What is Taijiquan?

Taijiquan is a Chinese martial art, which took shape in the north of China at the end of the nineteenth century, under the impulse of the Yang and Wŭ families. Quan means 'fist', but is used here to denote the use of the fists (boxing) and other parts of the body for attack and defense. Taiji refers to a Chinese philosophy that is thousands of years old, of which yin and yang are at the core. In the Zhouyi (Yijing), the Book of Changes, we find the first mention of the term 'taiji'.

This terminology and the accompanying philosophy were revisited by Taoists first and then Confucianists about a thousand years ago, and especially the Taoists developed ways of using the taiji philosophy as the source of practices such as rituals during the past two thousand years. During the development of taijiquan (the martial art of taiji) in the nineteenth century both the philosophy of…