Zhu Xiaomin
Department of Philosophy, Peking University / Research Center for Science Communication, Peking University
In August 2012, I visited Cornell University for a year. During this period, because of my interest in Taijiquan and my curiosity about the practice of Taijiquan in America, I attended the East Asian Martial Arts Festival at Cornell University (where I performed half of the full sequence of Wu-style Taijiquan), participated in two Taijiquan classes, and organized dozens of Taijiquan teaching activities. During my time in the U.S., I had some contacts and exchanges with American Taijiquan and gained some personal experience of exchanges between Chinese and foreigners.
China has set up nearly 500 Confucius Institutes overseas, and martial arts ranks first among the most popular Chinese cultural programs among foreign students offered by the Confucius Institutes. Among the martial arts offerings, Taijiquan is a key option, because there are more than 100 million practitioners of Taijiquan worldwide, and the number of people learning Taijiquan among Chinese martial arts overseas is also the largest, which makes it an important vehicle for Chinese culture to go global. Chinese culture provides an important window for the world to view China. This article talks about the dissemination and development of Taijiquan to overseas countries based on my experience and feelings. It is a huge, yet worthy, project and, at the same time, a discussion of the overseas development of traditional Chinese martial arts in a small way. Dissemination was basically one kind of “harvest” from my study visit.
Taijiquan at the Martial Arts Festival
In late October 2012, Cornell University held an East Asian Martial Arts Festival, which featured performances and sparring sessions of Chinese Taijiquan (the people here call it Daoist Taijiquan, a term that I had never heard of before, and there was a special Taijiquan gym in the small town of Ithaca where Cornell University is located), Korean Taekwondo, Japanese Karate, and other styles. To give them their due, there is a significant difference between Taijiquan and the latter two in terms of the effectiveness of their performances at attracting audiences (according to the size of the audience, the number of times the audience applauded and how strong the applause was).
The author’s taijiquan class of PKU Global Open Courses in 2022 spring
First of all, in terms of performers, although Taijiquan, Taekwondo, and Karate have many Western faces, almost all of the performers of Taijiquan are middle-aged and elderly (especially middle-aged and elderly women, which is greatly similar to the situation in China), and basically, few young people or children are involved, which is in sharp contrast to Taekwondo and Karate.
Secondly, in terms of performance content and style, compared to the slow, quiet, and soft performance-style of Taijiquan for the middle-aged and elderly (no technical combat or confrontation at all), the youthful energy, vocal cheering, and even dragon and tiger leaping of Taekwondo and Karate are obviously more attractive and appealing to audiences. Moreover, Taekwondo and Karate performances are also more colorful, both in the form of group performances as well as two-by-two combat performances, and some single demonstrations of difficult combat techniques, such as high kicks and flying kicks to the plank, which often received full applause. Especially the children’s performance and neat shouting, although they were a little young, made the parents present excited and cheer for their kids.
Again, from the costume point of view, some of the Taijiquan performers wore red and green “costumes”, while others wore casual clothes (in fact, there is no special clothing requirement for Taijiquan), which is starkly different when compared to the standard martial arts outfits of Taekwondo and Karate, with belts to indicate different levels. Compared to the standard martial arts outfits of Taekwondo and Karate, Taijiquan does seem less “professional” and “grand” in terms of martial arts sports. No wonder, even the beautiful emcees of martial arts festivals are wearing Karate uniforms and black belts.
For the simple and obvious differences mentioned above, we can easily find some reasons to defend Taijiquan. For example, Taijiquan does not promote hard contact, even if there are some confrontational pushing hands; it is also about “surrendering oneself to others” and “not throwing or topping“. This will undoubtedly lead to a lot of discounting of the performance in terms of its attractiveness to audiences. Then, there’s the costume issue, in which our defense can even rise to a philosophical heights—special clothing is also a limitation. If really encountering unexpected events, would you still have time to put on your Taekwondo clothes or tie on your Karate belt? Taijiquan is about the combination of practice and daily life. If you practice to a high level, you will have “Tai Chi in every gesture.” The reason we don’t wear special clothing is that we don’t want to be worried about limiting our practice. Practicing Tai Chi means being unbounded.
