Category: Chinese customs

There are five traditional schools of taijiquan: Chen, Yang, Wu/Hao, Wu and Sun – of which only the first will be introduced here – and two overarching groups of so-called frames, or paradigms: one based on old frames and one based on new frames. The old frame is said to have been created by Chen Wangting, one of the great masters of taiji quan and the founder of the Chen school of taiji quan. Both of these paradigms include boxing routines, where the boxing referred to was so-called empty-handed boxing (nothing either in or on the hand), while today, taiji quan, practiced as a competition sport, generally makes use of boxing gloves, so as not to cause lasting bodily harm.

Taijiquan, according to one legend, was developed by a Taoist immortal (the Buddhist equivalent would be one who has achieved nirvanna) by the name of Chang San-feng (alternatively, Zhang Sanfeng ) who was inspired to develop this internal wushu discipline while witnessing a duel between a cobra and an eagle. Chang San-feng was impressed by the defensive tactics deployed by the snake (had the cobra attempted to flee it would have been paralyzingly wounded by the eagle's piercing peck, then strangled to death in the clutch of the eagle's powerful claws). By controlling its fear and maintaining total concentration on the eagle's various lunges and retreats, the cobra managed not only to avoid being hit by the eagle's deadly pecks, but itself managed to deliver a fatal blow to the eagle's neck, killing it.

Taijiquan – also written alternately as taijiquan, t'ai chi and tai chi chuan – is an "internal" (wudang) Chinese martial art (in contrast to the "external" (shaolin) Chinese martial arts. The distinction being looked upon today as a perhaps unnecessary, hair-splitting argument that took place within China's martial arts community of the period 5th century CE, regarding whether the focus should be on mastering strictly the physical techniques associated with martial arts, or mastering these in connection with the mastery of one's own unique abilities, or 'getting in touch with one's qi', or life force, as it were, in a mind over matter sense).

Seven-character-quatrain COMING HOME
—He Zhizhang I left home young. I return old;
Speaking as then, but with hair grown thin;
And my children, meeting me, do not know me.
They smile and say: "Stranger, wher do you come from?"

Folk-song-styled-verse BEYOND THE BORDER
—Wang Zhihuan wher a yellow river climbs to the white clouds,
Near the one city-wall among ten-thousand-foot mountains,
A Tartar under the willows is lamenting on his flute
That spring never blows to him through the Jade Pass

Folk-song-styled-verse
Du Qiuniang
THE GOLD-THREADED ROBE Covet not a gold-threaded robe,
Cherish only your young days!
If a bud open, gather it —
Lest you but wait for an empty bough