An Interview with Chairman Wang Yen-nien

(A synopsis based on Master Wang Yen-nien’s oral account, prepared by George Lin and Julia Fairchild. George Lin is currently president of the ROC-Taiwan National Yang Family Taijiquan Association; Julia Fairchild is currently vice president of the ROC-Taiwan National Yangjia Michuan Taijiquan Association.)

Copyright note: All historical photographs on this site are copyrighted. Those who wish to reproduce them should contact us (Yen-Nien Daoguan).

I. Introduction

Taijiquan is one of the highest forms of martial arts. It is also the best of all the Daoist regimens for nurturing energy and attaining a long and healthy life, and a complementary technique to meditation—the latter focusing on inner cultivation through outer calm, while taijiquan achieves inner calm through outer movement. This two-pronged approach forms the basis of spiritual cultivation. But taijiquan is more than a way to health and longevity: it also fosters one’s ability to move at ease in the world and deal confidently with every situation that arises; it teaches one patience and helps adepts to accrue wisdom. What’s even better, no expensive equipment or special premises are required to practice taijiquan. Anyone, not just the young and fit, can quickly pick up a routine, and the soft and slow-motion-like movements make this a particularly beneficial form of calisthenics for the middle and old aged. All these advantages have already made taijiquan the most widespread form of early-morning exercise in all of Taiwan. And it doesn’t stop there: today, taijiquan has become a global trend that is constantly gaining new followers in Europe, the United States, Japan and China. It has even been made an Olympic discipline! Many schools of taijiquan have their roots in Taiwan, and the Yang Family’s Hidden Tradition (Yangjia Michuan Taijiquan) is one of the most eminent among them.

II. The Beginnings

When China’s martial art elite followed the national government to Taiwan in 1949, retreating from the advancing Communists, they established the Martial Arts Association to exchange knowledge and make sure their skills wouldn’t grow rusty. Among the cardinal members of those early days were Han Ching-tang, Chang Chun-feng, Wang Shu-chin, Wu Ta-chao, Wu Ti-pang, Wu Han-chung, Chiao Chang-hung and Wang Yen-nien. Former Provincial Police Department Chief Wang Cheng-chang was invited to serve as the Associations’ chairman. Carrying out the wishes of martial arts doyen and national assembly member Chen Pan-ling, two of the members, the old friends and taijiquan brothers Wang Yen-nien and Chiao Chang-hung, decided to form a Taijiquan club, with Chen Pan-ling as initiator, Wang Yen-nien as head coach, Chiao Chang-hung as director and Lee Chin-chuan head of general affairs. It was formally established on March 27, 1960, as the Chinese Taijiquan Club.

Chen Pan-ling himself served as the club’s chief commissioner, with Cheng Man-ching, Wang Yen-nien, Chen Tien-yi, Chi Ching-chih, Shi Tiao-mei, Hsiung Yang-ho, Wang Chien-chin, Liu Mu-sen, Ku Chung-nien, Han Ching-tang, Wang Ho-nien, Weng Tzi-chuang and Kuo Lien-yin all serving as ordinary members. The Chinese Taijiquan Club operated mainly in Taipei, holding its activities near the intersection of Hsiao Nanmen and Aikuo West Road. As the number of members and participants gradually increased, the Club became bigger and better organized. In 1963, a Taijiquan Academic Research Committee was set up under the Sino-American Cultural & Economic Association.

Liang Han-tsao became the Committee’s honorary director, while Han Chen-sheng held the post of chairman, and Cheng Man-ching, Wang Yen-nien, Weng Tzi-chuan and Lee Pen-fan served as consultants. Hsiao Tzu-ming and Tang Chun-wu were the vice-chairmen of the Research Committee, while the following all served as committee members/directors: Wang Chien-chin, Wei Shou-chih, Tao Ping-hsiang, Lu Chung-shan, Yu Hsien-wen, Chi Chiang-tao, Sung Chih-chien, Liu Chung-ling, Liang Tung-tsai, Kuang Yun-cheng, Chu Hung-pin and Liu Chen-huan. This arrangement lasted for two consecutive terms.

But in the January of 1966, chairman Han Chen-sheng and a group of renowned Taijiquan masters felt the need to become independent of the Martial Arts Federation and its administrative fetters. They initiated a drive to establish a Taijiquan society, which was signed by as many as 104 supporters from prominent backgrounds, all becoming founding members of the new society.

