OUR HISTORY:
Pictured
left is Chang San Feng a renowned Taoist martial artist who lived in
the Ming dynasty the year of his birth being given as 1247 AD by
researchers and historians. He is described as La Ta or the "filthy
Taoist" because of his untidy and unkempt appearance. Dan Docherty, Tai
Chi Chuan master and historian traces the earliest literary reference to
1431 where he is mentioned in the Annals of Supreme Summit Supreme
Harmony. Chang is widely accepted as being the founder of Tai Chi Chuan
and had also been a practitioner of Nei Jia Chuan and he is closely
linked to Wudang Mountain. However the serious student of the history of
Tai Chi Chuan would do well to read Dan Dochertys book 'Instant Tao'.
In the book Dan delves deep into Chinese history and the anomilies,
truth supression, mistakes and falsified records to uncover the most
likely truth about Tai Chi Chuan and its development as far back as 1000
years earlier. Dan points out that Taoism and its brand of martial arts
existed a long time before Chang San Feng lived. During the Tang
Dynasty 618- 960 a documented form of Taoist martial arts existed under
the name of 'The Thirtyseven Styles', reputidly founded by a giant
hermit Xu Xuan- Ping.Pictured
right is Wu Jian Chuan. He was born into a martial arts family, his 
father being a bodyguard in the Imperial Manchurian Guard, this meant his
father was a professional martial artist thus it was very much a family
trade. His father trained with Yang Lu Chan of the 'Yang' style Tai Chi
Chuan, and also trained with Yang Ban Hou, Yang Lu Chans son. Wu Jian
Chuan became very highly skilled in Tai Chi Chuan, and was also an
accomplished archer and equestrian. Despite developing his own style of
Tai Chi chuan his relationship with the Yang family remained very close
and he would practice with them on a regular basis. He named Yang Cheng
Fu his 'third uncle' with whom he trained and pushed hands with on a
regular basis. The friendship that continued between Wu Jian Chuan and
the Yang family, prompted Wu Jian Chuan to send his son Wu Kong Yi to
study Tai Chi Chuan under Yang Shao Hou.
Pictured left is Cheng Tin-Hung, Master of Tai Chi Chuan, historian and author of seminal texts on the subject such as 'An Intensive Examination Into Tai Chi Chuan'. Initially Cheng was taught by his father Cheng Min-Cheung and then more intensively by his uncle Cheng Wing-Kwong, and then being taught as an only student due to the severity of the training regime by Qi Min-xuan also a Tai Chi Chuan master who taught him Nei Kung. Cheng Tin-Hung competed in and won many full contact fights against fighters of all styles, and he became legendry because of his skill. He has written four books on the subject. In his 'hey-day' he was nick-named 'the defender of Tai Chi', because he would stand up for Tai Chi practitioners anywhere with fist or weapon. Later in his career he is famous for training full contact fighters who more often than not smashed their hard style Kung Fu opponents to defeat.
Pictured
right is Dan Docherty, Master and historian of Tai Chi chuan. He was
born in Glasgow, Scotland in 1954. He served as an inspector in the
Royal Hong Kong Police Force from 1975--84. He has represented Hong Kong
in full contact fighting, in 1980 winning the Open Weight Division at
the 5th South East Asian Chinese Pugilistic Championships in Malaysia.
He has been training with Cheng Tin-Hung since 1975. Dan is now one
of Europes most sucessfull Tai Chi Masters. He is a founder member of
the Tai Chi Union for Great Britian, British Tai Chi team coach,
Competitions Director for the British Council of Martial Arts, a regular
columist for 'Combat' magazine. He speaks both Mandarin and Cantonese,
reads, writes and translates chinese, and clasiscal texts pertaining to
Tai Chi Chuan. Dan has writen one of the finest books in the english
language on the subject called Complete Tai Chi Chuan, (Crowood Press).
This
is a demonstration of Nei Kung by Dan Docherty. Nei Kung is a set of
exercises that produce great inner strength to withstand direct assaults
to the body, as Dan demonstrates. The exercises are a unique system of
inner cultivation similar in some respects to hard styles of Chi kung,
however Nei Kung has a more martial aspect to its practice and
application. The system consists of 12 yin and 12 yang exercises and are
practiced every day to gain optimal physical benefit from the system.
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