History & Lineage

Legend

The legendary founder of taijiquan is Zhang San-feng of the Wudang mountain in the thirteenth century. Zhang combined the famous Shaolin kung fu with Taoist philosophy and inner cultivation methods, forming the Internal School of Chinese Martial Arts. All modern style of taijiquan, including Chen, Yang, Wu, and Sun, either trace their origins from, or acknowledge the importance of the Wudang Daoists and Zhang San-feng.

Yang Family Style

Yang Lu-chan learned his taijiquan from the Chen Family and was employed at the royal court in Beijing as an instructor. He created a "small frame" (less extended) form to accommodate the cumbersome robes worn by the royal family which inhibited their movements. Yang's "small frame" form was studied by the Mongolian bodyguard Wu Quan-yu, the progenitor of Wu Style.

The Yang Family style practised in modern times was honed by Yang Lu-chan's grandson, Yang Cheng-fu, who defined and regulated the movements of the Long Form we recognized today. Where Chen style is still a combination of hard and soft, fast and slow, Yang Cheng-fu defined all movements as soft, slow, smooth and long. The constancy, extension, lightness and stability of his form characterizes all Yang style to the present day.

Yang Cheng-fu taught his taijiquan to Chen Wei-ming among others. Chen Wei-ming brought taijiquan from Beijing in the north, to Shanghai in the south, where he established his school in 1925.

Mister Lee

For seven years, Lee Shiu-pak studied with Chen Wei-ming while studying journalism at a university in Shanghai. Lee Shiu-pak was his taijiquan name given by his teacher Chen Wei-ming. It means "Lee of small knowlege". He later moved to Hong Kong and then to Montreal, Canada, where sometimes in the 1960's he established the Montreal T'ai Chi Ch'uan Society. He was a calligrapher, a painter, a hit-fall doctor (treating injury) and martial artist. He taught and practiced the Long Form, a short sword form, a staff form, acupressure massage, herbal remedies, and painting until his death in 1982.

Sifu Paul

Paul McCaughey studied with Lee Shiu-pak in Montreal from 1975. He founded the Rising Sun School of T'ai Chi Ch'uan in 1984, in Toronto, Canada. He is also a doctor of Chinese Medicine. He and his wife, Jan Ohm, a practising psychotherapist, started the Somatic Healing Arts Clinic in 1993, pursuing wellness modalities where the mind-body harmony is the final goal.