Is Tai Chi from Shaolin?

[dmax999]

Kung-Fu - Tai Chi magazine this month had an article where the writer, Sal Canzonieri, attempted to point out how Chen Tai Chi orignially came from Shaolin Kung Fu. Specifically Chen Laojia Yilu form is a modified version of the Shaolin Taizu Chang Quan form.

There are many similarities pointed out between the two, such as the starting is exactly the same, many of the repetitions between the forms follow each other and so on. It is by no means anywhere close to an exact copy, but more of a copy by someone who had a different understanding and modified it.

In addition the article points out the name of the Tai Chi positions comes from a book "Classic Forms of Pugulism" by a Qi Jiguang[1528-1587]. The claim is the position names of the Shaolin form were kept secret and the creators of Chen did not have access to the names. So the originators of Chen Tai Chi matched up the positions with the drawings in the book as best they could and made up the other names. Chen Tai Chi matches 16 of the positions exactly from the book.

I found it to be an interesting article, one of the better ones I have ever seen from that magazine. I have always believed that Shaolin Kung Fu and Tai Chi at extremely skilled levels are almost the same. It appears I may have been closer then I thought about that.

Disclaimer... I do not know the Chen form named nor the Shaolin form named so I can't corroborate how accurate this was. However, the lineage from that Chen form to everything else is well documentated.

 

[HG1]

That's interesting. Based on this, next tournament I'm doing tiger/crane form in the Tai Chi division. :ultracool

 

[edwardcloud]

I thought that it came from a taoist by the name of zhang san feng?

 

[Rook]

I thought that it came from a taoist by the name of zhang san feng?

Perhaps, but more likely the Chen family created it. Several outlooks on TJQ; I'll leave it to the Tai Chi people to explain which ones are more credible and why.

1. Zhang san feng founds the wudong sect and creates 13 posture wudong tai chi. Wudong Tai chi eventually is studied by a member of the Chen family and modified.

2. Tai Chi is actually created in the Shaolin temple, brought to Wudong mountains when Zhan San Feng storms out of Shaolin in a huff, modified by Zhang, modified again by Chen family.

3. Tai Chi is created by Chen family. (I feel that the evidence I have seen so far makes this seem far more probable.) There is a good deal of debate on what the Chen family created the system from, although some ideas keep popping up.

4. Tai Chi is created by some other Wudong personality besides Zhang San Feng.

Keep in mind that no one can seem to agree on when Zhang San Feng supposedly lived, that the Wudong sect probably came a good deal after any of his supposed lifetimes, that there is no evidence of any connection between Wudong or shaolin and Zhang San Feng on a historical level (all of them written much after he supposedly died and imbued with lots of mythical and mystical stuff).

Zhang San Feng was supposedly 7 foot 3, very skinny, had arms down to his knees and wore bell on a head instead of a hat, killed 400 men in a day, although for some reason no one bothered to write down when it happened and so the dates offered are spread accross three centuries, and the most recent of the centuries was still 200 years before anyone wrote a word about it... the guy is probably more mythical than anything else.

 

[Xue Sheng]

All myths about Zhan San Feng aside.

Is Tai Chi Shaolin? – No

Is Tai Chi from the Chen Family? - As we know Tai chi today, yes.

Did the Chen family invent Tai Chi? - Depends on who you talk to and what lineage story you wish to believe. Ask a Chen family member and they will tell you it came from them. They will also tell you it did not come from Shaolin and Zhan San Feng had nothing to do with it..

Did Tai Chi come from Zhan San Feng? - Not as we know it today. It is possible that something that is from Zhan San Feng that was similar to the 13 postures influenced its development however.

Is there a Taoist influence in Tai Chi? – Yes. Even the Chen family says this. And if it has anything at all to do with Zhan San Feng it also has a Taoist influence.

Pre-existing Zhan San Feng there was a qigong style called Tai Chi Gong (Taijigong) it too has similarities to tai chi and is also considered a possible origin for Tai Chi but it is not form Shaolin.

There are several possibilities and no one really knows the complete story but there are people working on it both in and out if China and so far none have attributed it to Shaolin. The problem is that someone hears an origin story and runs with it. I had a Chen family member tell me beyond any shadow of doubt that the whole Zhan San Feng story is a myth and Tai Chi come directly from the Chen family.

This is pure speculation on my part but I tend to feel that it was a combination of things that brought us the Tai Chi we are use to seeing today. Taijigong + Zhan San Feng + Chen = Chen Taijiquan. I am not alone in this thought but it is far from proven.