However, since Taijiquan has to go abroad and communicate with the outside world, we can’t always talk to ourselves—we should also “give ourselves to others” and understand the thoughts and feelings of others. From the needs theory of communication, the bottom line is that the target audience can comprehend and recognize it. In fact, as far as Taijiquan is concerned, we have a very diverse range of content for Western learners and enthusiasts to choose from. Taijiquan itself has many different schools and colorful styles. For example, some of them are strong and powerful, some are spacious and generous, and some are soft and light. They show the different aspects of Tai Chi culture and achieve the same goal by different routes. Learners get what they need. For example, young people usually prefer high-intensity, confrontational, and relatively intense sports, and Chen-style Taijiquan is a powerful style with vigorous force and instant hitting and is obviously very suitable for young people. Some traditional wrestling and holding methods are highly confrontational and interesting and also have great ornamental value, which can change public perceptions that Taijiquan is only a style of aerobics for the elderly and overturn the stereotypes of the public that Taijiquan is just a kind of old man’s boxing and fitness exercise.
As for the costumes, that is not a problem either. Western culture is very particular about what kind of tools to use, for example, shoes: there are running shoes for running, walking shoes for walking, basketball shoes for playing basketball and badminton shoes for playing badminton. I once saw in a Nike store a pair of unique-looking shoes—on the soles of those shoes there were cleats which had small hooks at the end of them; when I asked, I found out that they were golf shoes. This sense and habit of compartmentalizing and using each item for what it is best at is a vivid reflection of Western scientific culture in daily life. In this regard, designing a few sets of Tai Chi clothing that are suitable for Western tastes and that also express the outward beauty of Taijiquan—loose garments befitting the flowing movements—wouldn’t that also satisfy both sides, each complementing the other? As for the saying “special clothing is also a special restriction”, that is indeed the letter of the law; however, most people who practice Tai Chi will never be able to achieve such a high level in their lifetime—this is something for later then, there’s no need to mention it now!
In this regard, Japan and South Korea could be said to have done a good job. Both Taekwondo and Karate originated from Chinese martial arts, and the two countries are both big winners of gold medals in those two sports at the Olympic Games. It can be seen that their promotion and disssemination strategies have been quite successful in the West. One strategy has been to adopt a system of grading and classification similar to Western boxing, which is well adapted to the competitive culture, and in which Westerners generally advocate confrontation, clear goals, and continuous improvement. The belts of different colors and representing different levels tantalize Western men and women, young and old, seducing them to willingly put out money. However, Korea and Japan’s approach is worth reflecting on and to be vigilant against: If Taekwondo and Karate just continue on as they have been doing, pursuing the black belt way of “higher, faster, and stronger”, not only will they gradually drift ever father away from the mother culture of the Chinese martial arts—which emphasize both the internal and the external and promote not confrontation but non-violence—wouldn’t they eventually evolve into something like Western boxing with kicking?
Taijiquan in Teaching and Learning
Soon after I came to Cornell University, I heard that there was a Taiji class taught by a special physical education teacher at the gym next to where I live, and I could use my insurance card to take the class for free, so I immediately went to the class with great enthusiasm. The class was taught by a white female teacher in her 50s. Most of the dozen students in the class were about the same age as the teacher and probably were near retirement or retired faculty members, except for two or three younger ones, who were doctoral students. After talking with the teacher, I realized that she had been practicing Taijiquan for more than twenty years and was teaching the old routine of 85-posture Yang-style Tai Chi.
