Wu Style Tai Chi Chuan

Wu Style Tai Chi Chuan is 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: Grand Master Wu Chuan Yau (1834-1902)

First-generation Grand Master Wu Chuan Yau studied under Grand Master Yang Lu Chan, the founder of Yang Style Tai Chi Chuan. He then continued his training under Yang Lu Chan's son, Grand Master Yang Ban Hou. Wu Chuan Yau served as a bodyguard in the Imperial Court of the Qing Dynasty. His disciples included Hsia Kong Pu, Wang Mao Chi, Kuo Song Ting, and Chang Yuan Ting.

Wu Chien Chuan and the Public Teaching of Tai Chi (1870-1942)

Second-generation Grand Master Wu Chien Chuan served in the palace battalion of the Imperial Guards. After the abdication of Emperor Puyi, he was appointed Wushu instructor to the Eleventh Corps of the Presidential Body Guards. In 1916 he co-founded the Beijing Physical Education Research Institute with Yang Shao Hou, Yang Cheng Fu, Hsu Yu Sheng, Sun Lu Tang, and other noted masters. The institute trained more than sixty physical education teachers, and Tai Chi Chuan reached the public school system for the first time.

In 1928, invited by the Shanghai municipal government, the Chin Woo Athletic Association, and leading citizens, Wu Chien Chuan moved south to Shanghai. In 1935 he established the first Chien Chuan Tai Chi Chuan Association there. His third-generation sons Wu Kung Yi and Wu Kung Cho were among the first graduates of the Beijing institute.

The Third Generation: Wu Kung Yi, Wu Kung Cho, and Wu Ying Hua

Third-generation Grand Master Wu Kung Yi (1900-1970) carried the art south. In 1924 he became Tai Chi Chuan instructor at the Whampoa Military Academy and lecturer at Sun Yat Sen University in Guangzhou. Grand Master Wu Kung Cho (1903-1983) wrote the classic book Wu Style Tai Chi Chuan, first published in 1935 and reprinted in 1980. Grand Master Wu Ying Hua (1907-1997) led the Shanghai association and reopened it in the late 1970s.

In 1937 Wu Kung Yi founded Wu's Tai Chi Chuan Academy in Hong Kong. The full story of the Academy, from the 1954 Macau charity contest to the Jordan Road headquarters, is told on our Academy history page, which records how the school survived war and grew into an international organization.

The Fourth and Fifth Generations

Fourth-generation Grand Master Wu Ta K'uei (1923-1972) spread the art across Hong Kong, Kowloon, Macau, the Philippines, Singapore, and Malaysia. Fifth-generation Gate Keeper Grand Master Eddie Wu Kwong Yu, eldest son of Wu Ta K'uei, carried Wu Style to North America and Europe, and founded the International Wu Style Tai Chi Chuan Federation in Toronto in 1995. His biography appears on the Head of the Family page.

Characteristics of the Style

Wu Style is known for three defining characteristics. Firstly, the frame is compact and the movements are soft, circular, and continuous. Secondly, the practice emphasizes precise skeletal alignment, relaxed muscles, and a straight, balanced spine. Thirdly, the curriculum is complete: slow form, fast form, push hands, and the sword, saber, and spear weapons forms.

Students who wish to begin training can review the full class curriculum, which covers the 108-form joint exercises, push hands, and the six progressive levels of study.