Stillness and Speed. How Does T’ai Chi Work in a Fight? This sounds a straightforward question; but it is a difficult one even for a T’ai chi master to answer. Why is that? If a skilled T’ai chi practitioner has to use it in a real attack, they probably have little idea of what they did. They would simply respond appropriately to what was happening, with no time to analyse what they were doing. One of my teachers told me that if you use T’ai chi in a real fight, your response would look like an accident....

Learning T’ai chi ch’uan; the slower the better A great Zen sword master in Japan was visited by an eager prospective student. The student asked how long it would take to become a Zen sword master if he trained really hard and worked with the Master every day. The master said perhaps ten years. The student said that was too long; if he trained night and day and managed on four hours sleep, how long would it take? The Master said about twenty years. So the student was perplexed and asked how long would...

Chang Seng Feng Didn’t Invent T’ai Chi Ch’uan. Does It Matter? The traditional histories of T’ai chi ch’uan assert that the Taoist Master Chang Seng Feng from Wu Tang Mountain developed the art in the 13th Century, after he witnessed a crane fighting a snake. Or in another version, the art is revealed in a dream by the important Taoist Warrior Deity Chen Wu (The Dark Lord). In reality, the art did not emerge until well into the 18th Century as a village-based boxing style, probably in the Chen Family Village in...