Taijiquan,
Also called Tai Chi Chuan, is a Chinese martial art that is now practiced by millions of people worldwide, making it one of the most commonly practiced martial arts. Slow and flowing movements are typical of Taiji, which loosely translates as “sublime ultimate”. Taiji is a movement system for meditation, self-defense and health maintenance. Body-appropriate posture, consciously dealing with inner states of tension, correct breathing, and sensitization of energetic processes are practiced and deepened here. It has long been proven that regular Taiji practice maintains and promotes health, lowers blood pressure, strengthens muscles and bones and leads to a satisfied and calm inner attitude. Legend tells of the 12th century monk Chang San-Feng, who witnessed a fight between a snake and a crane. Observation taught him how the soft conquers the hard and from this he invented the “inner martial art”.
T he founder of today's well-known Taijiquan is attributed to Chen Wang Ting (1597 -1644), the Chen style is considered the oldest style. The Chen family only passed on the knowledge within the family until Chen Chang Hsing took on a certain Yang Lu Chan as a student, the founder of today's globally popular Yang style. Yang Lu Chan changed the sequence of movements of Chen Taiji and invented his own form. The Yang style impresses with its flowing movements, its round sequences of movements and the Yin and Yang principles, which are easier to recognize in Europe. In 1955 a short form of Taiji was created
24 movement images, the so-called Peking form. It is a simplified sequence of movements, but follows the same principles of all other forms. The focus of practice is the “form”, clearly defined sequences of successive movements. The forms often represent the fight against one or more imaginary opponents, which is where the now rarely used name “Chinese shadow boxing” comes from for Taijiquan. A form is made up of several images (individual movements), which are fixed in their sequence. The images have very different names that emphasize the use of the movement (e.g. “left heel kick”), or describe the character of the movement (e.g. “simple whip”), or that are more poetic to read (e.g. “the white crane spreads his “wings out” or “parting the wild horse’s mane”).
