What is Taijiquan?

Taijiquan (太極拳), often written tai chi chuan or simply tai chi, is an internal Chinese martial art practiced today for self-defense, health, and meditation alike. The name means roughly "supreme ultimate fist" — taiji (太極), the "supreme ultimate," is the classical Chinese cosmological principle from which the complementary forces of yin and yang arise, and quan (拳) means "fist" or "boxing." The art takes its name from that principle because its movements continuously embody the interplay of opposites: yielding and issuing, empty and full, opening and closing, stillness within motion.

To most of the world Taijiquan is recognizable as the slow, flowing solo exercise practised in parks at dawn. That gentle form is real, but it is only the surface of a complete martial system with a sophisticated theory of body mechanics and energy.

Origins

Taijiquan emerged in China; the most widely accepted historical account traces it to the Chen village (Chenjiagou) in Henan Province around the 17th century, where the Chen family developed a martial art combining silk-reeling spiraling movements, breath work, and explosive power release. In the 19th century Yang Luchan learned the Chen art and adapted it into what became the Yang style, which spread widely and is now the most commonly practised form worldwide. Other major lineages branched from these roots.

Older traditions attribute the art's invention to the semi-legendary Daoist sage Zhang Sanfeng, said to have created it after observing a fight between a snake and a crane — the snake yielding and coiling, the crane striking. Historians regard this as legend rather than documented fact, but it captures the art's central idea: softness overcoming hardness.

Core principles

Across all styles, Taijiquan rests on a consistent set of principles:

• Song (鬆) — relaxed release. The body stays loose and unforced, never collapsed but never rigid. Tension is the enemy; sensitivity and responsiveness depend on letting go.

• Rooting. The practitioner sinks their weight and stays connected to the ground, drawing stability and power up from the feet through the legs, directed by the waist, and expressed in the hands.

• Using softness to overcome hardness. Rather than meeting force with force, the practitioner yields, neutralizes, and redirects an incoming attack, then issues power once the opponent is off-balance.

• Whole-body coordination. Movement originates in the center (the waist and dantian) and travels through a connected body, so the whole frame moves as one unit rather than as isolated limbs.

• Continuity and slowness. The form is practised slowly and without interruption, "like a great river flowing without end," which trains alignment, balance, and awareness that can later express at speed.

The major family styles

Five family lineages are usually named as the principal styles, each with its own flavor:

• Chen — the oldest, alternating slow movement with sudden bursts of explosive power (fa jin) and visible spiraling (silk-reeling) energy.

• Yang — the most popular, characterized by large, even, gracefully extended frames practised at a steady tempo; the basis of most public health-oriented tai chi.

• Wu (Hao) — a compact style with small, subtle movements and a strong emphasis on internal mechanics.

• Wu — derived from the Yang tradition, known for a slightly forward-inclined posture and refined pushing-hands skill.

• Sun — the youngest of the five, blending Taijiquan with the other internal arts xingyiquan and baguazhang, marked by agile stepping.

How it is practised

A complete Taijiquan curriculum typically includes three pillars:

1. The solo form — a choreographed sequence of postures linked into continuous movement, practised to build alignment, balance, and internal coordination.

2. Pushing hands (tui shou) — partnered sensitivity drills in which two practitioners stay in contact and learn to listen to, neutralize, and redirect each other's force. This is the bridge between solo practice and live application.

3. Weapons and applications — forms with the straight sword (jian), saber (dao), spear, and staff, along with the martial applications of the empty-hand postures.

The conceptual core: the Thirteen Postures

Underlying every movement is a framework called the Thirteen Postures (Shi San Shi): the Eight Gates — eight fundamental energies (ward-off, roll-back, press, push, pluck, split, elbow, and shoulder) — combined with the Five Steps, the five directions of footwork (advance, retreat, look left, gaze right, and central equilibrium). The eight energies are classically mapped to the eight trigrams of the I Ching and the five steps to the five elements, tying the physical art back to the cosmology its name invokes.

The Taiji Classics

The art's theory is preserved in a small body of texts known as the Taiji Classics — including the Taijiquan Lun attributed to Wang Zongyue and the writings attributed to Zhang Sanfeng. Terse and poetic, they are studied across all styles and supply the art's enduring maxims: "Four ounces deflects a thousand pounds," and "In stillness, be like a mountain; in motion, be like a great river."

Taijiquan today

Modern Taijiquan lives a double life. Tens of millions practise it primarily for health — research has examined its benefits for balance, fall prevention, and stress — while a smaller community continues to train it as a martial art, complete with pushing hands competition and applications. Both are faithful to the tradition: the same slow, principled practice that calms the mind also builds the structure and sensitivity the art was originally designed for.