Is It Or Ain’t It Tai Chi?

During a visit to the Bay Area a few years ago, Master Chen Xiang was the subject of some tests at Stanford University’s Gate and Motion Lab, which was eager to study the body mechanics of Tai Chi.

The findings were interesting, and some are explained in a short video on YouTube titled “Chen Xiang’s Bajiquan Scientific.” In the video, the researchers say Chen Xiang’s strikes and blows are so blindingly fast that they can best be described as “impulses.”

The speed of a blow has huge martial implications because Newtonian physics discovered that force increases as the duration of contact decreases. Stanford researchers calculated that Master Chen’s punch would contact an opponent for only 25 milliseconds, meaning that the enormous force he generates would be transferred like a burst or “impulse.”

Considering that a pressure plate on the floor of the lab showed that Master Chen can generate 16 times his body weight in torque at the moment of impact, the overall effect is one you would not want to experience.

But let me return to that curiously named video. Although the research project was on the body mechanics of Tai Chi, the video got posted to YouTube under a title suggesting that Master Chen was demonstrating not Tai Chi but another Chinese martial art, Baji. The video was posted to YouTube not by Stanford but apparently by someone who saw it at an international conference where it was shown. That person thought Master Chen was performing Baji, hence the title.

So which was the case? Are the techniques he performs on the video from Baji or from Tai Chi?

The answer is both.

There are dozens, if not hundreds, of Chinese martial arts styles, and students often debate which ones are better than others. In Chen Xiang’s case, there is no question he was profoundly influenced by Baji, which he trained in for many years before becoming a disciple of Hunyuan Tai Chi Grandmaster Feng Zhiqiang. But he says Hunyuan transformed his Baji by greatly increasing his “internal” power. So while the shape of his punch or elbow strike may resemble Baji techniques, it would also be accurate to say that his movements are Tai Chi.

Just as Master Chen was influenced by Baji, Grandmaster Feng was influenced by Xinyi, an internal martial art that he trained in under Master Hu Yaoshen before becoming a top disciple of Chen Tai Chi Master Chen Fa Ke. In fact, the full name of what we call Hunyuan Tai Chi is Chen Style Xinyi Hunyuan Tai Chi. As the name implies, it is a synthesis of traditional Chen Style, Xinyi and Hunyuan Qigong.

There are only so many ways to move the human body, and all martial arts styles have significant overlap in the ways they kick, punch and parry. True, some styles are more technically sophisticated than others. But more important than the shape of the technique is the integration of mind, energy and body.

Every style to some degree involves training the mind, energy and body, but some styles, as well as some teachers, produce better results than others. The best focus on mind and energy, because those are where the greatest gains can be achieved.

During that same visit, Master Chen was peppered with questions by an eager student during a banquet following a workshop. He wanted to know, among other things, if Master Chen thought Chen Style Tai Chi was better than Yang Style Tai Chi, and whether “new frame” Chen Style was better than “old frame.”

Master Chen smiled and patted his belly where the so-called middle dantian resides, the place where energy is gathered and stored.

“If someone has this,” he said, referring to internal power, “it doesn’t matter what style he practices. And if he doesn’t have this, it also doesn’t matter what style he practices.”