Is Tai Chi Taoist?
Posted: Sat May 05, 2018 1:36 am
I wrote a blog post the other day in which I said the Taoist origins of Tai Chi are historically unproven, or something similar, yet the similarity in ideas is obviously there.
My post:
Wu Wei the art of doing without doing
https://taichinotebook.wordpress.com/20 ... out-doing/
I got an interesting comment on Facebook from somebody linking to a book I wasn't aware of:
"Roel Jansen: Your information on the origins of Tai Chi is outdated. Please read ‘Tai Chi - the true history & principles’ by Lars Bo Christiansen to get up to date with the latest findings on the daoist origins of Tai Chi."
So I looked the book up and it exists - it's on Amazon.
https://www.amazon.co.uk/Tai-Chi-True-H ... principles
You can read a lot of it on the "look inside" feature. It's about the newly found Li family manuscripts from which the author draws some pretty wild conclusions, one of which is that the Taoist link to Tai Chi has now been proved beyond doubt.
The book author has a website too, which contains his main arguments in the QnA:
http://thetaichiworkshop.dk/?page_id=346
I thought something seemed a bit 'off' with the whole thing, so I looked around and found the eminent Douglas Wile, who wrote two books on the Tai Chi Classics that are very good, and that classic essay on Chan Sang Feng, had written a massive article on these Li manuscripts, (and Lars' book) which is here:
https://mas.cardiffuniversitypress.org/ ... /download/
It's a mammoth read, but looks at the whole thing from a more balanced perspective, including all the political leanings.
The TL;DR version: It's complicated.
"The question of whether taijiquan is the product of Daoism creating
a martial art or a martial art absorbing Daoism is a critical issue in
Chinese martial arts historiography. If anything, Daoism is an even
more slippery term than taijiquan itself, but the issue has become highly
politicized, which is understandable in the context of Chinese history
and culture. However, for a Western scholar to stumble into this
minefield bespeaks a certain naiveté. The assertion of Daoist origins has
become associated with cultural nationalism and the search for Chinese
identity, often called ‘Chineseness’. Chinese scholars have built entire
careers out of championing either Zhang Sanfeng or Chen Wangting,
but it is very unseemly for Western scholars to insert themselves in
this politicized process of roots-seeking and competing attempts to
identify origin, creator, or birthplace as ‘transient points of stabilization’
[Laclau 2000: 53]. "
My post:
Wu Wei the art of doing without doing
https://taichinotebook.wordpress.com/20 ... out-doing/
I got an interesting comment on Facebook from somebody linking to a book I wasn't aware of:
"Roel Jansen: Your information on the origins of Tai Chi is outdated. Please read ‘Tai Chi - the true history & principles’ by Lars Bo Christiansen to get up to date with the latest findings on the daoist origins of Tai Chi."
So I looked the book up and it exists - it's on Amazon.
https://www.amazon.co.uk/Tai-Chi-True-H ... principles
You can read a lot of it on the "look inside" feature. It's about the newly found Li family manuscripts from which the author draws some pretty wild conclusions, one of which is that the Taoist link to Tai Chi has now been proved beyond doubt.
The book author has a website too, which contains his main arguments in the QnA:
http://thetaichiworkshop.dk/?page_id=346
I thought something seemed a bit 'off' with the whole thing, so I looked around and found the eminent Douglas Wile, who wrote two books on the Tai Chi Classics that are very good, and that classic essay on Chan Sang Feng, had written a massive article on these Li manuscripts, (and Lars' book) which is here:
https://mas.cardiffuniversitypress.org/ ... /download/
It's a mammoth read, but looks at the whole thing from a more balanced perspective, including all the political leanings.
The TL;DR version: It's complicated.
"The question of whether taijiquan is the product of Daoism creating
a martial art or a martial art absorbing Daoism is a critical issue in
Chinese martial arts historiography. If anything, Daoism is an even
more slippery term than taijiquan itself, but the issue has become highly
politicized, which is understandable in the context of Chinese history
and culture. However, for a Western scholar to stumble into this
minefield bespeaks a certain naiveté. The assertion of Daoist origins has
become associated with cultural nationalism and the search for Chinese
identity, often called ‘Chineseness’. Chinese scholars have built entire
careers out of championing either Zhang Sanfeng or Chen Wangting,
but it is very unseemly for Western scholars to insert themselves in
this politicized process of roots-seeking and competing attempts to
identify origin, creator, or birthplace as ‘transient points of stabilization’
[Laclau 2000: 53]. "