Rising Sun of Tai Chi

The Hot new Internal Style
by Gene Ching

The Beijing sun can be brutal. It lashes down mercilessly upon the smoggy, congested city like a tyrannical emperor collecting his daily tribute in sweat. Beneath the hot sun, there seems no escape from the noise, the exhaust, and the traffic of one of the world?s most populated cities. Over nine million Beijingers toil beneath this heat and not a one escapes with a dry shirt. By next year, it will expand to ten million and that emperor of the Sun will become even richer with his spoils. In this kind of squalor, your sense of individuality vanishes. You are reduced to just one more ant in an enormous colony, just one more tiny cog in a massive machine, just one more kernel of rice frying in the great sizzling wok of Beijing.

And yet, hidden amidst the reek and chaos, a different Sun is about to lead the way to peace of mind. Beijing is an oppressive maze of towering cement living complexes, so dreary that they could only be of that utilitarian architecture of communism, but it hides many treasures. Tucked between these depressing buildings is a tiny park where a small patch of earth manages to peek through the asphalt beneath the shady trees. Here, a little old lady is sharing her method of salvation, something her father had taught her, the time-honored art of Tai Chi Chuan.

But this is no ordinary Tai Chi class, nor any ordinary lady. In Beijing, millions of people practice Tai Chi every morning. It is the Tai Chi capital of the world. So a Tai Chi class has to be something really amazing to attract any attention among the multitude of practitioners. This is something special, for two simple reasons. The subject of study is Sun Style, the newest innovation in Tai Chi Chuan. The lady teaching is Sun Jianyun, the daughter of this style?s founder, Sun Lutang. Sun style Tai Chi Chuan is a fusion of the three major styles of internal Kung Fu, the trinity of Tai Chi Chuan, Ba Gua Zhang, and Xing Yi Quan. The appeal of this fusion has Sun style rising quickly in popularity. Accordingly, Sun Jianyun is the most celebrated woman in Chinese martial arts, the veritable queen empress of Tai Chi. She has inherited the Grandmastership of Sun style from her illustrious father.

The Power of the Sun - Internal Fusion
Sun Lutang (1861-1933) was one of the most noted masters of the internal martial arts during the last century. Many amazing legends gathered like clouds around Sun. Such miraculous feats are always attributed to the ancient masters, not only confirming the Chinese penchant for exaggeration in storytelling, but also conjuring the conception of the master of internal styles as a magician. Sun Jianyun is always quick to dispel the preposterous and shed light on the subject. Sun Lutang was no magician, but he was an exceptional master who overcame tremendous adversity to earn his achievements. He was born poor and weak. As a child, he was so poverty stricken that he had to beg for money to bury his own father.

Fate smiled upon him when he discovered martial arts by chance. He had the further good fortune to train under some of the best internal masters of the time. His Tai Chi master was Hao Weizhen, who founded his own esoteric style of Tai Chi, Hao style. His Xing Yi masters were both well-known, Li Kuiyuan and Li?s own master Guo Yunshen. His Ba Gua master was Chen Tinghua, disciple of the founder of modern Ba Gua Dong Haichuan. With such a fine lineage, Sun was bound to contribute great things to the martial world. He earned a reputation by successfully meeting all his challengers and winning many duels. He was also a noted calligrapher and scholar, authoring five well-received books on the martial arts. But his greatest achievement was undoubtedly the creation of Sun style Tai Chi Chuan.

Not even a century old and only one generation from the founder makes Sun style fairly young in martial arts years, where veneration is measured in centuries. Sun Lutang did not create his new style until his autumn years. His reason for such a late development was simple. He had to master the three other styles first. It is this fusion that makes Sun style fascinating. While Tai Chi Chuan is familiar to many people around the world, few know that there are many other internal styles. Ba Gua and Xing Yi are the most outstanding. A common underlying thread links these three systems, internal power.

For many Westerners, the concept of internal power is elusive. How does soft overcome hard? It defies Western reason, so it must be magic. Actually, the answer lies within the fundamental principles behind the internal styles. Tai Chi, Ba Gua and Xing Yi are all firmly rooted and connected to the Chinese cosmological view, which is a radically different way of perceiving reality. For example, Tai Chi is always associated to the Chinese concept of Yin and Yang. In fact, when Yin and Yang combine to form the symbol commonly known as Yin-Yang, it is more accurately called Tai Chi. In the Chinese cosmological view, Tai Chi represents the first duality arising from the void (or Wu Chi). By compounding this duality exponentially, all creation originates. Ba Gua Zhang or ?Eight Diagrams Palm? is based upon eight diagrams (a.k.a. trigrams) that surround the Tai Chi symbol. Essentially, they are the initial compounds. These trigrams each consist of three lines, either broken or solid, in all possible permutations. These trigram permutations are the basis of an ancient Chinese system of divination known as the I Ching.

Sun Lutang was an expert at I Ching as well, and used it to predict his own exact time of death. The most outstanding characteristic of Ba Gua is that it walks a circle just as the trigrams circle the Tai Chi. Xing Yi Quan or ?Form Mind boxing? is based upon a related cosmological view: the five elements. The five elements of metal, wood, water, fire, and earth are fundamental in traditional Chinese medicine and Chinese Geomancy or Feng Shui. To stay healthy, these elements must be balanced. Xing Yi mirrors this arrangement with its basic fist forms, one for each element. To the uninitiated, this might all seem like a lot of Chinese hocus-pocus, but the key concept throughout all these ideas is that of harmony. Soft does not really overcome hard, it merely balances it. In fact, hard cannot exist without soft, so internal power seeks the restoration of harmony as a means of conflict resolution.