After taking two classes seriously, I basically had no motivation to go again. The main reason was that I thought this American master seemed to have some problems with her understanding of Taijiquan. Not only was her lack of connection between the various movements very obvious, but in executing a single Tai Chi movement, she would pause several times during the exercise. For example, in executing the “double pushing palm” movement, she would clearly stop when her hands returned to her hips, and purposely took a breath before pushing out again, which surprised me. At first I thought she might be doing it for teaching purposes, but then I found out that this was not the case, because she did it again while she was leading everyone through the entire sequence from beginning to end, including all the pauses that she had demonstrated earlier, and the entire room full of people followed her closely, starting, stopping and pausing where she did, throughout the entire 85-posture Yang-style routine. To say nothing of it being very tiring, to me it didn’t have any of the feeling of Taijiquan—it had none of its qualities of “harmoniousness, coherence, freedom, and immateriality”. In my opinion, she failed to achieve the basic requirements of Taijiquan practice—there was no continuity and fluidity. Is this not one of the common criticisms that Taijiquan masters in China often mention—that it’s just a kind of gymnastics or dancing called Taijiquan, but in fact, has nothing to do with Taijiquan?
Did Western culture hinder her understanding of Taijiquan? The concept of Western boxing is perfectly expressed by a Russian proverb: “If you want to wipe out [resistance], use an iron rod; if they fight back, thicken the rod!“—in other words, “use the big to fight the small; use speed to fight against the slow”. This is completely different from the ideas and techniques promoted by Tai Chi, such as “borrowing force to beat force”, “introducing falling air” and the mysterious “four taels/ounces push aside a thousand jin/pounds”, so as to achieve the effect of “fighting fast with slow”, “winning big with small” and “winning strong with weak”. Perhaps the external moves of Taijiquan are easy to learn, but as the saying goes, “a student of Tai Chi does not seek to be a teacher himself for at least ten years”. This points to the fact that the inner philosophy and ideas of Taijiquan are not easily understood or practically grasped by every practitioner, especially those with a Western cultural background. For example, Chinese Taijiquan masters usually emphasize the need to completely avoid using “clumsy force” when practicing Taijiquan, which is a difficult thing for us Chinese to understand and appreciate, not to mention Westerners.
In the spirit of the American people’s consistent attitude of openness to and welcoming new things, the kind American teacher asked me to demonstrate Chinese Taijiquan in her class. I gave them a demonstration of 37-posture Wu Style and took the opportunity to brag about our Taijiquan training activity on every weekend on campus, which several students from the class later joined.
Starting from November 2012, I held Taijiquan activities every weekend together with a visiting scholar from Hangzhou, hoping that Taijiquan enthusiasts from Cornell University would meet and communicate together regularly to enhance the aura and fun of learning boxing. First, the Hangzhou scholar taught the 13-posture Wudang style; then, in February of the following year, he returned to China, and I began teaching the 37-posture Wu style, which lasted until I returned to China in early September 2013, for a total of 39 Taijiquan activities.
Cornell University’s East Asia Program (EAP) is responsible for language learning, academic exchanges, seminars and various cultural activities relating to China, Japan, Korea/North Korea and other countries. Ms. Doreen of the program was kind enough to post our weekly Tai Chi event announcements on the East Asia Program News Network (see March 15, 2015 at: http://eap.einaudi.cornell.edu/node/ 1577 ), so that our Tai Chi activities also become part of the international cultural exchange that enriched the program.
The main participants in our Taijiquan activities were visiting scholars and students from China. When there were a large number of them, there were more than a dozen, but there were usually only three or five hardcore students. Basically, people weren’t so enthusiastic about our Taijiquan activities, probably because Wu-style Taijiquan is not as famous as Chen-style or Yang-style. Sometimes there were local American residents who came to participate, but most of them said it was too difficult to remember after attending class three or five times. Coupled with the language barrier between the two sides, it was probably difficult for them to experience the feeling of Taijiquan.
