This is not your grandmother’s Tai Chi – A trip to deepest China in search of the original Taiji Quan

This article was written by Luca Magnabosco who, with a degree in sociology from Trento, lives and works in the remote province of Vicenza. His interests are Chinese culture, folklore, martial arts and social sciences, sometimes simultaneously. When time and money permit, he reads and travels. On his blog, Cambaluq, among other things you will find a more detailed version of his adventures in China.

Once upon a time in China

Take a group of old people, the sleepiest you can find, bring them to a public park and make them do exercises of, um, synchronized gymnastics or something of that sort. I recommend: sloooow! This is the image of Tai Chi popular in the west, where it has been widespread now for decades. Some will tell you it is similar to Yoga, others that it is a form of meditation, the rashest that it is an exotic form of dance.

This is because Tai Chi is the victim of a long series of misunderstandings, starting with its name itself: the most correct transcription would be “Taiji Quan”, generally translated as ”boxing of extreme polarity”. The most important word in this translation is actually Quan, which reminds us how Taiji Quan might be considered a martial art and have self-defense among its original principal purposes, the modern and politically correct way of defining the ability to give somebody a beating. Those elegant circles your grandmother traces in the air with her hands while she’s trying to keep up with the rhythm of her Tai Chi group? It’s really a series of hooks, leverages, thrusts, and blows to the throat and scrotum.

Naturally, the majority of those who practice it completely ignore these applications and wouldn’t even have any ability (or intention) to do so, because we live in a civilized world where people go to the park to relax rather than fight. Add to this that the most widespread Taiji Quan style in the world is the Yang style, which emphasizes slowness of movement and hides well its martial arts potential.

A different way to practice Taiji Quan, the Chen style, alternates slow winding movements with sudden changes of direction, explosive blows, jumps and kicks typical of Chinese martial arts, but has begun to make itself known to the public at large decades behind the Yang style and is therefore far less widespread in gyms and even less rooted in the collective imagination.

And yet, between the two styles it is the Chen that is the most ancient: its limited (but growing) popularity is due to the fact that at the beginning of the last century the only place where it was possible to learn it was in a little village in the Chinese countryside, not far from the Yellow River, called Chenjiagou (陳家溝). Here, in the  XVII° century, the general Chen Wangting defined his own style of combat, perhaps combining his vast expertise acquired in years of battle with Taoist philosophy.

Here, between wheat fields and pastures, the style would be passed on from generation to generation strictly among the Chen family. It is here, that a master of the following age decided to break tradition and teach Taiji Quan to a willing student outside the clan, allowing for the creation of other styles and the diffusion of this martial art in all of China.
Source: http://www.saporedicina.com/english/trip-to-deepest-china-original-taiji-quan/