The T'ai Chi is a very old and ancient Art. It is 3,000 to 4,000 years old and there are many stories about how it began. For our purposes today, however, we will give the responsibility to a Monk by the name of Cheng San Feng, who lived from 1275 A.D to 1368 A.D. The story that has been passed to us is that one day, while meditating, he heard a voice and when he looked outside he saw a snake and a crane fighting. Each time, when the snake attacked the crane, the crane lifted his wing and the snake found an empty space where the wing had been. When the crane attacked the snake, the snake yielded and became very soft, so that the crane could not harm him. They fought this way for a length of time until they both got tired. It was then, as the snake slithered off in one direction and the crane went in another that the Monk suddenly understood that there had not been either a winner or a looser in the battle. Instead, softness and yielding had overcome strength.

Feng then established the first T'ai Chi Chuan school on the Wuttang Mountain, based on the principles of yielding, lightness, softness and relaxation. He taught how to move slowly and naturally and how to achieve Unity between the body and the soul. He emphasized harmony between all the parts of the body and the mind. These principles are also the principles of the Tao Philosophy. Tao - the way, the way of Nature with its dual elements of opposites that create a whole, as in day and night, summer and winter, male and female, Ying and Yang. The idea is to keep the Ying and the Yang in harmony and balance, for any disturbance of this balance will cause a disaster. The human race must operate with the rules of nature and man in order to keep harmony and balance in a whole way, joining the body and the soul.

The principles of T'ai Chi Chuan are:

1. Relaxation
2. Slow Methodical Movement
3. Ying/Yang
4. Balance
5. Rooting
6. Co-ordination and Concentration
7. Energy and Breathing

There were three families and three styles of T'ai Chi: the Chen, the Yang and the Wu. The Chen family dates from 1600 to 1700 AD, the Yang from 1800 to 1900 AD, and the Wu from 1900 to the present. And as the discipline came to be taught outside the families, more styles have developed, like the simplified T'ai Chi, which was developed in China after the Cultural Revolution. These are all part of the wide concept of the Art of Tai Chi as an Art of Changes and the martial aspects behind the movements.

Every style has a set of movements, the form of which is unchangeable and done in a set order. In the Long Form, there are 108 forms, or 148 movements. In the simplified, or Peking style, there are 24 movements and according to Cheng Man Ching, the Master who brought T'ai Chi to the west in 1950, 36 movements (Short Yang Form).

But it does not matter what style you are doing as long as the Principles are kept very thoroughly and properly. Only the Great Masters can make the changes.

The Wu style is the only style practiced today that is still being practiced by all its current family members. It is popular in Hong Kong, Southeast Asia and Toronto, Canada, where the Master Wu Kwong Yu, Eddie Wu, of the Fifth Generation of the Wu family teaches. This style concentrates on the perfect balance between the Martial and Health aspects of the Art and between internal energy and fitness in a holistic approach to body and mind. The T'ai Chi has been available to the masses only within the 20th Century, but today there are millions of people all over the world who are having the chance to enjoy and practice the wisdom of this ancient Art.

For inquiries about classes, intensive seminars, lectures and retreats in New York or Tel Aviv, E-mail Lily at Lilytaichi@aol.com or LWellsNYC@aol.com.