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The Wu style (吳家) T'ai Chi Ch'üan of Wu Ch'uan-yü (Quanyou) and Wu Chien-ch'üan (Jianquan) is the second most popular form of T'ai Chi Ch'üan in the world today, after the Yang style, and fourth in terms of family seniority. This style is often confused in the West with the Wu style (武家) founded by Wu Yu-hsiang. While the names are distinct in pronunciation and the Chinese characters used to write them are completely different, they are often romanized the same way.
Wu Ch'uan-yü (吳全佑, 1834-1902) started studying T'ai Chi Ch'üan in his capacity as an officer cadet of the Palace Battalion of the Ch'ing dynasty's Imperial Guards under Yang Lu-ch'an in 1850. He eventually became a disciple of Yang's son, Yang Pan-hou, and was given permission by the Yangs to teach his own students in 1870. Wu Ch'uan-yü's son, Wu Chien-ch'üan (吳鑑泉, 1870-1942), and grandchildren: grandsons Wu Kung-yi (吳公儀, 1900-1970) and Wu Kung-tsao (吳公藻, 1902-1983) as well as granddaughter Wu Ying-hua (吳英華, 1906-1996) were well known teachers. Wu Chien-ch'üan became the most widely known teacher in his family, and is therefore considered the co-founder of the Wu style. He taught large numbers of people and his refinements to the art more clearly distinguish Wu style from Yang style training. Wu Chien-ch'üan moved his family south from Beijing (where an important school founded by other students of his father, popularly known as the Northern Wu style, exists to this day) to Shanghai in 1928. Wu Kung-yi then moved the family headquarters to Hong Kong in 1948, his younger sister Wu Ying-hua and her husband, Ma Yueh-liang (馬岳樑, 1901-1999), staying behind to manage the original Shanghai school. Between 1983 and her passing in 1996 Wu Ying-hua was the highest ranked instructor in the Wu family system. Her sons continue teaching and today manage the Shanghai school as well as schools in Europe. Wu Kung-yi's children were also full time T'ai Chi teachers: Wu Ta-kuei (吳大揆, 1923-1970) was active in the resistance to the Japanese invasion of China, yet he later taught T'ai Chi in Japan after the war. His younger brother, Wu Ta-chi (吳大齊, 1926-1993), supervised the family's Hong Kong and southeast Asian schools for many years and opened the family's first Western school in Toronto, Canada in 1974. Wu Kung-yi's daughter, Wu Yan-hsia (吳雁霞, 1930-2001), was the senior instructor of the Wu family for five years after the passing of Wu Ying-hua, and was known as an expert with the T'ai Chi chien (sword).
The Wu style's distinctive hand form, pushing hands and weapons trainings emphasise parallel footwork and horse stance training with the feet relatively closer together than the modern Yang or Ch'en styles, small circle hand techniques (although large circle techniques are trained as well) and differs from the other T'ai Chi family styles martially with Wu style's initial focus on grappling, throws, wrestling and other groundfighting technique; tumbling, jumping, footsweeps, pressure point leverage and joint locks and breaks, which are trained in addition to more conventional T'ai Chi sparring and fencing. Although historically derived from the Yang style, the Wu style has a unique appearance to observers and seems to share some features, especially in the footwork, with Sun style, perhaps due to the long collaboration and friendship between Wu Chien-ch'üan and Sun Lu-t'ang (孫祿堂, 1861-1932).
Wu Chien-ch'üan's descendants continue to teach in Asia, North America and Europe.
The senior instructor of the Wu family T'ai Chi Ch'üan schools
Wu Ch'uan-yü (吳全佑, 1834-1902), who learned from Yang Lu-ch'an and Yang Pan-hou, was senior instructor of the family from 1870-1902.
His oldest son, Wu Chien-ch'üan (吳鑑泉, 1870-1942), was senior from 1902-1942.
His oldest son, Wu Kung-yi (吳公儀, 1900-1970) was senior from 1942-1970.
Wu Kung-yi's younger brother, Wu Kung-tsao (吳公藻, 1903-1983), was senior from 1970-1983.
Wu Kung-yi's younger sister, Wu Ying-hua (吳英華, 1907-1997), was senior from 1983-1997.
Wu Kung-yi's daughter, Wu Yan-hsia (吳雁霞, 1930-2001) was senior from 1997-2001.
The current senior instructor of the Wu family is Wu Kung-tsao's son, Wu Ta-hsin (吳大新, born 1933), who has been eldest of the family and president of the Chien-ch'uan T'ai Chi Ch'uan Association, 鑑泉太極拳社, internationally since 2001.
See also
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