Wudang tai chi chuan

Wudang Tai Chi Chuan 武當太極拳 is the name of a system of Tai Chi Chuan that was developed by a Hong Kong 香港 based Tai Chi Chuan master known as Cheng Tinhung 鄭天熊. While Cheng Tinhung never claimed to be teaching any particular school of Tai Chi Chuan, his uncle was a disciple of the Wu 吳 school of Tai Chi Chuan, which may or may not have had some influence on his own approach to the art.

The Wudang Tai Chi Chuan system is now being taught in Europe by two of Cheng Tinhung’s disciples, Dan Docherty and Ian Cameron, both based in the United Kingdom. The system also continues to be taught in Hong Kong, and the current head of that school is Cheng Tinhung’s son Cheng Kamyan (Zheng Jianen) 鄭鑒恩, whose school is called the Hong Kong Tai Chi Association 香港太極總會.

Zhang Sanfeng 張三豐, a highly mythologised figure said to be the founder of Tai Chi Chuan, lived in the Wudang Mountains 武當山 and the name "Wudang" used for this Tai Chi Chuan system was used in order to acknowledge Zhang Sanfeng's status as the founder of Tai Chi Chuan. There are other schools of Tai Chi Chuan that also use this name.

The Wudang Tai Chi Chuan system is also known as “Practical Tai Chi Chuan”. This name comes from that given to Cheng Tinhung's style by various Chinese martial arts journalists in Hong Kong during Cheng Tinhung’s heyday, and from the school's assertion that its tai chi is eminently useful as a form of self-defense.

The Wudang Tai...
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