An American student once told me that he was interested in the fitness function of Taijiquan, but not in its martial arts intention, so he only wanted to learn the movements of the routines quickly. He didn’t care what the movements meant and what their use was. It seemed that, underneath his words, he just didn’t trust the martial arts function of Taijiquan. This is also a rather typical Western reductionist understanding that everything can be divided into different parts that are unrelated and then the parts reclassified into different categories to suit one’s needs. In fact, Taijiquan is a combination of form, intention, and spirit. Without understanding the traditional ideas and intentions behind the movements of Taijiquan, it is difficult to have a real understanding of the unique and core cultural concepts of Taijiquan, such as the “introduction of falling air” and “borrowing force to beat force”. The movements will lose their soul, and Taijiquan will undoubtedly become merely Tai Chi gymnastics or dancing, and its function for fitness and health will be greatly reduced. Of course, it is by no means easy to explain clearly to Americans and make them understand and appreciate the profound meaning of our Chinese Taijiquan. I have also observed the public teaching activities of the Cornell University student Taijiquan Club, where the young Chinese-American student instructor repeatedly taught several traditional Taijiquan movements in fluent English, but the meaning of these movements was not even mentioned during the entire two-hour presentation.
The spread of Taijiquan amidst cultural differences
Kang Gewu, a researcher at the Chinese Academy of Martial Arts, once concluded that the unparalleled charm of Taijiquan among other sports can be summarized in three aspects: First, the fitness charm, characterized by softness and slowness; second, the self-defense charm, characterized by weakness over strength; and third, the cultural charm, characterized by the pursuit of harmony. Kang also said that most other sports are more intense, with sweaty, unkempt clothes and the possibility of sports injuries; Taijiquan, on the other hand, is characterized by soft, dignified and elegant movements made at a slow speed, so as to relax tension in carefree movement and gradually improve the health level.
The spread of Tai chi in the United States seems to have come about because it is a slow, gentle way of fitness and has generally been favored by the elderly (which is similar to the situation in China). Compared with Karate or Taekwondo, Taijiquan is far less popular; in particular, young people hardly ever participate in it. This can often be explained by the fact that Americans, especially young people, do not understand or have misconceptions about Taijiquan. However, the problem may not be so simple. On the one hand, when we promote Taijiquan ourselves, we often have consciously or unconsciously positioned it as a “fitness sport” and have not shown the whole picture of its richness and diversity. For example, Taijiquan is also profound in terms of its art of attack and defence and is far from being limited to fitness; on the other hand, from the perspective of cultural dissemination, it is entirely possible for Americans to accept or reject Taijiquan in any way they prefer. Harvard scholar Roy Hofheinz Jr., after summarizing the factors behind the East Asian miracle, seriously cautions Americans “not to borrow blindly from East Asia,” because many of the best East Asian traits and practices “we would not be willing to learn even if we could.” Clearly, it is no surprise that a “slow and gentle fitness exercise” such as Taijiquan, for example, is not well received by many “dynamic” Americans.
I once heard a lecture by a Tai Chi master who said that there are three stages in learning Taijiquan, i.e., familiarity with the moves, understanding the strength, and divine understanding, yet the majority of practitioners are still basically in the “groping” stage (just going through the motions of the Taijiquan routines) before these three stages. Of course, the master reassured everyone that groping will still be good for the body if you can keep on doing it. I was curious, so I asked the master how many people could practice to the “adept stage”/divine understanding, and the master said that only one out of 10,000 to 20,000 people could be a serious practitioner, so I asked the master if there were any adepts among the hundreds of disciples he had taken, and the master sighed and said that there were none and that, at most, they were only able to reach the stage of understanding strength. I felt a lot calmer after hearing that, and I felt as though a stone had fallen to the ground. I concluded that I was at most in between the stages of groping and being familiar with the moves, and from then on I would stop thinking about adepts and planned to practice Tai Chin with “inaction”. According to the interpretation of Chinese philosophy, inaction means unlimited (as you have no intention, aim or schedule to “limit” yourself), and it is very likely that I will be truly active in the future.
