Wu (Hao)-style tai chi () is one of the five primary styles of tai chi. It was created in the mid-nineteenth century by Wu Yuxiang, a member of a wealthy and influential family in Yongnian, Hebei, China. Wu trained for approximately ten years with the founder of Yang-style tai chi, and then for over a month with a Chen-style master. Wu also obtained a manual on internal martial arts that formed the core of what are now known as the tai chi classics and include Wu's own writing on the subject. From these sources Wu and his family developed their own style, and may also have developed much of the cultural and intellectual foundation of tai chi as well.Davis 2004, pp. 11-12, 25-29Wile 1996, pp. xv-xvii; pp. 17-18
Hao Weizhen was a disciple of Wu's nephew and was the first person outside the family to master their tai chi. Hao's contributions — in developing and spreading the art, and in training the founders of all subsequent Wu (Hao) lineages, as well as the further contributions of his son and grandson — are why many include his surname alongside or in place of Wu's when referring to this style.Li Jianqing 2006, pp. 183-184, 252-254, 258, 492, 536
This Wu style (, Wǔ) is the third-oldest among the five major styles – Chen, Yang, Wu (Hao), Wu (, Wú), and Sun – but is the smallest and least well-known of the five, in part because Wu Yuxiang and his family had no need to teach professionally. It is best known for its small- and medium-frame forms, as well as its emphasis on the core tai chi concept of "open-close" or "kai he" (), and so is also known as Kai He tai chi ().Li Jianqing 2006, Chapt. 4Davis 2004, pp. 8-14Wu Liuqun 1998
History
Wu Yuxiang Wu Yuxiang began training with Yang Luchan, the founder of Yang-style tai chi, in the early 1840s after Yang returned to Yongnian from his years in the Chen village. Among their many properties the Wu family were the landlords of Chen Dehu's pharmacy and clinic, where Yang offered instruction in what he then called "soft boxing" (), "cotton boxing" (), or "neutralizing boxing" (). But in the early 1850s, Wu and his family introduced Yang as martial arts instructor to a prominent family in distant Beijing, where Yang was invited to take up a teaching position at the palace of Prince Duan.Davis 2004, pp. 9-10Wile 1996, Chapt. 1
Wu then found his way to Chen Qingping, a master of Chen-style and Zhaobao tai chi, in Zhaobao village where he trained with Chen for over one month (per writings left by Wu's nephew and grandson). After approximately ten years of training with Yang, Wu was likely able to quickly master a great deal from Chen, gaining further depth and insight.Davis 2004, pp. 10, 26
From this training Wu began to develop his own style, which he shared with members of his extended family. He and his family were wealthy gentry, some of them government officials but none in military careers at that time, and had no need to teach martial arts for professional or financial purposes. They seem to have pursued tai chi primarily as a means of self-cultivation, and possibly for self-defense and leadership in a time of widespread civil breakdown and unrest including banditry, anti-landlord uprisings, and the Nian and Taiping rebellions.Davis 2004, p. 13Wile 1996, pp. 20-30Li Jianqing 2006, pp. 183-184
The tai chi classics
In the early 1850s Wu's eldest brother Chengqing (, also known as Wu Qiuying, ; 1800-1884) was serving as a government official in Henan, when he obtained a manual on the principles of internal martial arts. In the writings of the next generation, this was tersely reported as having been received at "a salt shop", with the assumption that any reader would understand the context of that statement. Salt merchants were wealthy and of equal social status with an official like Wu Chengqing. At least one scholar speculates that the owner of that shop may have been a fellow book collector who had learned of the Wu family's interest in the topic, and was seeking to curry favor with Chengqing who among other things was in charge of tax collection.Davis 2004, p. 25-33Wile 1996, Chapt. 2 and Chapt. 4, esp. p. 117-118
Authorship of the manuscript was attributed to a Wang Zongyue of Shanxi, about whom no information is available in verifiable historical records. (Some have suggested Wang Zongyue could be a pseudonym of Wu Yuxiang or another Wu family member, but the writing style is different and the mundane salt shop story – as opposed to, say, claiming an immortal sage found it in an enchanted cave – lends believability as well.) Wu Chengqing passed the manual on to Wu Yuxiang, who discussed it with his friend and teacher Yang Luchan. Yang agreed it was important. Over the following years, Wu and his family applied the lessons of this text to the development of their art and created a body of written work around it, which together became known as the first version of the tai chi classics.Wile 1996, Chapt. 2, pp. 106–107, 111–114
Wu's nephew and top disciple Li Yiyu (; 1832–1892) contributed several texts to the final collection. Wu's older brothers Chengqing and Ruqing (; 1803-1887) also wrote on the topic after they retired from government service, though those works along with more by Li Yiyu were not made public until the 1980s and 1990s, so have been called "lost classics". Wu likely also shared his writings with Yang Luchan, and with Yang's son Yang Banhou, who Wu tutored (probably in literacy as well as tai chi). Although the Wu and Yang lineages appear to have drifted apart by the next generation, in the early twentieth century Yang Chengfu's disciples began to publish their own versions of these texts with their own additions, and began to call them the "tai chi classics".Wile 1996, Chapt. 2– Chapt. 3
The name of tai chi
