Health

Yang ChenFu

At the beginning of the 20th century another important Taijiquan trend came into being in Beijing. Most of its members lived in the YongNian district of the Hebai province. For this reason they were called YongNian Pai. As they originally lived in the north they were also called BeiPai or the Northern school.

In 1911 the last Chinese emperor, Yuan ShiKai, was poisoned. His reign only lasted 81 days. His bodyguard Song ShuMing lost his job and started teaching Taijigong of Taiji 37 in Beijing. From all over the country wushu masters came to study with Song ShuMing or if they could they would send their family students to go and study his techniques. One of them was Wu JianQian, a family student of the Yang family.

Later on some students started introduce certain elements in their own wushu technique. They started to create different forms and called it Taijiquan. Wu JianQian for example created Wu style Taijiquan and Yang ChenFu created Yang style Taijiquan.

In fact the real founders of Taijiquan are Wu JianQian and Yang ChenFu; the generations before them were wushu fighters. Yang ChenFu was the first one who changed the wushu techniques into health exercises. He thought of the slogan ‘Practise Taiji for a better health and a long life.’ This turned the practice of Taijiquan into a very popular pursuit. Thanks to Yang ChenFu Taijiquan (and especially the Yang style) is now known all over the world.