History of Guang Ping Yang Tai Chi

by Grandmaster Henry Look

Reprinted as originally submitted.

Guang Ping Yang Tai Chi was originated by the great Tai Chi Master, Yang Lu-Chan, with his second son, Yang Ban-Hou (1st and 2nd Generations). From Yang Ban-Hou this lineage was passed down to only three disciples. One of the three was Wang Jiao-Yu (3rd Generation). Wang in turn passed this style down to only four disciples. One of the four was Kuo Lien Ying (4th Generation), who brought this style to the United States in 1965. All the students who studied directly from Kuo are considered 5th Generation.

As a young boy, Yang Ban Hou was exceptionally talented in martial arts with outstanding natural athletic abilities. However, he hated the tough training that was forced upon him by his proud father, Yang Lu-Chan, and would often run away from home. Each time his father would find him and drag him back home.

Although Ban-Hou hated his daily training, his natural abilities helped him, and his martial arts improved very rapidly. In a few short years when he became a grown man, his martial arts abilities were unequaled, even more superior than his own father's. Thus, his name became famous and known throughout the Country.

In the 17th Century, when the Manchu from the north invaded China, the Emperor put out a command to find the best martial artist to teach his Royal Family and his Imperial Guards. Yang Ban-Hou was considered the best at that time and was ordered by the Emperor to serve as a Royal Coach in the martial arts for the Imperial Court. Ban-Hou did not like the Manchu but knew that any refusal to the Emperor's command would mean death (He would be beheaded).

Ban-Hou did not wish to teach the true secrets of Guang Ping forms to the Manchu invaders, so he deliberately altered the movements into soft forms. later known as Beijing Style. The nightly Tai Chi sessions for the Royal Family were conducted behind high brick garden walls and closed high wooden gates.

One day, Ban-Hou, on his way to the Imperial Court walking past the Royal Horse Stable, observed a young stable boy practicing the same Tai Chi forms he was teaching nightly in the Royal Garden. He confronted the boy as to how he could know this style of Tai Chi so well. The stable boy, named Wang Jiao-Yu, confessed that he had learned the forms by spying on his teaching nightly.

Ban-Hou learned the boy was Chinese, not a Manchu, and that they both came from the same same city of Guang Ping. He asked the boy if he was serious about learning Kung-Fu from him. The boy immediately said yes and dropped to his knees to pay respect and appreciation by bowing to Ban-Hou one hundred times and with each bow hitting his forehead against the hard stone pavement.

When Wang finished bowing. his forehead red and bruised. Ban-Hou said to him. "If you really want to learn real Kung-Fu from me, you have to bend down to touch your chin to toe within 100 days." Wang Jiao-Yu practiced very hard daily and succeeded in touching his chin to toe way before the 100 days had passed and thereby became one of the only three disciples accepted by Yang Ban-Hou.

50 years later - Tales of Wang Jiao Yu

"After him! After him!" The town sheriff shouted commands to his group of nine deputized pursuers. "Don't let him get away! Chi-Li was known as the most elusive and clever burglar in the Shantung area. He possessed great talent and was trained in a very high skill of Chinese Martial Arts. He could easily leap across a canal over twenty feet wide or just as easily jump up eight feet to roof tops to escape capture. On many moonlit nights, villagers would watch in awe this agile, nimble, dark silhouette accentuated by the giant moon shining high above in the sky as he skipped from roof top to roof top with a bag of loot tied around his shoulder.

On this night, the sheriff and his deputies chased Chi-Li into a dead-end alley, which lead to an ancient temple. When the pursuers rounded the corner into the alley leading to the temple, they saw Chi-Li's figure lying on the ground, knocked out cold with no sign of movement. The sheriff and his men were amazed and puzzled as to what had happened to this lifeless figure lying on the ground before them. As they looked about the ground for some explanation to this puzzlement, they saw an old man sitting on the granite steps leading to the main entrance of the old temple.

This old man was known to the town's people as "The old man selling tea at the old temple." He dressed in dark blue cotton clothing. He wore loosely fitted trousers with the pant legs tied firmly around his ankles. He wore brown socks with black slippers. His loosely fitted jacket had a straight row of cloth loops around cloth buttons (what the modern age calls "Frog Buttons") up to his neck. He demeanor was calm as he sat cross-legged with palms resting gently on top of his knees. He sat behind a dilapidated make-shift wooden stand, very much worn by the weather. On top of the stand were many varieties of dried tea leaves in dark and light-colored bamboo woven baskets, which filled the summer breeze with a variety of fragrant aromas.

As the sheriff questioned the old man, his eyes were slightly closed and his head with short cropped hair rested on a relaxed erect posture. He calmly denied having any knowledge of what had happened to the burglar, Chi-Li.

When the sheriff and his men paraded through town proudly with Chi-Li in tow and bound by ropes, words were buzzing through the town that "The old man selling tea at the old temple" possessed great skill in Kung-Fu. From that day on the townspeople, young and old, went to the temple grounds daily hoping to get a glimpse of the old man practicing kung-fu. Some begged and begged to become his disciple and learn from him. However, the old man always denied that he knew anything about martial arts, but was just an ordinary person selling tea to support his life.

As the days and weeks passed people who had waited from morning to night hoping to see kung-fu gave up and slowly disappeared from the temple grounds. Eventually, everyone had given up, except for one persistent young man. This young man changed his sleeping habit to during the day so that he could observe the old man at night. Night after night, he would go to the temple after dark and wait until dawn before going home to sleep.

After three fruitless nights, half an hour after hearing the town's time keeper bong! bong! bong! bong! the sound of four beats (representing 4 am), which came from a stick banging against a hollowed piece of bamboo, as he was about to doze off, all of a sudden a dark figure appeared amongst a group of young trees waving his arms and hands in total coordination of his body and legs, like a slow dance. Whenever he would push forward with his palms, the nearby tree branches would bend with leaves rustling as though they were being blown by a strong wind. The dark figure moved slowly and smoothly like gentle clouds floating in the sky. With each step, going to and fro, his feet were placed on the ground very gently and precisely. Yet, even with each movement being performed very slowly, he could see and feel the great power projecting out.

When the news of the "Tea Seller" having such great Kung Fu abilities got out, everyone who could walk wanted to study with him. Finally the "Tea Seller", Wang Jiao Yu accepted four disciples. One of the four was Kuo Lien Ying, who in 1965, brought the unique style of Guang Ping Yang Tai Chi to San Francisco's Chinatown.