Tai chi chuan is one of the famous branches of Chinese martial arts.It is well-known and widely practiced in the world today; however its origin is confused. There are many conflicting accounts as to its origin.
If you really want to learn Tai Chi Chuan then you must really learn to become calm mentally by adjusting oneself emotionally to the task of "settling the breath with the body". In conception Tai Chi Chuan for health was created through Taoist visions of the flowing and formless harmony of nature. The Taoist appreciation of health development was in pursuit of restoring and rejuvenating body strength, mind and will. The player practices an inner exercise and deep breathing to produce Chi which is a nourishing restorative inner force which promotes health.
Central to Tai Chi Chuan is the belief in the life, or Qi which flows through invisible channels or meridians in the body. The ancient Chinese proposed that all living things are sustained by an energy force called Qi. When the flow of Qi is disrupted, illness is the result. The type of illness that develops depends on which meridian is suffering from an imbalance. And the movements of Tai Chi Chuan open and close to mirror the Chinese philosophical concept of an endless cycle of Yang to Yin while Qi circulates around the body to maintain the balance of yin and yang. Perhaps it is more accessible to regard yin and yang as the foundations of the art of Tai Chi Chuan because of the alternation of harmoniously opening and closing movements.
It is not until seventeenth century that tai chi can be verified historically. All of the various styles of tai chi chuan which are in existence today can be traced back to a single man, Chen Wangting, a general of the latter years of the Ming Dynasty. After the fall of the Ming and the establishment of the Qing Dynasty (1644), Chen Wangting returned to the Chen village in Henan Province and created his forms of boxing, and then Henan Province became home to the Chen family of tai chi chuan. This family has been credited with developing the Chen style, from which all the major schools, directly or indirectly, have developed. It is generally accepted that this 'new' style of martial art was developed from the popular existing arts at the time.
Today, while traditional practitioners of Tai chi chuan are still in evidence, the majority practise the art in order to both maintain and improve their health and to provide an increasingly necessary antidote to the stresses and strains of modern day life.
The various forms of tai chi chuan, despite having different characteristics and style, have the same training principle: execution of relaxed actions to create a state of softness, which is accumulated to produce firmness, forming a state of firmness and softness complementing each other.
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