|
- The history of Tai Chi is a very long story
- It has been a sort of tradition in China to exercise and there is plenty of stories with different forms of meditation and exercising from ancient times.
- As you propably know the Chinese has been able to write stories from before 4000 B.C . And if you show a chinese an over 2000 year old text they propably is able to read it.
- The legend says that a wiseman by the name of Fuxi saw signs in the shell of a turtle and then used them for expressing himself. The chinese word for culture, wen-hua, means to transform by writing.
- In some of these writings we are able to see a physician named Hua-tu'o that described a way for exercising the body with movements from animals like tiger, bear, deer, ape and birds. Hua-tu'o lived between 220-265 A.D in the time of the three kingdoms.
- Hua-tu'o thought that animals always looked like they had a good, healthy living and therefore copied their movements. Before this we can also read about a wise man named Lao Tsu that wrote "Yield and overcome. Bend and be straight" and "He who stands on tiptoe is not steady. He who strides cannot maintain the pace". This Writing is dated from the origin of Taoism around 600 B.C and is the basic philosophy of Tai Chi Chuan. It simply says that you'll need a relaxed body to be able to fight.
- Around 600 A.D there is some stories about a man called Tao Mo or Bodihdharma that visits the monisters in the Shao Lin temple and writes that the monks where in a very bad physical condition. This should be the result of too much meditation. Tao Mo therefore made the Eighteen Form Lohan Exercise that you see today in modern Gung Fu or external form of Martial arts.
- Links about
- Wikipedia about Bodhidharma
- History of China
|
|
|
