himself is a dedicated Taiji practitioner). Unfortunately, both the scholar-
ship and history of martial arts in China fail to support the myth history of
Taiji as many might like. Myths like Zhang Sanfeng’s role in the creation of
Taiji remain casually accepted and even occasionally aggressively asserted.
Rather than apply the“scholarly methodology”in a strict sense, Wile
argues thus:
If taiji’s genesis cannot be viewed as a single act of revelation or as an a priori set
of perennial principles, this places it squarely in the realm of history and culture. As
such, it is susceptible to deconstruction and tracing of influences, but we must go
beyond clichés that simply take taiji as a synthesis of martial arts, military strategy,
meditation, medicine, philosophy, and the like.^15
To be fair, Wile’s audience is the community of Taiji practitioners who are
more interested in what it means tothem, not what it meant, how it was
actually formed, and what its significance was in the context of Chinese
martial arts history. Wile’s goal is to provide current practitioners with all of
the threads that connect Taiji to the fabric of the Chinese past. A more
scholarly perspective would see Taiji as less a spectacular artifact of Chinese
culture yielded up to the world than as a part of Chinese culture that can,
indeed, be deconstructed and traced. It was the product of a time and place
and was consistent with other practices of that time and place.
All the aspects of Chinese culture synthesized in Taiji can also be found in
other styles. It is a historical accident that Taiji is far more popular outside of
China than Bagua, Xingyi, or any number of other internal styles of martial
arts. Foreign popularity has enhanced Taiji’s status within China, making the
study of its history more important. But there is enormous controversy, as
Wile notes, about Taiji’s history. He is too polite, given his own place in the
Taiji community, to explain that the conflict is among Taiji practitioners
themselves. Most Taiji practitioners can agree on the tenuous history of Taiji
from Qi Jiguang (or even Zhang Sanfeng), through Wang Zhengnan, and on
to Chang Naizhou. Most even agree on Chen Family Village as the physical
location where Taiji was created. After that, however, the questions of
“postures and forms”becomes critical in establishing which style’s lineage
is the true root from which the others deviate.
Because almost all martial arts in China and outside it share a mostly
identical palette of individual strikes, stances, and other techniques, what
distinguishes one style from another is which techniques are not used, how
techniques are combined, what forms (designated patterns of techniques)
one performs, and the emphasis given to certain techniques over others.
The internal styles share very similar philosophical, mental, and strategic
Taiji, Bagua, Xingyi 207