The Comparative Research On Chen Xin And Du Yuanhua's Tai Chi Techniques And Theories

Tai Chi is the treasure of traditional Chinese culture. With the increasingly broaden development of Tai Chi around the world, its theory and technique develop unevenly and inharmoniously and reflects many issues. Particularly, concerning to its origin, there are quite a lot of points about it and always being the focus of arguments. Tai Chi, as a carrier of traditional Chinese culture, must be supported by systematic theory to make its development healthy and sustainable on the whole.Chen Xin and Du Yuanhua who lived in the period of the Republic of China are representatives of Chen's Tai Chi and Zhao Bao Tai Chi respectively and their writings are the primal complete summary of his own type. Nowadays, the main spot for practicing Chen's and Zhao Bao Tai Chi is apart from each other for less than 5 miles, but each of them holds different views about Tai Chi's origin and their developments are greatly incorrespondent, and that has become the core element in the origin problem. In view of factors like conservative ideas, through comparing both school's masterpieces-The Ilustrated handbook of Chen School Tai Chi and The Orthodox School of Tai Chi and some other related Tai Chi theories, the paper analyzes both varieties' actual divergences so as to explore into the origin of Tai Chi further to build up a proper theory system about Tai Chi and guide government in establishing and developing Tai Chi policy.This paper is based on the fundamental theories of sports science, following the Marxist philosophy and methodology, and adopting literature, contrast, interview and analysis. On the basis of thoroughly arranging both types' techniques and theories, the paper comparatively analyzes the differences and connections of such aspects as its theory's original background, technique system, thoughts about Tai Chi theory and headstream points, and evaluates synthetically both writings' value and significance in the end.Conclusions:1,Technically, by generally comparing both types' action names, illustrations and technique essentials, the paper claims that there are 53 sets of identical or similar action in Chen's and Zhao Bao Tai Chi. And it is generally alike among every posture's sequence in both types, which assumes certain rule. Meanwhile, however, there are some different movements in each type, and in style and practice methods, there are some subtle diversities as well.2,Through comparatively analyzing Tai Chi theory in the Book of Changes, it is considered in the paper that the introduction about the Book of Changes in Chen Xin's The Illustrated handbook of Chen School Tai Chi almost reproduce in series Lai Zhide's Book of Changes, Lai Zhaitang's Diary of Ming Dynasty. Moreover, Du Yuanhua's interpretation about the essential ideology of Tai Chi's origin also comes from Lai Zhide's comments.3,In the basic ideology, Chen Xin tend to interpret Tai Chi with Confucian conception, while Du Yuanhua is apt to do that with local Taoist conception. Obviously, the divergence is necessarily connected with Chen and Du's basic views about Tai Chi's origin.4,In regard to keeping fit by means of exercise, Chen Xin prefer to support it with Chinese traditional channels and collaterals theory. And his comments concerned to channels and collaterals theory almost reproduce Ma Zhou's LING-Shu explanation of Ming Dynasty with little alteration. On the other hand, Du Yuanhua mainly does it according to conventional Taoist Internal Training Theory.5,Although Chen and Du look upon Tai Chi's origin differently, after analyzing comparatively their writings from a special angle, it is supposed that these two types of Tai Chi have many similarities on the whole and probably derive from the same school. The current differences only come from ages of descent. As a result, their emphasis on practice is different, and so does their style. To sum up, Chen's and Zhao Bao Tai Chi originate from the same source but develop differently.