Historical facts about the founder of the Yang family (Yeung Gar) style of Tai Chi Yang Lu Chan are varied and often disputed, but he did teach in the Imperial Palace and also many high level dignitaries.

I would speculate that this contributed to his notable skill and his ability to deal with opponents utilising the Tai Chi skills of a ‘soft front and a strong back’, often referred to as ‘a sharp needle, or iron bar wrapped in soft cotton’. He needed to be effective but retain a dignified approach, negating an opponent’s force with a blend of skill and softness, combined with power to accompany that dignity.

I have spent many years teaching professional law enforcement, bodyguards, security personnel and high grade martial artists from all arts, where the same traits are required and found Yang style Tai Chi the perfect medium for this. It’s a standing grappling art that in my lineage (direct family and students) has never been influenced by sport or theatre, so it’s not been sanitised or made theatrical.

Yang Tai Chi spread quickly over the globe and has often been ‘hippified’ into a limp and soggy shade of the original or hardened into muscular form to fit a practitioners gym and external culture or practised as a spiritual enterprise for the magical, qigong and meditative culture, but the balance is in the Tai Chi (yin/yang) symbol and the soft/hard explanations of ‘soft cotton’ or ‘deceptive’ boxing.

It’s not so different than the ideas in Judo (soft way) or JuJitsu (soft skills), Wado Ryu (way of peace and harmony) or Aikido (way of energetic harmony). Done properly, it fits neatly into the martial arts and is my favourite because it’s pure, untarnished self defence in the family lineage, defending health, sanity, and strategically against the violence and chaos in life.

The training is layered, structured, progressive, practical and has synergy without any wasted, unnecessary, theatrical or confusing movement. Every technique can be used directly without any adaption as self defence and the push hand partner work trains it a very practical way.

Credit to Yang Lu Chan and the subsequent generations that carried his legacy forward. I am grateful to my teachers and researchers for the system, the ideas, philosophy, principles and to all those working and translating to keep it alive.

Link to my 2026 programme in the comments.