BIG problems, most histories of things originally called internal styles were oral so it makes it hard to find the truth. Another big issue, those things that were written down that we have today are copies of copies of copies. In some cases part of learning a style was writing down or copying those writings that your Sifu gave you and then your students would do the same. And finally miss translate one Chinese character and you can change the story drastically. Put one mark in the wrong place on a Chinese character and you can change the meaning of that character to something completely different that changes the whole story.

I could go on with multiple origin stories but I do not have the time and I am sure all would appreciate it if I just stopped now.

Also, although it no longer is based on this definition, the definition of an internal Chinese martial art had a lot more to do with it coming form a Taoist origin and an external meant it came from Shaolin origin. This is the historical definition but not generally the definition used today. We tend to make it much more mystical today.

Taijiquan, Baguazhang, Xingyiquan, Liu He Ba Fa are al historically considered internal styles.

As an addition to this, Baguazhang, Xingyiquan and Liu He Ba Fa did not come from Shaolin either.

 

[Flying Crane]

good post, Xue

 

[clfsean]

Just to add to this a bit (I don't pratice taiji anymore, so bear with me since it's history isn't a focus for me) but the Chen's family style was Pao Chui prior to the formulation of Chen jia taijiquan. Hence the Yi Lu routine of both Lao Jia & Xin Jia frames... Pao Chui.

Chen jiaguo is about 60 Km as the crow flies from the Songshan temple.

Considering the the Chen family until roughly the late Ming/early Qing Dynasty was a military family it's possible that the Chen family Pao Chui originated in or around the Songshan Shaolin temple. At some point, they would've received some formal training from somewhere local with a strong reputation.

Since the Chen village (figuratively & literally) is over the river (or 2) & across a mountain to Shaolin, it's conceivable that their Pao Chui is Shaolin in origin.

 

[Xue Sheng]

Pao Chui - Cannon fist was supposedly taught to the Chen family by Chiang Fa and if that is the case then Shaolin has an influence on Tai Chi but Tai Chi still does not come form Shaolin.

But I believe the Chen family tells it differently, I will check this and post later.

 

[clfsean]

Pao Chui - Cannon fist was supposedly taught to the Chen family by Chiang Fa and if that is the case then Shaolin has an influence on Tai Chi but Tai Chi still does not come form Shaolin.

Yeop... influence... plus the use of "Shaolin-like" names for techniques. Jin Gang Dui Da is a prime example. I don't see that name or technique much outside of Chen taiji & Songshan Shaolin.

But I believe the Chen family tells it differently, I will check this and post later.

I'll have to remember to check around as well, but the information about Pao Chui came from a Chen site. Maybe CXW's??? I dunno...

 

[Xue Sheng]

Maybe CXW's??? I dunno...

Mine was CZL was and I'm not certain either, I have to go back and take a look at his book and the history he wrote. I will post what it he wrote later.

And the funny thing is CXW and CZL could say slightly different things about the origin. This is why the origin is so very confusing to figure out completely.

 

[Xue Sheng]

From Chen Zhenglei’s book “Chen Style Taijiquan, Sword and Broadsword”

Paraphrased version:

Apparently Li Ji-Yu was a bandit that was part of a group that was attacking Shaolin and Chen Wang-Ting was part of a group sent to apprehend them.

I will not go into the whole story but Li Ji-Yu was a very good martial artist and after the whole fighting the above mentioned incident they became friends and in order to protect Li Ji-Yu form the government that had already killed his family they changed his name to Jiang Fa (Jiang Bashi – skilled workman Jiang) and called him Chen Want-Ting’s servant. They were much more like friends and together they worked on Martial Arts which lead to the development of Chen Style Tai Chi.

Because of he is also responsible for the development of Chen Style Tai Chi Jiang Fa (holding a halberd) is in a picture in the Chen family Shrine standing behind Chen Wang-Ting.

The only Shaolin connection is that Chen Wang-Ting went to the defense of Shaolin to protect it from bandits who were raiding it and had already killed several monks. Still no admission that Shaolin had anything to do with the development of Chen Style Taijiquan

 

[clfsean]

True but remember Chen Wang ting supposedly didn't formulate the 13 postures until after he retired from the military. That would've been after the event you wrote about (which BTW was cool... always like the stories of chivarly & stuff... Water margin made me cry at times... ) & he should've still be known as a Pao Chui player.

 

[Xue Sheng]

True but remember Chen Wang ting supposedly didn't formulate the 13 postures until after he retired from the military. That would've been after the event you wrote about (which BTW was cool... always like the stories of chivarly & stuff... Water margin made me cry at times... ) & he should've still be known as a Pao Chui player.

