History of Chen Family Taijiquan

History of Chen Family Taijiquan

The progenitor of the Chen family was Chen Bu. He had a lot of knowledge of martial arts and other weapons. He was respected because his personality was very generous. Because of weakness of topography, the village had to be moved more secure place to avoid a flood of the Yellow River (the Hwang Ho.) A new town had a ditch that had two divides (to North and South), and people called “Chenjiagou” as translated "Chen family ditch" after the Chen family had an increase in population.

Now there are not many historical documents about the Chen family. However, we can see some documents from a 9th generation, Chen Wang Ting (1600-1680). There is a saying of Chen family’s context; “Chen Wang Ting was a warrior and a scholar who lived in the late Ming Dynasty. He was a grandmaster of martial arts and studied hard to develop his researches in his entire life. After he mastered the principles of martial arts, his knowledge was continued by generations. This made a unique heritage of the Chen family.”

Chen Wangting invented Taijiquan based upon his ancestors' knowledge and his own after a lifetime of researching, developing, and experiencing martial arts. Chen Changxing (1771-1853), the 14th generation Chen Patriarch, was the first to teach Chen Taijiquan to an outsider, Yang Luchan (1799-1872). Vowing to his master to never teach Taijiquan to the public or use its name, Yang was finally taught the Chen family martial art.  He later traveled to Beijing and became known as "Yang the Invincible." True to his oath, Yang formulated his own Taijiquan form based upon Chen family Taijiquan's first form (Laojia Yilu) and became the founder of Yang Taijiquan. Another possible reason for Yang Luchan to formulate his own Taijiquan form might be due to the fact that during those days, the Yang family was employed by the Manchu rulers of the Qing Dynasty to manage the practice and teaching of war.  As Manchus were considered the oppressive foreign rulers by the people in their sovereighty (i.e. the Han people), the Yang family probably decided to teach the Manchus only the boxing form, but not the boxing methods nor its applications. Manchus were taught to be soft as cotton so they would not use Taijiquan to attack or kill. Direct Yang family members and close disciples, on the other hand, were secretly taught both the hard and soft aspects of Taijiquan.  

Yet, the soft form started to gain its popularity and gradually Taijiquan was recognized and associated with the soft form while people in Chen Village continued to practice both the soft and the hard forms. The name Taijiquan was given later possibly because this unique martial arts system was created based upon the principles and theory of Taiji (yin and yang: the cosmic dual forces), "Grand Ultimate or Extreme" - yin and yang reaching the ultimate balance and regenerating from each other.

Chen Changxing invented Taijiquan based upon the essence of Taoism’s breathing, meridian pathways of Chinese medicine and theory of Yin and Yang (the cosmic dual forces.) Finally, Chen Wangting created five Taijiquan routines, a Changquan (Long Boxing) routine consisting of one hundred and eight forms, a Paocui (Cannon Fist) routine, double push hands, broadsword, straight sword, spear long spear push hand and so forth. These are the origin of Taijiquan styles.

Today there are basically two empty-hand Chen Taijiquan forms. The first form is soft and slow, also known as Yilu (First Road) whereas the second form is powerful and fast, also known as Erlu (Second Road) or Pao Chui (Cannon Fist).