile also states that the 1931 book signed by Yang Chengfu was in fact written by Dong Yingjie, and the 1934 book by Zheng Manqing. In the 1934 preface Yang Chengfu claimed to have seen his grandfather in person, which is impossible, because Yang Luchan died in 1872. In 2006 the Yang style was inscribed in the first batch of China's national list of intangible cultural heritage, and the listing itself states that practitioner numbers are falling and some routines risk disappearing. The International Organization for Standardization is preparing standard ISO 18290-2 to define the names and methods of Yang style movements.
Frequently asked questions
Who founded the Yang style?
According to China's national intangible heritage listing, Yang Luchan founded the Yang style under the Daoguang Emperor in Guangfu, Yongnian county. The only contemporary written source on his study dates from 1881, according to the historian David Wile.
How many movements does the Yang style routine have?
The national list attributes to Yang Luchan a routine of 108 positions. At the World Taijiquan Championships the Yang style is performed in a routine of 40 positions, and the simplified 24-position routine from 1956 derives from it.
Is the Yang style protected intangible heritage?
Yes. Since 2006 it has been on China's national list of intangible cultural heritage, and UNESCO inscribed taijiquan as a whole in 2020.
Similar styles
Selected by overlap in the style profile, not by historical lineage.