This whole thing supposedly did happen after he retired. He was supposedly not in the military at the time he went to as said by Zhenglei "dissuade him" (Li Ji-Yu)

Sorry my paraphrase was in error he was not a bandit in Zhenglei's book Li Ji-Yu actually was a leader of a popular uprising. However they still had attacked Shaolin and killed monks. Apparently Chen was unable to catch Li because he could run very fast and for a very long time. (Possible bit of myth there) But after Li Ji-Yu's entire family was killed by the government he surrendered to Chen and Jiang Fa was born.

Still no admission to Shaolin having any contribution to Chen style. But this does not mean that there is not any. There very likely may be a contribution but Tai Chi still does not come from Shaolin.

The Chen family admits no contribution to Chen other than Jiang Fa and I full believe that there is some part from Taijigong and Chang San-feng that was combined with Jiang fa and Chen Wang-Ting to get the Tai Chi we know today.

I would still like to hear Chen Xiao Wang's take on this.

EDIT: I have been to Chen Xiao Wang's current site and I found nothing on this but I did find something interesting here

http://www.chenstyle.com/history/origins/index.html

 

[clfsean]

Yeah the second paragraph lists several different things as possibilities. I don't see Tongbei though given what I've seen of Tongbei. Who knows though... I wasn't there. ;-)

 

[Xue Sheng]

I wasn't there. ;-)

I was, but I have been sworn to secrecy by the ghost of Chang San-feng

This is basically the issue, the people inside the Chen family do not agree completely on the origin so it is hard to say what styles influenced Chen Tai Chi. I was once told it came completely from the Chen family by someone from the Chen Family, no mention of Shaolin or Jiang Fa.

However I am fairly certain Tai Chi did not come from Shaolin, but it appears, and not surprisingly, to have been influenced by it.

I am always very careful when it comes to what did and did not come from Shaolin. There are WAY to many people out there that make blanket statements, write articles and even books that will say "ALL" CMA comes from Shaolin when there is historical proof to the contrary particularly in styles like Xingyi, Bagua, Tai Chi and Liu he ba fa. If it has a whole lot of Taoist ideas and influences likely it is not from Shaolin. This is not to say that any or all of them in one or more of the variation of these styles was not influence by Shaolin at some point in its history.

However I would like to see the original article that started this post

 

[grappling_mandala]

Chen family Taiji does look a lot like excerpts from various Shaolin boxing forms.

I don't see similarities between The Yang family Taiji and Shaolin at all, and see very few similarities between Chen & Yang really. ?

 

[East Winds]

grappling mandala,

The first section of the Traditional Yang Family Form is identical to the first section of the Chen (Laojia) form. Performed in an entirely different way of course!!

Very best wishes

 

[dmax999]

I don't see similarities between The Yang family Taiji and Shaolin at all, and see very few similarities between Chen & Yang really. ?

This is very true, but the differences between Yang and Chen are very traceable and very well documented. The original claim had nothing to do with Yang style.

The article is from the current issue of Kung-Fu Tai Chi magazine.
http://www.martialartsmart.net/kf200138.html

It led me to believe the similarities between the two forms were much closer then Chen and Yang styles of Tai Chi, however I do not know either of the forms. They are obviously different and done differently, but the types of moves and number of repetitions and placement of the repetitions could leave one thinking they are the same. Almost as if you wanted to take a Shaolin form and turn it into a Tai Chi form.

The other interesting part is where the names of the Tai Chi moves came from. It was a question I posted here a few weeks ago and no one seemed to know anything. Apparently 16 of the names matched up exactly with a book that was current at the time.

 

[East Winds]

I did not mean to imply that Chen and Yang were the same. They are not!!!! However, the first 17 postures from Yang are the same as the first 17 postures from Chen, thereby showing the link between the two forms. The same link does not exist between Chen/Yang and Shaolin.

Very best wishes

 

[grappling_mandala]

I did not mean to imply that Chen and Yang were the same. They are not!!!! However, the first 17 postures from Yang are the same as the first 17 postures from Chen, thereby showing the link between the two forms.

Yeah I understand the concept though. I've been looking at the sequences and I can see how the evolution of principles from Wuji to the seperations of Yin/Yang to Tai Chi can be approached from a variety of angles. The chen style seems so much more rounded off with obvious displays of fajin during the form and speed variations as well. It's fascinating to compare.

I believe a number of the names have both cultural and mythical origins from a variety of sources including Taoist, Buddhist and Confucian. Of those sources I find the names that make reference to Taoist internal cosmology to be the most intriging, especially when studying the Nei Jing Tu Diagrame of internal alchemy. (for another post)

Regardless, thanks for your insight into the beautiful art of Tai Chi Chuan. There is a lot of wisdom contained within this classical form.

G. Mandala