Sun Lutang fused what he believed to be the most powerful concepts from these three internal styles to form his new style. He distilled each style down to its basic harmonious nature and found the harmony between them. To any practitioner of internal arts, Sun?s theories are very seductive. If his theory was correct, encapsulated within Sun style Tai Chi may be the essence of the soft arts. It certainly was for him. His level of skill and understanding remains among the most highly respected in martial arts today.

Sun Jianyun is adamant about the clarity of Sun style practice. She states that the Sun form is all you really need. Many Sun style practitioners explore Tai Chi, Ba Gua and Xing Yi to supplement their training. In fact, Sun Jianyun is most renowned for her mastery of Ba Gua. However, according to Sun Jianyun, that is not necessary. The Sun style Tai Chi form stands on its own as a complete curriculum.

Sun Flower - The Most Respected Woman of Tai Chi
Sun Jianyun is an unusual name for a lady. Most Chinese girls are named after more feminine things, such as Wing Chun (Glorious Springtime) or Mulan (Sweet Magnolia). Jianyun means ?sword cloud.? For the youngest child of one of China?s greatest masters, it was fitting. Now that she is an accomplished master too, it seems predestined. Sun Jianyun was the fourth and final child of Sun Lutang, his only daughter. Ordinarily, one of her three elder brothers should have inherited Sun Lutang?s mantle as grandmaster of Sun Style. However, the first and third-born sons, Sun Xingyi and Sun Huanmin, both died tragically before their father. Sun Xingyi, the eldest, died of illness in 1929; Sun Huanmin, the youngest, died in a gymnastics accident in 1922. The middle brother, Sun Cunzhou, was himself a very talented martial artist, but he was forever inhibited by a crippling handicap. He had lost an eye. Despite this obstacle, he earned the right to be counted among the masters and at age 79, he predicted the time of his death, just like his father.

Sun Jianyun was born in 1914 when her father was already 53. She was born and raised in Beijing and has never married. Under the watchful eye of her father, she followed her namesake and mastered the sword at an early age. Even today, her sword technique is still highly regarded amongst martial circles. She was a child prodigy and had already begun teaching at the young age of 14. In 1931, she got an unprecedented opportunity to teach. Her father created a martial art program that was exclusively for women. At the time, it was groundbreaking. No school offered a ?women?s program? in the male dominated field. When response was overwhelming, Sun Lutang asked his daughter to serve as one of the primary instructors. She was only seventeen at the time. Two years later Sun Lutang died, leaving his daughter to keep the flame of his style alive.

Sun Jianyun continued to teach while pursuing her own passion for painting. She majored in art at Beijing University and graduated with honors at age 21. In 1935, she was declared as one of the top four new coming artists of watercolor painting. She continued teaching martial arts and painting until the China?s terrible political rampage, the Cultural Revolution. It effectively eclipsed Sun style for over a decade and a half. At the outbreak of the revolution, Sun Jianyun was working for a Taiwanese bank. This unfortunate position was ill timed. A Taiwanese bank was the wrong place to be politically associated, placing her at the mercy of the predacious Red Guard. They took everything from her. All of Sun Jianyun?s private possessions were confiscated and she was imprisoned for three years. When she was finally released, she was destitute. Too proud to borrow and too honest to steal, she took a job as a nanny. For Grandmaster Sun, it was like a long cold lonely winter.

It has only been within the last two decades that Sun Jianyun returned to teaching. Since her return, she has been aggressively promoting her father?s teachings spreading the warmth of Sun style around the world. Martial culture is often frozen in the traditions of yesterday, so as a woman, Sun faced unique challenges. But that ice is slowly melting. She has written two books on Sun style and produced several instructional videos for the Chinese market. She has also founded Sun Style Tai Chi Chuan Research Institutes throughout China, and has begun establishing representatives in outside countries such as Japan and the United States. Today, Sun Style has been accepted within the ranks of Chen, Wu and Yang with national competition standards. In Mainland China, it is well known. Unfortunately, the standard competition form has been ?enhanced? for performance with the addition of a flying kick. Sun admonished the committee that tampered with her father?s work, but to little avail. Such is the nature of Chinese politics, even in the martial arts.

Sun Jianyun is getting recognized for her work too. In a Chinese-produced documentary on Jet Li, the villain in Lethal Weapon 4 and Mainland China?s favorite martial son, a young Jet is seen honoring his elders by practicing push hands with Ms. Sun. This was an unmistakable acknowledgement of Sun Jianyun?s accomplishments as a grand master and an earnest gesture of respect from the celebrated Jet Li. Most significantly, the People?s Republic of China bestowed upon Sun Jianyun the highest of honors by officially recognizing her as one of the Top Ten Masters of all China. Sun Jianyun is the only woman to stand among these illustrious Top Ten masters.

Here Comes the Sun - Sun Shines Around the World
Tai Chi is the most popular of the internal or ?soft? martial arts. Beyond those millions of practitioners in Asia, the slow and introspective movements of Tai Chi have found favor in the new age circles and amongst the elderly as a health rejuvenating practice. Due to this new Western audience, the popularity of Tai Chi has been steadily increasing. Many of today?s Western advocates use it more as a form of meditation and exercise than a martial art. This is one of the beauties of Tai Chi. Even a modest non-martial practice will be beneficial to your health. Sun Lutang was a staunch advocate of the health benefits of Tai Chi, more so than the self-defense aspect, despite the fact that he was himself an accomplished fighter. Consequently, Sun style not only serves as functional martial art, but it is also very restorative for the essential harmony of the body, mind and spirit.

Today, the most dominant style of Tai Chi is Yang. This is probably due to the fact that many Yang style masters have simplified and shortened the long traditional forms to appeal to a greater audience. The deep stances of martial Tai Chi practice can place too much demand on the casual practitioner. Here, Sun style has a distinct advantage.

Written by Gene Ching for KUNGFUMAGAZINE.COM

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