The term "taijiquan" (the Chinese name of tai chi) may have first appeared in the Wu/Li family's mid-nineteenth century writings, perhaps drawn from the Wang Zongyue text which begins with the words "Taiji is born from Wuji; it is the mother of Yin and Yang". As the Wu family had no need to promote their art, it was left to the Yangs to bring this to the public first. But with different priorities, especially as the two families drifted apart (or worse) by the second generation, they often felt no need to mention each other at all which is why few knew of this.Davis 2004, p. 38-40Wile 1996, p. 20Li Jianqing, p. 37-38
Yang family tradition tells us only that imperial court scholar Weng Tonghe used the term "taiji" (tai chi) in a poem to describe a performance by Yang Luchan.Yang Zhenji (, 1993), (Yang Chengfu Style Taijiquan), (Guangxi Minzu Publishing), , ("Introduction") It is not clear if that was an additional influence on the name, or if the new name was already in use there, along with the earlier names "Thirteen Postures" (), "Long Boxing"(), and "Soft/Cotton/Neutralizing Boxing" (). Written evidence that the Yang family had started using the name taiji for their martial art first appears in a later text, possibly completed in 1875 by Yang Luchan's son Yang Banhou (who had been tutored by Wu Yuxiang), or no later than the first decade of the twentieth century by one or more of Yang Banhou's disciples.Yang Banhou 1875Wile 1996, pp. 57-89, 135-153
By the second decade of the twentieth century, Yang Chengfu's disciples and Sun Lutang were using the term "taijiquan" in their publications, including in the titles of some of the tai chi classics. It then appeared in a book by a Chen family member, Chen Xin, published after he died in 1929. This timeline may represent the origin and history of the adoption of this name — from Wu to Yang to Wu (), then Sun, then Chen — but with no record of verbal usage we have no way of knowing for sure.Sun Lutang 1921
The legend of Zhang Sanfeng
The Wu family wrote of many other connections between the art and traditional Chinese culture, with the writings of eldest brother Wu Chengqing especially showing his interest in Daoism when he was not occupied with his official Confucian responsibilities.Wile 1996, pp. 15, 24-25 Scholars believe Wu Yuxiang passed along to his successors and to the Yang family the story of the creation of internal martial arts by legendary Daoist alchemist Zhang Sanfeng.Wile 1996, pp. 108-111Davis 2004, pp. 15-18
For Wu Yuxiang and the seventeenth century authors he likely drew from, that story may have been primarily an anti-Manchu political allegory. There is no mention of Zhang in original Chen village documents, and although Wu's nephew and disciple Li Yiyu did write about Zhang, in a later piece written in 1881 Li stated "The creator of tai chi is unknown".Li Yiyu 1881
But with Wu Yuxiang most likely having planted the seeds of this tradition, supplementary chapters on internal martial arts attributed to Zhang were appended to the above-mentioned work by Yang Banhou or his disciples, and by the early twentieth century publications by Yang Chengfu's disciples and Sun Lutang proclaimed Zhang Sanfeng creator of tai chi itself. In Yang-style editions Zhang was also named as author of one of the tai chi classics.
Li Yiyu and Hao Weizhen
"Wu Yuxiang taught reading as a hobby, and Li Yiyu practiced medicine as a profession. They both considered themselves to be members of the literati, and in their hometown taught very few students. Li's best student was his neighbor, Hao He, known by the courtesy name Weizhen." —Gu LiuxinHao Shaoru 1963, Introduction
Wu Yuxiang practiced his tai chi with his older brothers, and his only disciples were his nephews Li Yiyu and Li Qixuan (, Simplified Chinese , 1835-1899). Li Yiyu became a prominent voice speaking to us from the past through his writing on tai chi, and he was the first to teach this style to anyone outside the family. Wealthy and occupied for many years with establishing and running a smallpox clinic, he devoted much of his spare time to practicing, researching, and further developing the art with his uncle Yuxiang and brother Qixuan, but also took on as a disciple his neighbor Hao Weizhen, for whom he made one of only three handwritten copies of the Wu/Li family tai chi manual.Davis 2004, p. 14Wile 1996, pp. 48-50, 101-103Li Yiyu 1881
Hao Weizhen became a well-known master and professional instructor, further refining the art and developing his own solo form (see the Characteristics section below). Closely associated with the martial arts community in Hebei, including Yang Zhaolin (; 1884-1922) the eldest grandson of Yang Luchan, beginning in 1914 he also taught in Beijing where his students included Sun Lutang, the founder of Sun-style tai chi, and in Yongnian that same year Hao led the first tai chi program in a public middle/high school. Hao's contributions – in developing and spreading the art, and in training the founders of all subsequent Wu (Hao) lineages, as well as the further contributions of his son and grandson – are why many include his surname when referring to this style.
Lineage The Wu (Hao) lineage () is represented today by at least a dozen branches () with many smaller offshoots. The four largest branches are listed here, named for the purposes of this article as follows:Li Jianqing 2006, pp. 257-271, 535-549 Li family branch Hao family branch Li Shengduan branch Li Baoyu (Li Xiangyuan) branch
The founders of these branches trained under Hao Weizhen, but the first branch in the list traces lineage directly back to the original Wu and Li families. Li family descendants still teach, but no direct descendant of the Wu or Hao families has a leading role in the art today.Li Jianqing 2006, p. 257-271, 535-549Liu Jishun 2008, p. 15-16
Although Sun style is considered a descendant () of Wu (Hao) style because the founder learned tai chi from Hao Weizhen, that style is covered in a separate article and not included here.
(Article continues below lineage tree)
Lineage tree
Li family branch