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T'ai Chi Ch'uan

T'ai Chi Ch'uan in its many variations is the most popular and widely practised style in the world today and the second in terms of seniority among the primary five family styles of t'ai Chi.

Yang family

The Yang family first became involved in the study of T'ai Chi in the early 1800s.  The founer of the Yang style was Yang Lu-ch'an, aka Yang Fu-k'ui, who studied under Ch'en Chang-hsing starting in 1820.  Yang's subsequent expression of T'ai Chi as a teacher in his own right became known as the Yang style, and directly led to the development of the other three major styles of T'ai Chi.  Yang Lu-ch'an (and some would say the art of T'ai Chi Ch'uan in general) came to prominence as a result of his being hired by the Chinese Imperial family to teach T'ai Chi to the elite Palace Battalion of the Imperial Guards in 1850, a position he held until his death.

Yang Lu-ch'an passed his art to:

his second son but oldest son to live maturity, Yang Pan-hou(1837-1890), who was also retained as a martial arts instructor by the Chinese Imperial family.  Yang Pan-hou became the formal teacher of Wu Ch'uan-yu (Wu Quanyou), a Manchu Banner cavalry officer of the Palace Battalion, even though Yang Lu-ch'an was Wu Ch'uan-yu's first T'ai Chi Ch'uan teacher.  Wu Ch'uan-yu's son, Wu Chien-ch'uan (Wu Jianquan), also a Banner officer, became known as the co-founder (along with his father) of the Wu style.  Yang Pan-hou is also said to have taught a student named Wang Chiao-yu.  Wang taught Kuo Lien Ying.  Kuo's method is called the Kuang P'ing (Guangping) style.

his third son Yang Chien-hou (Jianhou 1839-1917), who passed it to his sons, Yang Shao-hou (1862-1930) and Yang Ch'eng-fu (1883-1936)

Wu Yu-hsiang (Wu Yuxiang 1813-1880) who also developed his own Wu style, which eventually, after three generations, led to the development of Sun style T'ai Chi Ch'uan.

Yang Ch'eng-fu removed the vigorous Fa-jing(release of power) energetic jumping, heavy stepping, and other abrupt movements to emphasise Ta Chia (large frame style).  This style has slow, steady, expansive and solf movements suitable for general practitioners.  Thus, Yang Ch'eng-fu is largely responsible for standardizing and popularizing the Yang style T'ai Chi widely practised today.  Yang Ch'eng-fu moved to Shanghai in the 1920s, teaching there until the end of his life.  His descendants are still teaching in schools associated with their family internationally.

This is taken from Wikipedia encyclopedia

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