Tai Chi and Qigong (Chi Kung)
Origins
As with anything that evolves rather than is born, the origin of Tai Chi Chuan is a hotly debated subject and it is very difficult to judge between truth and hopes. It is generally agreed that the founder of Tai Chi Chuan was Chang-San Feng (Chang San-feng), however there is difference of opinion over when exactly Feng lived, some saying exact dates of 1279 - 1368 (Tai Chi, L.Galante), while others give dates anywhere from the eighth to the thirteenth century A.D. (Tai Chi Chuan, D.Lee), yet some, still, question his existence at all, ascribing him to a mythical figure. (Mark Allen, www.taichido.com) Chang-San Feng is said to have been a Taoist priest and had been given the inspiration for creating the soft-fist schools by watching a fight between a crane and a snake, neither could get the upper hand, both recoiling at the other's attack. He is also thought to have taken older exercises and martial arts to create Tai Chi. Linking some of the older forms with the notion of yin-yang from Taoism and stressing the 'internal' aspects of his exercises; he is credited with creating the fundamental 'Thirteen Postures' of Tai Chi corresponding to the eight basic trigrams of the I Ching and the five elements. The eight 'postures' are: ward-off; rollback; press; push; pull; split; elbow strike; and shoulder strike. The five 'attitudes' are: Advance; retreat; look left; gaze right; and central equilibrium. His exercises stressed suppleness and elasticity and were opposed to hardness and force. They incorporated philosophy, physiology, psychology, geometry and the laws of dynamics.(http://www.chebucto.ns.ca/Philosophy/Taichi/ history.html) Chang-San Feng' s new take on old moves was passed down through numerous students, all adding their own ideas and incorporating other forms and movements to give us the Tai Chi Chuan of the modern day.
However the seeds of Tai Chi Chuan and the other soft-fist schools were most likely sown a long time before the emergence of Tai Chi itself. "Going back even further, the ancestors of tai chi can be seen in the sixth century: Bodhidharma visited the Shao-lin monastery, and developed a system of exercise for the monks, who he saw in poor physical condition from too much meditation. This was known as the Eighteen Form Lohan Exercise. Later, in the eighth century, this was developed into a 37-form 'Long Kung-Fu', which unlike other schools of Kung-fu, was based upon a 'soft' or internal approach, rather than a 'hard' external one. Looking back even further than this, we can see that in the third century, the physician Hua-tu'o created a system of exercise to aid digestion and circulation, based upon the movements of animals and birds. The effect of this system was to move every part of the body." (Mark Allen; www.taichido.com)