This shows that the vast majority of the current Taijiquan practitioners do not meet the standard of that master. It also shows the congenital deficiency of the current Taijiquan dissemination strategy: The traditional master-apprentice model, on the one side, lacks a broad and standard dissemination model for the general public, and on the other side, the target is basically positioned at the high-end elite level, which is beyond the reach of the general public. This elitist way of thinking, in which disciples “can all become Yao or Shun” (both Yao and Shun are ancient Chinese saints and great emperors), will only make the average Taijiquan practitioner feel frustrated and that reaching such a high goal is impossible. For Western learners who are particularly concerned about the operability of different stages of learning and are accustomed to a clear hierarchy of levels and grades, this is an unbearable situation!
In view of this, against the background of cultural differences between East and West, the strategy of Taijiquan internationalization needs to be adjusted. First of all, we should provide diversified choices of content, such as fitness, performance, attack and defence techniques, competitions, and other aspects of Taijiquan. At the same time, we should encourage all schools of Taijiquan to flourish and be adapted to local conditions so that practitioners can take what they need and get what they want. In mutual exchanges, we can take the initiative to recommend some types of Taijiquan that could be more suitable for the tastes of different Western learners and make some corresponding adjustments in their methods of practice so as to effectively improve the current common problems of over-simplification and homogenization in the concept and practice of Taijiquan activities.
Secondly, from the perspective of dissemination and promotion of Taijiquan, we should design the popularization route separately from the elite route. According to my own experience and understanding derived from my preliminary study of Yang, Chen, and Wu styles of Taijiquan for several years in China, the practice of Taijiquan can be roughly divided into two levels. The first level is the study of basic routines and primary pushing hands, which requires accurate movements, neutral and comfortable, and guiding the body’s sensations through the correct posture esssentials. Mr. Wang Peisheng, one of the top ten martial artists in China, emphasized that “only by practicing the postures according to the essentials of Tai Chi, can you practice the basic skills of Tai Chi”. The second is that, after the body has a preliminary feeling, we should constantly adjust ourselves to find the best combination of body movement and feeling (commonly known as “how to play as comfortably as possible”), and gradually use the mind to lead the body.
The second level is, after the body has the initial feeling, it will keep adjusting itself to find the best combination of body movement and feeling (“play comfortably”), and gradually use the “intention to move” to lead the “body to move”, leading with the intention, and finally reaching the state of using kung fu entirely with the mind and “borrowing a thousand catties of force without spending four taels of work”. Thus, beginners can generally make their movements larger and more standardized, while at a higher level, their movements will gradually become smaller and more personalized—according to a common aphorism in Tai Chi circles, “everyone practices the inner elixir in a different way”. A real Tai Chi master does not need a routine, he “does Tai Chi with every random gesture” and “follows his heart yet does not overstep the rules”. What he does is no longer the specific “form” but the “momentum” and “intention”, and the previously fixed routine is already restrictive and cumbersome to him. Therefore, the variety of Tai Chi schools and styles of the masters is a vivid reflection of the characteristic of Tai Chi culture, which becomes more and more idiosyncratic as the level gets higher. This may be difficult to understand and accept by Western culture, which pursues standardization and quantification.
Joseph Needham, the author of Science and Civilisation in China, once said, “It is relatively easy to integrate Chinese and Western medicine technically, but it may be extremely difficult to unify the two medical philosophies.” The situation is undoubtedly similar for the equally unique Chinese Taijiquan culture, i.e., it is relatively easy for China and the West to communicate and understand certain external, elementary practices and techniques, but it may be difficult to communicate and grasp the internal, higher-level concepts and ideas. Since one out of ten thousand—or even one out of twenty thousand—practitioners can reach the level of “four taels for a thousand jin”, does this mean that the majority of Taijiquan practitioners are basically at the level of merely executing the basic movements? (Think of the American woman teacher mentioned above who has been practicing for over twenty years.) In fact, the requirements for ordinary people to learn Taijiquan are not that high. Several American practitioners of Taoist Taijiquan at the East Asian Martial Arts Festival said as much, talking about their experiences and basically emphasizing that soothing and relaxing exercises can help to relieve body pain and discomfort. In terms of individual effects, this is actually very good. If we focus on the more basic and standardized routines and pushing hands, instead of using some ethereal and mysterious high level to whet the appetite of the general public, it would be more suitable for Western learners. If Taijiquan were taught In this way, it would be more practical and effective for it to go global and spread widely to people of different cultural backgrounds. For this reason, from the perspective of dissemination and promotion, we can consider designing separate popular routes and elite routes for Taijiquan.
