There are different assertions as to who was the father of Tai-Chi-Quan. But it is generally believed that the honor should go to Chen Wang-ting who lived in the 16th century . Although nothing was known about the exact date of his birth and death, it has been confirmed that he belonged to the ninth generation of a Chen family in Wenxian County, Henan Province. According to the local chronicles, he served as a royal guard in his home village in 1641 and retired after the fall of the Ming Dynasty three years later. In an essay written in his declining years he said, "Now I am pining away in old age, my only companion being The Taoist scriptures of Huang Ting ("Huang Ting Jing"). I study the martial art when I am in the doldrums and do some farm work in busy seasons.

Sometimes I beguile my leisure with teaching my disciples and my children and grandchildren, no matter what they will become dragons or tigers." It was in the 1770s that Chen evolved five Tai-Chi-Quan routines, a chang-quan (long-range boxing) routine in 108 forms and a pao-chui (cannon boxing) routine.

In creating Tai-Chi-Quan, Chen Wang-ting was greatly influenced by Qi Jiguang (1528-1587), a famous general in the imperial army, who compiled 16 popular routines in his Boxing in 32 Forms as a textbook for military training. Out of these forms Chen assimilated 29 into his Tai-Chi-Quan sets, in a style distinctively his own. He expounded the essential points in a ballad composed by himself for easy memory, laying down the basic theories that are still generally accepted today.

In the following three centuries, the second, third and fourth Tai-Chi-Quan routines and the chang-quan set in 108 forms worked out by Chen Wang-ting gradually fell into disuse, while the cannon routine became the second routine of the present-day Chen school of Tai-Chi-Quan. The first Tai-Chi-Quan routine branched into the "old frame" and "new frame" during the 14th generation and later on, into the Yang, Wu, Sun and Wu schools.

Yang Lu-chan (1799-1872), Founder of the Yang School Back to Top

Born into an impoverished family in Yongnian County , Hebei Province, Yang Lu-chan left his home at ten and worked as an indentured servant in the Chen family in Wenxian County .

His master Chen Dehu, a fellow of the Imperial Academy, was fond of martial arts and employed Chen Chang-xing of the 14th generation to teach the young men in the evenings. Yang Lu-chan would watch attentively while waiting upon the Wushu master, who readily accepted him as one of his disciples. Yang trained very hard and distinguished himself as a Wushu artist.

Yang returned to Yongnian at 40 and lodged at a pharmacy owned by his late master Chen Dehu, making a living by teaching Tai-Chi-Quan. The premises of the drugstore belonged to a landlord named Wu Yuxiang who and his two brothers were all Wushu lovers and took lessons in Tai-Chi-Quan from Yang.

Not long after, Yang left Yongnian for Beijing to teach Tai-Chi-Quan there. Drawing on his years of experience, he adapted his routine to suit people whose main object in learning it was to keep fit. Later, it was revised and further improved by his third son Yang Jianhou, who changed its style into a "medium frame" with moderate postures and slow, steady and flowing movements.

These were later repeatedly revised by Jianhou's third son Chengfu and eventually developed into the "big frame," which is the present form of the Yang school of Tai-Chi-Quan.

Wood Yuxiang (1812-1880), Founder of the Wood School Back to Top

Wu Yuxiang came from a family of Wushu lovers and profited from his brief association with Yang Luchan from whom he learned Tai-Chi-Quan. In order to get the hang of the Chen style, he paid a visit to Chen Changxing in 1852, only to find him too old and feeble to give instructions. So he found one of his distant nephews, Chen Qingping, who taught Wu the new-frame Tai-Chi-Quan as distinguished from Chen Changxing's old-frame style.

After more than one month of hard training, Wu acquired its essential points, as shown by what he said to his brother: "Now that I have obtained a deep understanding of the Chen school, all that needs to be done is persistent practice." Meanwhile, his brother had by chance obtained a copy of A Manual of Tai-Chi-Quan written by Wang Zongyue, which was of great enlightenment to Wu. It was on the basis of this book that he wrote two of his own, namely, Important Points for a Wushu Master and, ironically enough, Four-Character Secret Formulas Not to Be Passed On to Anybody. Concise and to the point, they laid down the foundation of the unique Wu school of Tai-Chi-Quan, which is characterized by quick and short-range movements.

