The Art
Wu Style Tai Chi Chuan
One of the five major styles of Tai Chi Chuan. The five families — Chen, Yang, Wu, Wu (Hao), and Sun — each transmit their art through their own family line. In the Wu family tradition, the art belongs to the family, and the family remains its highest authority.
Origins · 1834–1902
Grand Master Wu Chuan Yau and the Small Circles
First-generation Grand Master Wu Chuan Yau studied under Grand Master Yang Lu Chan, founder of Yang Style, and continued under his son Yang Ban Hou. He served as a bodyguard in the Imperial Court of the Qing Dynasty.
Yang Ban Hou taught in two divisions: the Big Circles for health, given to the Manchu princes; the Small Circles of fighting applications, never passed on casually. The training was harsh — "no pain, no gain" — and of all the royal guards only three refused to quit. Wu Chuan Yau was one of them, though the throws left his left leg slightly lame.
When Yang Lu Chan took over the teaching during his son's absence, he heard the honest account of that lame leg, realized the Small Circles had never been taught, and retrained his student from the beginning in the Small Circle method — three years in which the young man absorbed the whole art. When Wu Chuan Yau opened his own hall he set two deliberate differences: he would teach ordinary people rather than princes, and his style would keep the Small Circle method alone. On these terms he created Wu Family Tai Chi Chuan.
1870–1942 · The Public Teaching
Tai Chi Chuan left the palace and entered the schoolyard.
Second-generation Grand Master Wu Chien Chuan co-founded the Beijing Physical Education Research Institute in 1916 with Yang Shao Hou, Yang Cheng Fu, Hsu Yu Sheng, Sun Lu Tang, and other noted masters — training more than sixty physical education teachers. Invited south in 1928 by the Shanghai municipal government and the Chin Woo Athletic Association, he established the first Chien Chuan Tai Chi Chuan Association there in 1935.
In Shanghai, Yang Cheng Fu and Wu Chien Chuan once shared a charity exhibition stage, performing push hands in long gowns — one asking, the other answering, rising and falling like dragon and tiger at play — a moment those present would remember forever.
Lineage
Five generations, one family art
From the Qing court to the international federation, the art has passed from master to disciple within one family for over a century and a half.
1834–1902
Wu Chuan Yau
Qing court bodyguard under Yang Lu Chan and Yang Ban Hou. Learned the hidden Small Circles and founded Wu Family Tai Chi Chuan, teaching ordinary people in the compact frame.
1870–1942
Wu Chien Chuan
Co-founded the Beijing Physical Education Research Institute in 1916 and carried the art to Shanghai in 1928, opening Tai Chi Chuan to the public for the first time.
1900–1970
Wu Kung Yi
Whampoa Military Academy instructor and founder of the Hong Kong Academy in 1937. His brother Wu Kung Cho wrote the classic Wu Style Tai Chi Chuan; sister Wu Ying Hua led Shanghai.
1923–1972
Wu Ta K'uei
Spread the art across Hong Kong, Kowloon, Macau, the Philippines, Singapore, and Malaysia; his brother Wu Ta Chi carried it to Canada in 1975.
b. 1946
Eddie Wu Kwong Yu
Fifth-generation Gate Keeper. Carried Wu Style to North America and Europe and founded the International Wu Style Tai Chi Chuan Federation in Toronto in 1995.
Characteristics
What makes Wu Style distinct
A compact middle frame refined by Wang Mao Zhai and Wu Chien Chuan, transmitted from master to disciple for more than a century and a half.
Compact frame, continuous motion
Each posture seems to pause yet never stops, about to expand but never fully stretched; the form runs at an even, unbroken pace from the Opening posture to the Close.
Alignment and relaxed strength
Precise skeletal alignment, relaxed muscles, and a straight, balanced spine; the weight turns on the solid leg and energy threads joint by joint through small circles.
Push hands led by softness
No force against force, slowness governing speed, four ounces deflecting a thousand pounds — neutralizing rather than striking, in accord with the theory of yin and yang.
A complete system
Slow form and fast form, the saber, the Qiankun and Seven-Star swords, paired sword, twenty-four spear, sticking pole, and push hands of thirteen techniques and moving step.
Official Recognition
On the Hong Kong Intangible Cultural Heritage Inventory
Wu Style Tai Chi Chuan is entered on the government inventory of intangible cultural heritage of Hong Kong, in the category of social practices, rituals and festive events.
- Wu Style Tai Chi Chuan
- 3.62.1
- Social practices, rituals and festive events
- No territorial limit · all year
The inventory entry records the style as it was fixed in the Qing dynasty by Grand Master Wu Chuan Yau (吳全佑), who took the large frame from Yang Lu Chan (楊露禪) and afterwards the small frame from Yang Lu Chan's son Yang Ban Hou (楊班侯) — the same two masters recorded on our lineage page. His son Wu Chien Chuan (吳鑑泉) founded the Chien Chuan Tai Chi Chuan Association in Shanghai in 1935, and from the second generation the art divides into a northern and a southern school. In 1937 his disciples Wu Kung Yi (吳公儀) and Wu Kung Cho (吳公藻) came south to Hong Kong and brought the art with them — the line that became this Academy. In the north, the branch of Grand Master Li Bing Ci (李秉慈) is kept in Hong Kong by Grand Master Yen Yi Sung (嚴義松), who moved there to teach in 1995.
The entry sets out what the style carries as practised in Hong Kong: 13-form, 45-form and 108-form sets, together with weapon sets using the sabre, spear, sword and staff. Of these, the 108-form set is the traditional long form of our own southern school, the lineage taught here. The 13-form and 45-form sets belong to the northern school of Grand Master Li Bing Ci — the 45-form set being the national competition set settled in 1988 — and reached Hong Kong with Grand Master Yen Yi Sung in 1995; they are not part of this Academy's own transmitted sets. The sets are characterised by delicacy of movement and a natural fluency; the hands and feet are never pulled out to their limit; as the body moves one hand acts while the other is still; and every change of movement is exact about the balance of the lower body. The practice is built on dantian breath, and asks for a settled mind with easy, ordered breathing.
Source: Intangible Cultural Heritage Inventory of Hong Kong, item 3.62.1.