On Nov 5 of the same year, the Chinese Taijiquan Academic Research Society was officially founded at what was then #2, Alley 62, Lane 950, Chungcheng Road, Taipei City. In accordance with the Ministry of the Interior's regulations for accreditation of new associations, Han Chen-sheng was elected the first chairman of the Society, with Wang Yen-nien, Wang Chien-chin, Hsiao Tzu-ming, Tang Chun-wu, Hsu Chuo-hsiu, Hung Mao-chung, Yu Hsien-wen and Wu Chao-hsiang serving as executive directors, and Chi Chiang-tao, Chiao Chang-hung, Chi Ching-chih, Lu Hung-pin, Chang Wei-chung, Liu Chung-ling and Lee Tao-kuei as directors. Liu Pei-chung, Pan Yang-shan, Lu Chung-shan were executive supervisors, while Weng Tzi-chuan, Yang Yi-feng, Kuan Yen-feng and Chiao Chin-tang served as supervisors. The Chinese Taijiquan Academic Research Society existed for ten years, or four terms, lasting from Nov 5, 1966 until Dec 21, 1975. The latter date also marked the end of taijiquan’s formative period in Taiwan.

III. Growth Phase

In 1964, the Chinese Taijiquan Academic Research Society was incorporated into the ROC Sports Association, and consequently its name was changed to the ROC Tai Chi Chuan Association on Dec 21, 1975, with approval from the Ministry of the Interior. On Feb 6, 1976, a general assembly of all its members was held, on which Han Chen-sheng, the chairman of the antecedent Research Society, was appointed as the first and transitional chairman of the new body, but citing his advanced age, Han repeatedly declined to take the office. As a result, General Shih Chueh, former head of the Ministry of Personnel, was elected in a new vote during a joint meeting of the directors and supervisors to become the first chairman of the ROC Tai Chi Chuan Association on Dec 25, 1976.

Mr. Shih was reelected three times, leading the Association during from its first through its fourth term, and making countless valuable contributions. Not only were committees established under his aegis to take care of practice equipment, coaches and training, competitions and refereeing, he also vigorously promoted all kinds of Tai Chi Chuan competitions and laid down the basic rules of contest. His efforts earned him enthusiastic support and heartfelt acknowledgment from all parts of society. When Mr. Shih passed away in Sep 1986, vice chairman Wang Yen-nien took the reins as acting chairman. On Dec 7 of the same year, Wang was then officially confirmed in a by-election as the Association’s fifth chairman. At that time, the ROC Tai Chi Chuan Association had not only set up numerous branches all over Taiwan, but also established international divisions in as many as 13 countries. Before he was elected Chairman, Wang had already served many years as the organization’s chief instructor. As one of the adepts of famous Taijiquan master Zhang Qinlin’s school, Wang had inherited the master’s true martial arts teachings. His legendary skills and good-natured modesty had long since earned him domestic and international fame. Wang has students in Europe, Asia and North and South America, and he has traveled abroad many times to teach followers around the globe, setting up Yang Family Hidden Tradition Taijiquan (Yangjia Michuan Taijiquan) associations and academies in many places. His copious contributions are undisputed, including the lifting of taijiquan to new levels of professionalism through the introduction of rules and the laying down of basic postures and exercises, the founding of numerous associations and institutes for the development of taijiquan, making this a flourishing art in Taiwan as well as in all corners of the entire world, where Yangjia Michuan Taijiquan has become a well-known style.

On Mar 29, 1990, Yang Yu-chen became the sixth Chairman of the ROC Tai Chi Chuan Association. He continued to expand the organization and set up new branches, making every effort to promote taijiquan in society. Yang retired from his post in 1993, which marked the end of the “growth phase”.

IV. Development

In 1991, the ROC Sports Association was renamed as the ROC Sports Federation. Consequently, in a general meeting in 1992, the ROC Tai Chi Chuan Association amended its statutes to change its name to the ROC Tai Chi Chuan Federation, and notified all local branches to alter their titles accordingly beginning January 1, 1993. In Oct 1993, Chang Chao-ping was elected the seventh chairman of the organization, continuing his predecessors’ efforts and gaining reelection, serving as the eighth chairman until Dec 2001, when he was relieved by Chan Teh-sheng. Up to this point, at which we write these lines, the development of Taijiquan is still an ongoing process. Our and coming generations are called on to ensure its bright future.