Since it is basically impossible for the general public to reach the second level of Taijiquan practice compared to the elite Taijiquan practitioners, the popularization route should be the focus of Taijiquan overseas. At the first level of basic routines and elementary pushing hands exercises, they can be taught and practiced in a relatively standardized and categorized way. Therefore, we should consider the experience of the promotion and dissemination of Japanese Karate and Korean Taekwondo in the West, and appropriately introduce standardized and quantified training methods and practice methods. At the same time, we can design and promote some Taijiquan traditional, classic and popular standard moves and routines in fitness, performance, attack and defend techniques and competition that will better suit the cultural psychology and habits of the Western public.
However, at the elite level of Taijiquan, for those few practitioners who are moving to the higher stages of Taijiquan, it is important for them to stick to the approach of “giving priority to one’s self“, and there is hardly any middle way to go. Taijiquan is a traditional Chinese culture of feeling with the body, and this culture has its own unique and distinctive characteristics, such as “unity between inside and outside”, “harmony with oneself, nature and others” and “extreme softness, then extreme hardness.” Without a deep appreciation and grasp of traditional Chinese culture, Taijiquan would not be Taijiquan. At the deeper cultural level, China and the West are often irreconcilable with each other. As the humorist Lin Yutang once wryly pointed out, “The Chinese way is to yield, then get; the Western way is to seize, then get”. Maybe the focus of this level of mutual exchange should be, first of all, the cultural promotion of Taijiquan and dissemination of its concepts in order to get Westerners to truly understand the unique thinking and philosophy of Taijiquan, while the specific movements and techniques are secondary. Otherwise, the practice of Taijiquan will probably remain at the level of the so-called “Taiji calisthenics” ,and its status abroad cannot be further elevated.
Fair lady works at the shuttle by Zhong Zhenshan, a master of Wu/Hao style Taijiquan
Therefore, Taijiquan can try to learn from some Western practice experience and habits in the popularization of certain techniques and routines. But in terms of elite dissemination and exchange of ideas, we need to stick to our own characteristics and traditions and keep a balanced tension between the two. The French researcher of communication sciences Dominique Wolton once pointed out that communication is not just a matter of technological progress, and information dissemination is not the same as communication, because the latter involves the “otherness“ of the recipient, it is necessary to incorporate the “inability to communicate into the scope of communication and to advocate coexistence”. In other words, it is necessary to acknowledge that there is an incompatibility, an either/or reality, in cultural exchange and communication activities and to recognize and respect the independence and coexistence diversity of different people in terms of language, culture and ways of thinking. It is unreasonable and unrealistic to blindly pursue unified understanding and mutual integration, as well as being harmful to all parties involved in the exchange.
In fact, it is by maintaining these distinctive diversities that we can truly reflect our respective traditions and values. While we actively open Taijiquan to the world for exchange and learning, we also have the responsibility to fully respect and protect our own traditional characteristics, core spirit, and inner purity, and to truly provide the world with a Chinese option that is different from Western culture. This will enable Taijiquan, with its distinctive Chinese traditional cultural imprint, to truly add color to the world’s multi-cultural treasury, to show itself more confidently in the differences between Chinese and Western cultures, and to go global.
Translator: Wu Tianpeng
