Here is a brief guide to the different styles of Tai Chi Chuan. There are five main styles, five big ones and then there are also a whole bunch of several lesser popular arts. Some of the smaller ones have quite a big amount of followers as well. Here I will list 8 of those smaller Tai Chi schools that are reasonable enough to call individual styles. This means that a total of 13 (!) different Tai Chi styles will be discussed here.
Off springs and variations that belong mainly to any of the larger schools as Cheng Man Ching’s Yang and Dan Docherty’s Wudang Practical Tai Chi Chuan (Wudang PTTC) are not considered. here. But if we were to actually add every school with decent popularity, we would probably get a list of well more than 20 schools.
(Also: Please, don’t get offended by my intentional ironic and disrespectful tone in this post.)
The five big traditional styles are:
The Tai Chi styles of Chen, Yang, Wu, Wu (Has) and Sun are all recognized, well known and has many practitioners throughout China and the whole World.
Chen style is said by Chen stylists to be the oldest of the modern Tai Chi styles found today or the original art of Tai Chi, something that is usually accepted by Yang stylists as Yang style creator Yang Luchan admitted that he had studied with the Chen family. In the first half of the 20th century it was suddenly decided by the government that Chen Wangting (1580-1660) should be regarded as the inventor of the whole art of Tai Chi Chuan, a person suddenly discovered, that no Chen Tai Chi master knew anything about and no one had mentioned anytime before in any text about Tai Chi Chuan. Chen style was later popularised in the 20th century by Chen Fake (1887-1957) who was very upset and got revengeful when other Tai Chi masters told him that what he was doing was Shaolin and not Tai Chi.
Chen style has both slow and fast movements, often performed with sudden outbursts of “fajin”. It also has Shaolin movements not found in any other of the five main styles so that other stylists often says that Chen Style is just Yang Style with Shaolin stuff infused.
The main idea of body mechanics in Chen style is summarized into “spiraling silk reeling” where spiral movements are initiated from the belly area and connected throughout the whole body.
There are several big popular formal and informal lineages and traditions in Chen, As “the Village style” represented by Chen Xiaowang, “the Beijing style” represented by people as Chen Yu and Chen Practical Method lead by Chen Zhonghua. And “Chen Small Frame” is usually practiced in other lesser well known lineages.
Pros
Maybe the easiest style for development of strength and power.
Cons
Might be harder to and take longer time to develop calmness and deep relaxation compared to the other five big ones.
Chen Style Taijiquan is recommended for:
Anyone who wants to keep fit and healthy and everyone who wants to study a smart and very powerful martial art.
When people think about Yang style Tai Chi, they mostly think about slow, large movements performed in an even pace. Large frame Yang Style was created by “The Invincible” Yang Luchan (1799-1872) who killed a younger female relative with his spear when practicing. This style was wildly popularised as a health exercise by his illiterate grandson Yang Chengfu (1883-1836) who sold his name to a ghost writer for a book and got really obese and died young by eating way too much.
Yang Style is the most popular Tai Chi style, widespread “all over the globe” (citing Flateartherners expression of the popularity of their own movement), much due to several lightweight watered down versions with shorter and less demanding forms. Those are taught rather fast with little attention to detail. In the middle of the nineties for instance, going to Beijing to learn the 24 form in a few weeks and teach it in the west was rather popular. But fortunately the traditional Yang long form variations are very popular as well, and many practice it as a complete martial art.
Don’t be fooled by the calm, harmonious movements. Yang Stylists can be pretty good fighters and like to toss their opponents far away rather than offering a good punch, something that is mostly given to and restricted for the stupid ones who tries to attack them again.
There are also several off-springs and sub-styles of Yang Style as Cheng Manching’s version and Dong Style, sometimes recognised as an individual Tai Chi styles. A school as Erle Montaigue’s Tai Chi organisation claim that they do the “Old Yang style” from Yang Luchan.
Pros
Quite easy to find somewhat good traditional teachers and very easy to find teachers from various health only variations.
Cons
Hard to find people who teach anything similar to power generation for
punches and other finishing methods necessary in any complete martial
art.
Yang Style Taijiquan is recommended for:
Anyone and everyone on this planet without exceptions.
Wu style is characterized by large movements performed with whole body leaning, something many Yang stylists say is wrong and contradicts basic Tai Chi principles. Wu Quanyou (1834-1902) was one of Yang Luchan’s students but became a disciple of Yang Banhou, and Wu Jianquan was his son and taught it publicly. Wu Jianquan was also one of those guys who popularized Tai Chi for the big masses together with Yang Chengfu.
One modern branch is called Wudang Practical Tai Chi Chuan created by Dan Docherty and focuses a lot on no-nonsense combat and realistic self-defence applications.
Cons
You’ll be hearing all of the time from people from other styles about how wrong you do things.
Pro
Has everything that Yang Style has, is seldom as watered down as much, and much easier to find good traditional teachers.
Here is another short documentary about him.
See what the video below has to say about it.
This first one is believe to be the last video taken of him in 1975
Here is another of him performing the whole form from the 1950's.
This next one shows his student, Master Huang Sheng Shyan, who had thousands of students himself, doing the form side by side.
Finally, Three generations of Taijiquan. Cheng Man Ching, Huang Sheng Shyan and Huang's student, Wee Kee Jin
To celebrate Master William CC Chen's 90th birthday this year, Taiji Forum published a four part interview that took place back in the 90's. Below is an excerpt. The four parts of the interview, which includes videos may be found here:
At the beginning of the video, you will see Master Chen’s characteristic collection of visual teaching aids, which nowadays have been complemented with an electronic teaching aid (yes, the one with the incomplete fruit on it).
Tai Chi for Health – Advantages and mechanisms
The first question touches the topic of Tai Chi practice for health.
The following advantages of Tai Chi as a practical system are touched upon:
Tai Chi Chuan therefore has a general effect on wellbeing. Master Chen clearly states that doing certain exercises for certain specific organs do not match any knowledge from his experience. Tai Chi Chan is thus solely but decisively a wholistic systemic approach – „as far as I know“.
How long should I practice when I have got a cold?
If you have got
a cold, but are fit enough to exercise, the recommended time is 35-40
minutes. Short single exercises and 5-minute-programs of any kind (today
one would probably say „quick 5-minute body hacks“) are not sufficient
(see above).
The question was how the teacher could react if learning / practicing Tai Chi adds to the anxiety of a student (heart rate goes further up etc.) According to Master Chen this could be a case of too much anxiety in the process itself. – He points out that this might be concerning both sides: While the student might be too anxious to get it right, the teacher might also be too anxious to teach right and to provide instant relieve for the student. Master Chen’s tip: bear in mind that relaxation requires experience – even more so for anxious people. Instead of correcting and adding more and more information, a suggestion would be to walk away and let them try on their own for a change.
Another suggestion for anxious students whose anxiety circles around not being able to memorize the Tai Chi choreography would be to devise exercises that are easier to reproduce.
From top left, clockwise: Fu Zhongwen, Dong Ying Jie, Zheng Manqing (Chen Man Ching), and Yang Zhenduo (son of Yang Chengfu and grandfather of Yang Jun). Fu Zhongwen, prominent disciple of YCF, sets the pace here; all the others are slowed down or sped up to sync with his steps. Of course, CMC only had the short 37 form, so not all of his movements are here. Others shortened some parts of the form so occasionally these videos fade out momentarily.