While his brothers served as officials in different parts of the country, Wu Yuxiang lived a secluded life in his home village studying and teaching the martial art. Even at his death bed, he was still discussing Tai-Chi-Quan with his attendants.

Wu's most outstanding disciple was his sister's son Li Jinglun (1832-1892), who in turn passed on his skills to his fellow townsman Hao He (1849-1920). It was said that Hao was so strong that, in practicing the push-hand exercise, he could lift his partner and hurl him to settle securely in a chair ten feet away. It was one of his pupils who founded the Sun school of Tai- Chi-Quan.

Sun Lutang (1861-1932), Founder of the Sun School Back to Top

Sun Lutang was a native of Wanxian County in Hebei Province. He first learned xingyiquan (form-and-will boxing) under Li Kuiyuan and then baguaquan (eight-diagram boxing) under Cheng Tinghua. As a master of both, he enjoyed a high reputation in Beijing and was nicknamed "Living Monkey King," a legendary hero in Chinese mythology.

In 1912, Sun happened to meet Hao He at an inn in Beijing. Hao had come to the capital to visit his relatives and friends and fallen ill. Sun took good care of him and got the best doctor to treat him. Grateful for Sun's kindness and help, Hao later taught him Tai-Chi-Quan, which he incorporated into the routines he had learned, thus creating the Sun school characterized by a smooth and coherent sequence of movements in advance and retreat.

When the whole set is performed, it is like the clouds drifting in the sky or water flowing down a stream.

Sun has left behind him many books on different Wushu routines he was versed in.

Wu Jianquan (1870-1943), Founder of the Wu School Back to Top

Wu Jianquan was of Manchu nationality and a native of Daxing County, Hebei Province. His father learned Tai-Chi-Quan from Yang Luchan when the latter was teaching it in Beijing, and then from Yang Luchan's second son Yang Banhou (1837-1892), who had in his childhood studied the small-frame routine from Wu Yuxiang.

Shortly after the overthrow of the Qing Dynasty in 1911, Xu Yusheng founded the Society of Physical Culture in Beijing, where Yang Shaohou was engaged to teach the big-frame and Wu Jianquan to teach the small-frame Tai-Chi-Quan of the Yang school.

After repeated improvements in the years that followed, the Yang style gradually developed into one of slow and gentle movements without jumps and leaps, thus making it increasingly popular among the people. Later members of the Yang family stopped teaching the small-frame routine completely, but Wu Jianquan continued his research and made it more and more popular until it was finally recognized as a distinct style known as the Wu school of Tai-Chi-Quan. In 1928 Wu was invited to teach as a professor in the Shanghai Wushu Society and the Jingwu Sports Society. In 1935 he himself founded the Jianquan Tai-Chi-Quan Society, which played an important role in further promoting the Wu School.

The Wu style is a combination of the big and small frames, with movements that are both compact and unrestrained.

Chen Xin (1849-1929), Supporter of the Chen School Back to Top

Tai-Chi-Quan was invented by Chen Wangting and passed down to later generations of his family by word of mouth. There were little or no writings about it. Chen Xin, who belonged to the 16th generation, was both a man of letters and wushu expert. He decided to record the movements and explain them in written form as an authentic document for future followers.

In his childhood Chen Xin took a great interest in the new frame Tai-Chi-Quan, invented by his grandfather's brother Chen Youben. But he did not achieve much as his father intended him to be a scholar. Neither did he go far in his academic pursuits; he was just a “ gongsheng ” , almost the bottom rung of the literary ladder. It was in his later years that he devoted himself to a serious study of Tai-Chi-Quan. He spent 12 years writing the Tai-Chi-Quan of the Chen School with illustrations, in which he described the correct postures and movements and explained, from the philosophical and medical points of view, how to govern "external force" with "internal force." The manuscripts, in more than 200,000 words, were completed in 1919, when Chen Xin's health was sinking rapidly.

Having no son to inherit them, he called in his nephew and said to him, "Pass these on if they're worth passing on; burn them up if they aren't." It was not until 1932 that the manuscripts came to light, and they were published next year in four volumes - as the most original and complete book on the orthodox school of Tai-Chi-Quan.

After Chen Xin, the most outstanding exponent of the Chen school was Chen Fake (1887-1957). He was invited to Beijing in 1928 and lived there until his death, teaching the old-frame routine handed down from his great grandfather Chen Changxmg.