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Yang Cheng-fu (1882-1936) deserves the title Grand Master. It is because of him that Taichichuan gained its present popularity. When Taichichuan is mentioned without specification, people think of Yang style. When Yang style is mentioned without further specification, people think of Yang Cheng-fu style.

Although Taichichuan has been practiced for generations in a Chen family of Chenchiakou in Honan Province, the art was confined to that family until Yang Lu-chan (1799 -1872) learned and introduced it in his native town, Yungnien (alias Kwangping) and Peking. Yang Lu-chan was considered a genius in this art, and through contests with various martial artists, he received the nickname "invincible Yang."

It was because of his accomplishment that Taichichuan gained the fame and respect it has since the nineteenth century. Except for the Chen family style, founders of all major schools of Taichichuan learned from him, and secondary styles were then derived from these major schools.

Both of Yang Lu-chan’s sons, Yang Pan-hou (1837-1892) and Yang Chien-hou (1839-1917), carried on his art and achieved very high accomplishment and esteem. But most of their influence was in Peking. It was his grandson, Yang Cheng-fu, who widely popularized it, not only in north China but also in central, east and south China. From 1928, he was invited to teach in Nanking, Shanghai, Hangchou, Handou, and Canton.

The postures as settled down by Yang Cheng-fu are extended, well-centered, and comfortable. His movements are simple, rounded, natural, and neat, without extraneousness. His weight is well sunk, but he moves effortlessly. He is soft in appearance, yet with plenty of strength. The atmosphere is imposing and the forms and movements are aesthetic.

In teaching, he adapted the postures and methods to suit people with different constitutions, so that the exercise may be used by recuperating patients as well as by healthy persons for further improving their health and for self-defense.

The vigorous movements of his early style, such as jumping and stamping the foot, were gradually modified or removed. The intermittent swift-slow pattern with clear storing and releasing of strength, was changed to more or less even speed with continuous energy and natural breathing. For example, when he first demonstrated at Shanghai, he still preserved the sudden kicking and sudden separation of the foot with noise from air friction. This was changed to the slow kicking and separation of the foot.

In teaching, Yang Cheng-fu took a more serious attitude with more systematic methods. He is the first great master of any school who left his photographs of Taichichuan postures. In addition to his own books, his disciples also have many publications. Although the real, authentic Yang Cheng-fu style is rare now, most styles currently taught and practiced are either derivatives or modifications of his. Research or studies on Taichichuan always use Yang Cheng-fu as reference, and consideration of modifications generally use Yang’s series as a point of departure.

Yang Cheng-fu’s Taichichuan may be considered a fairly balanced system. It consists of the bare-handed Taichichuan and use of weapons such as sword, falchion (sometimes called broadsword and similar to a saber but with a wider single-edge cutting blade) and staff (often called lance and usually 9 feet long, comparable to a spear but without a metal point). It also includes the two-person exercise of various forms, such as the fixed step, the three-step forward-backward movements, the four-corner movements and the irregular step, free-hand movements which are also called shanshou.

When he changed his bare-handed exercise into slow movements in the late 1920’s and early 1930’s to meet the increasing needs for health, he developed a series such as Taichi changchuan (long fist) and a fast Taichichuan. It is unfair to consider Taichichuan too mild an exercise and inadequate for health simply because many of the derivatives of his style are too weakly done, and because other facets of his system are not yet popularly introduced to the West.

Yang’s first set of photographs on slow taichichuan was published in Chen Wei-ming’s "Methods of Taichichuan", 1925. In Yang’s book, co-authored with Tung Ying-chieh, "Application of Taichichuan", 1931, are published the photographs of the improved and final version of his postures for the same series. The book also includes self-defense implications of individual postures, the Taichi staff (lance) and the fixed step and four-corner joint hands exercise. The thinner book, "Taichichuan Exercise and Application", which contains the same photographs as his 1931 book, was published in his name in 1934.

Yang’s eldest son, Master Yeung (Yang) Sau-chung, published "Practical Use of Taichichuan, Its Applications and Variations" (Chinese, 1952; English, 1977). The book has photos of the father and son, who teaches in Hong Kong.

Authors’ Note: The characteristics of Yang Cheng-fu’s Taichichuan described in the fifth and sixth paragraphs of this article are based on Fu Chung-wen’s comments in his 1963 book, "Yang Style in Taichichuan".

Wu Ta-yeh teaches in Palo Alto, CA.