The origins of Tai Chi are vague although many scholars will credit Chang San-feng of the Sung Dynasty (960 – 1278) with the development of Tai Chi in the twelfth century. Then again other scholars will claim that he lived in the thirteenth or even the sixteenth century.
It is said that he had two important predecessors, one of these was the Indian monk named Ta Mo who came to China to practice meditation and is credited for developing the Shoalin exercises which in a way are similar to some of the Tai Chi movements and these exercises were developed for the physically degenerated monks of the Shoalin Temple to strengthen their bodies so that they could be a more secure temple for the soul.
His second predecessor was a woodcutter by the name of Hsu Hsuan-ping who lived around a century and a half after Ta Mo (around 750) Hsu Hsuan-ping practiced the Long Boxing Exercise which contained many of the forms of contemporary Tai Chi, such as the Single Whip, White Crane Spreads Wings, Step Forward and Seven Stars. But the firmest and most complete form of Tai Chi came from the famous Taoist Chang San-feng, who was known as The Immortal and was also an ardent follower of Confucius with a strong interest in the I-Ching. Chang San-feng gave up his prominent position as a magistrate to become a hermit and study under various enlightened Taoists and whilst on his travels from place to place, he was able to learn techniques of martial arts and meditation. The legend says that it was during one of his meditation periods he could hear an unusual noise in the courtyard. On looking out of his window he observed a snake with it’s head raised, hissing at a crane perched in a tree above. As he continued to watch, the crane flew down and attacked the snake with it’s swordlike beak. But the snake turned its head to one side and attacked the cranes neck with it’s tail, the crane the used its wings to protect it’s neck. And so the battle continued until they became tired, the crane returned to the tree, the snake into a hole in the tree trunk. Both rested until their encounter the next day. Chang San-feng continued to watch their encounter again and again from which he realised the value of yielding in the face of strength. Rom watching the combat of the snake and the crane he saw a living form of the principle of the I-Ching. “The strong changing to the yielding and the yielding changing to the strong.” he also remembered from his teachings “What is more yielding than water? Yet back it comes to wear down the stone.” The great master went on to study the crane and the snake, the wild animals, the clouds, the water and the trees bending in the wind. And from these observations he put these natural movements into a system of exercise and some of these names give us a clue as to where they came from:-
White Crane Spreads its Wings, Snake Creeps Down, Brush Knee and Push, Wave Hands Like Cloud and so on. Chang San-feng continued to teach his disciples meditation and Taoism and went on to create another school for Tai Chi and other exercises in Hu-pei province on the WU-tang Mountain. This was known as Wu-tang school which stood in contrast to the Shoalin School for several hundred years. We owe many of the present forms of Tai Chi which are available to us today to the numerous masters who utilized and perfected their techniques over many centuries.
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