Origin 1600 to 1699
Tai chi, more precisely taijiquan, is a Chinese internal martial art practised today chiefly as a slow, flowing sequence of postures performed for health, meditation in movement and, in its fuller traditional form, self-defense, grounded in Daoist and classical Chinese theories of qi, yin and yang. Its best documented historical origin lies with the Chen family of Chenjiagou (Chen Village) in Henan province, where Chen Wangting is credited in the seventeenth century with synthesizing earlier martial forms, weapons practice and Daoist theory into what became Chen-style taijiquan. A widely repeated legendary account instead attributes tai chi's origin to the Daoist immortal Zhang Sanfeng, said to have derived its soft, yielding principles from watching a snake and a crane; this is treated by historians as an origin myth important to the art's later Daoist self-understanding rather than a documented historical fact. The slow, health-oriented form practised worldwide today descends chiefly from the nineteenth and twentieth century simplification and popularization of Chen-style technique.
Facts
Disputed
Key TextTai chi classics, a collected corpus of theoretical texts of debated and multiple authorship 1 The taijiquan classics are a collected corpus of theoretical texts on principle and practice that different lineages attribute variously, including to the legendary figure Zhang Sanfeng. Douglas Wile's Lost T'ai-chi Classics from the Late Ch'ing Dynasty (State University of New York Press, 1996) is a critical edition and history of these texts. The method is textual and historical criticism, tracing each classic's manuscript history, first datable appearance and transmission within specific family lineages, principally Chen, Yang and Wu, rather than accepting the traditional attribution at face value. Wile's research dismantles the Zhang Sanfeng origin legend, finding no basis connecting the classics to that figure, and traces the corpus instead to accumulated material from the late Qing dynasty. Because individual texts have different, independently traceable histories, both authorship and dating remain disputed among scholars working from the same manuscript evidence. Origins
Origin Period Origin Period17th century CE, Chen Wangting, Chenjiagou, Henan 1 Place of Origin Status
Status TodayLiving tradition, practised today 1 Living tradition, practised as martial art, health exercise and standardized public form today Practice
LineageYang Luchan learned Chen-style taijiquan from Chen Changxing in the 19th century and founded the Yang lineage in Beijing. 1 Learn More
Slow Form, Internal Principle
Taijiquan is practised as a continuous, slow sequence of linked postures, performed solo, emphasizing relaxed, whole-body movement, an upright but not rigid posture, and coordination of movement with breath, in contrast to the fast, externally forceful style associated with many other Chinese martial arts. Traditional taijiquan theory frames this slowness and softness as strategic rather than merely gentle, teaching a practitioner to yield to and redirect an opponent's force rather than meet it directly, a principle codified in texts such as those collected in the so-called tai chi classics.
Beyond its martial application, taijiquan is also practised, and today far more commonly practised, as a health and meditative discipline, understood within its traditional framework as cultivating and smoothing the flow of qi through the body, and as training coordination, balance and calm attention. Partner practice, particularly the paired exercise called push hands, traditionally develops sensitivity to an opponent's force and balance, and remains part of fuller traditional instruction even where solo form practice for health is the more common entry point. Standardized short forms, developed in China from the 1950s for public health promotion, retain the movement vocabulary and much of the health framing of the traditional styles while generally omitting the martial application and lengthy traditional forms taught within family and lineage schools.
Chen Village History and the Zhang Sanfeng Legend
Taijiquan's documented history begins with Chen Wangting in Chenjiagou, Henan, in the seventeenth century, and for roughly two centuries afterward the art was largely confined to instruction within the Chen family. That changed when Yang Luchan, traditionally said to have gained access to Chen instruction through determination and eventual acceptance by the family, learned the art under Chen Changxing in the nineteenth century and began teaching it publicly in Beijing, where his softer, more accessible teaching to Manchu nobility and the Chinese elite laid the groundwork for the widely known Yang style his descendants later systematized.
A separate and much older legendary account credits the semi-mythical Daoist immortal Zhang Sanfeng, placed variously from the twelfth to the fifteenth century depending on the telling, with originating tai chi's soft, yielding principle after observing a fight between a snake and a crane. Chinese martial arts historians treat this account as a legend that became attached to taijiquan to root it in Daoist religious authority rather than as a documented historical transmission, distinguishing it clearly from the Chen village lineage that the surviving textual and genealogical record actually supports. Twentieth century political history further reshaped tai chi's transmission: the People's Republic promoted standardized, simplified forms for mass public health from the 1950s onward, a state-sponsored version now far more widely practised worldwide than the longer traditional family forms, which continue to be taught within Chen, Yang and other lineage schools alongside the standardized versions.
Cross-Tradition Connections
Associated With
The taiji of taijiquan is the polarity the taijitu diagrams
Related To
Sibling Of
One of the three arts grouped as the internal family, a grouping made current by Sun Lutang in the early twentieth century.
One of the three arts grouped as the internal family, a grouping made current by Sun Lutang in the early twentieth century.
Works With
The meridians the practice claims to move qi along.
The meridians the practice claims to move qi along.
The five phases, which order the form as they order the rest of Chinese medicine.
The five phases, which order the form as they order the rest of Chinese medicine.
The meridians the practice claims to move qi along.
The meridians the practice claims to move qi along.
The meridians the practice claims to move qi along.
The meridians the practice claims to move qi along.
The meridians the practice claims to move qi along.
The meridians the practice claims to move qi along.
The meridians the practice claims to move qi along.
The five phases, which order the form as they order the rest of Chinese medicine.
The meridians the practice claims to move qi along.
The meridians the practice claims to move qi along.
The meridians the practice claims to move qi along.
The meridians the practice claims to move qi along.
The meridians the practice claims to move qi along.
The five phases, which order the form as they order the rest of Chinese medicine.
The five phases, which order the form as they order the rest of Chinese medicine.
Sources
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