V. Witnessing History

The present writer was very fortunate in witnessing, as a young taijiquan adept during my days at Chienkuo Junior High, several provincial martial arts contests held at the Armed Forces Ball Park. I was also fortunate that when I was fifteen, fellow adept Hou Hsien-chu introduced me to Wang Yen-nien, who accepted me as one of his disciples. While studying under the great master, I would join him and Hou Hsien-chu, Hou Hai-chuan, Lee Chin-chuan and other followers when they met with Master Cheng Man-ching and his disciples at the dojo on Taipei’s Chungshan South Road, right next to the Legislative Yuan, for joint push hand exercises and Tai Chi performances. I guess you could say that circumstances favored me, allowing me to meet the right people at the right time and to witness the great men of Taiwan’s early taijiquan history in action. On March 27, 1960, when the Chinese Taijiquan Club was formally established, I was lucky again to make it into the joint commemorative photo shot on the occasion. If you look hard enough, you can discover a much younger me on the very right in the last row of the picture (see the attached photograph). It was only after the founding of the Chinese Taijiquan Club that the Sino-American Cultural & Economic Association’s Taijiquan Academic Research Committee was set up in 1963, and Wang Yen-nien placed great emphasis on this fact, instructing me to clearly establish the chronology of these events. The reader of this article can also read up on the facts in Tai Chi Chuan Studies, a journal published by the Chinese Taijiquan Academic Research Society. On page five of the no. 2 issue of the journal, dating from Dec 19, 1966, Han Chen-sheng, then the chairman of the Society, is quoted as saying the following in his opening address to the Society’s annual assembly: “Today, our Society already has a three-year history. We began as the Taijiquan Academic Research Committee under the Sino-American Cultural & Economic Association, and most of those present here today are also original founding members of that Committee. After that committee was set up, more and more people wished to join our ranks, and director Liang repeatedly urged us to move on and set up an independent organization [i.e. the Chinese Taijiquan Academic Research Society].” From this it is clear that the original Sino-American Cultural & Economic Association’s Taijiquan Academic Research Committee came into being in 1963.

As a student at Chienkuo Junior High School, and later at the National Taiwan University, I continuously pursued my taijiquan education under Master Wang, mostly at the square of the Taiyuan Wupai Wanjen Memorial Shrine on Chungshan North Road, and at the domicile of Mr. Lin Wen-hsiung. We would do push hand exercises and practice other essential movements, and during those days I met quite a few of Taiwan’s early taijiquan grandmasters, as well as taijiquan masters from other countries who came to Taiwan to deepen their skill and knowledge. And some of the masters I met were among the pioneers who first went abroad to perpetuate the art of Tai Chi Chuan around the globe, including Liang Tung-tsai, Kuo Lien-yin, Chung Ta-chen, Kuang Yun-cheng, Shi Mi-si and Chen Chih-cheng. After his military service, the present author went to the United States for advanced studies. During my time in Boston and Los Angeles, I also took the opportunity to teach taijiquan. Those were the 1970s, and among other people I met Mr. Liu Ta, the first person to introduce taijiquan to the United Nations, teaching numerous students there. He even made it onto the cover of America’s Life Magazine. He also mentioned to me that my old acquaintance Mr. Liang Tung-tsai was in New York, where he had come together with Cheng Man-ching. Mr. Liang had also been one of the regular attendants of the push hand and taijiquan exercises under Wang Yen-nien’s tuition at the Taiyuan Wupai Wanjen Memorial Shrine. His English was quite fluent, and later on he left New York and came to Boston to teach taijiquan there. We got together many times in that period, and Mr. Chung Ta-chen also visited me in Boston.

VI. Conclusion

Looking back over the early days and the history of taijiquan’s growth and blossoming in Taiwan, we have to be truly grateful to the founder generation of the movement here, the grandmasters and doyens who have devoted so much energy and time to getting taiijiquan organized and structured, establishing it first in Taiwan and then spreading it across the globe. Of these great men, Wang Yen-nien is the sole survivor, the last of a generation of giants and undoubtedly the one who has made the greatest and most lasting contribution to the development Yangjia Michuan Taijiquan. Of course the name of Cheng Man-ching, his senior fellow adept, also has to be mentioned, particularly for his successful efforts to bring taijiquan to many other countries in the world.

The present writer was a very young person when he first came into touch with Tai Chi Chuan, and so had the good fortune to personally witness the early development of this noble martial art in Taiwan, and see many things with his own eyes. I have reported them truthfully here and elsewhere, so that they may not be forgotten even when none of the accomplished masters of the first generation are with us anymore. Wang Yen-nien lent me his friendly support in reading my synopsis and pointing out errors, and Julia Fairchild helped me find and arrange data and put the text in order. To both of them I would like to extend my heartfelt thanks.