Читать книгу Beginning T'ai Chi онлайн

8 страница из 11

A Glimpse into the History of T'ai Chi

Although no official records have been found to document the origin of T'ai Chi, according to Chinese legends a man named Zhang San Feng founded the art almost eight hundred years ago. Most of our available information about the origins of T'ai Chi has been passed on orally from generation to generation, and errors and exaggerations have of course crept into the many versions.

The most interesting tale is a product of the Song* dynasty (960-1279). According to this story, Zhang one day came upon a fight between a magpie and a snake. Zhang was wonder-struck at the constant repositioning of the two creatures who shifted effortlessly from attack to defense and back again, finally breaking off, as if by mutual agreement, and going their separate ways.

For days Zhang marveled at the clinging fluidity of those movements and the wonderful appropriateness of their ever-changing attitudes. Suddenly enlightened, he saw a previously unidentified source of strength within the human body. Zhang recognized that the quality present in the martial dance of the snake and the magpie was nothing more than softness. Zhang saw that softness, this mysterious and powerful element, could be developed in human beings. He decided to find out how to do so. To prove that softness overcomes hardness in the fighting arts, Zhang withdrew from the world for several years to think and to test his hypothesis. He experimented in various ways until finally he achieved success.