Cheng Man-ch'ing


Cheng Man-ch'ing or Zheng Manqing was a notable Chinese expert of t'ai chi ch'uan, Chinese medicine, and the so called three perfections: calligraphy, painting and poetry. He was born in Yongjia, Zhejiang Province, Republic of China. His birthday was on the 28th year of the Guangxu emperor's reign, 6th month, 25th day, which corresponds to July 29, 1902. Cheng died March 26, 1975; his grave is near the city of Taipei. Because of his skills in these five areas, considered among some of the traditional skills and pastimes of a Confucian scholar, he was often referred to as the "Master of Five Excellences." Because he had been a college professor, his students called him "Professor Cheng."

Early years

Cheng's father died when Cheng was very young. Around the age of nine, Cheng was struck on the head by a falling brick or roof tile, and was in a coma for a short while. He recuperated slowly, and was apprenticed to a well-known artist, Wang Xiangchan, in hopes that simple jobs like grinding ink would help his health. Within a few years, his teacher sent him out to earn his living at painting. Cheng's aunt Chang Kuang, also known by her artist's name of Hongwei Laoren, was a well-known painter. During Cheng's childhood, his mother took him out to find medicinal plants and taught him the fundamentals of traditional Chinese herbal medicine.
Cheng taught poetry and art in several leading colleges in Beijing and Shanghai and was a successful artist. At the age of nineteen, he was a professor of poetry at an esteemed art school in Beijing. Later in Shanghai, he became acquainted with influential figures including Wu Changshi, Cai Yuanpei, Zheng Xiaoxu, Xu Beihong, and Zhang Daqian.
In his twenties, he developed lung disease. Ill to the point of coughing up blood, he began to practice t'ai chi ch'uan more diligently to aid his recovery. Cheng retired from teaching and devoted himself for several years to the study of t'ai chi ch'uan, traditional Chinese medicine, and literature.
In addition to his childhood instruction, Cheng Man-ch'ing received formal Chinese medical training. While he was teaching painting in a Shanghai art school, one of his friends grew ill and was unable to find relief. Cheng Man-ch'ing wrote a complex prescription for his friend, who took the medicine and recovered fully. One story from his memorial book is that a retired traditional doctor named Song You-an came across the prescription. He demanded to be put in contact with the person who wrote it, as the sophistication and erudition of the prescription showed exceptional talent and competence. As war was raging across China at that time, it took several years before Cheng Man-ch'ing was able to present himself for study. With Song, Cheng received instruction and became conversant with the Chinese pharmacopoeia.
Around 1930 Cheng met the well-known master Yang Chengfu, with whom he began to study Yang-style t'ai chi ch'uan, until Yang died. While the exact dates of Cheng's study with Yang are not clear, one of Yang's top students, scholar Chen Weiming wrote that Cheng studied six years with Yang.. Cheng, according to Yang's son Zhenji, ghostwrote Yang's second book Essence and Applications of Taijiquan or The Substance and Application of T'ai Chi Ch'uan, for which Cheng also wrote a preface and most likely arranged for the calligraphic dedications.
Cheng taught t'ai chi ch'uan, practiced medicine, and continued his art practice in Sichuan Province during the Sino-Japanese war years. In this period he taught Abraham Liu while at the Central Military Academy, China's equivalent of West Point.By 1946, he had developed a significantly abbreviated 37-move version of Yang's traditional form. He wrote the manuscript for his Thirteen Chapters during this period, and showed them to his elder classmate Chen Weiming, who gave it his imprimatur.

Taiwan

Cheng moved to Taiwan in 1949 and continued his career as a physician and as a teacher of his new t'ai chi ch'uan form, as well as actively practicing painting, poetry, and calligraphy. He published Cheng's 13 Chapters of T'ai Chi Boxing in 1950 which has been translated into English twice. He started the Shih Chung T'ai Chi Association in Taipei, where many now well-known students trained with him.
Though he tended not to advertise it, Cheng served as one of the painting teachers of Soong Mei-ling, Madame Chiang Kai-shek, whom he taught to paint lotuses; and as personal physician to Chiang Kai-shek in Taiwan and perhaps earlier.

United States

In 1964, Cheng moved with his family to the United States, where he taught at the New York T'ai Chi Association at 211 Canal Street in Manhattan. He then founded and taught at the Shr Jung T'ai Chi school at 87 Bowery in New York City's Chinatown section, with the assistance of his six American senior students, known as the "Big Six": Tam Gibbs, Lou Kleinsmith, Ed Young, Mort Raphael, Maggie Newman, and Stanley Israel. Later students/assistants are known as "the Little Six": Victor Chin, Y Y Chin, Jon Gaines, Natasha Gorky, Wolfe Lowenthal, and Ken VanSickle. Other American students include Frank Wong, Michael and Lora Howard, Herman Kauz, René Houtrides, Patt Benton, Lucjan Shila, Carol Yamasaki, Robert Ante, Judyth Weaver, Patrick Watson, Min Pai, Lawrence Galante, Lisa Marcusson, Saul Krotki, Robert Chuckrow, Robert D. Morningstar and William C. Phillips. In Taiwan, Cheng's students continued running the school in his absence. It operated initially under the direction of Liu Hsi-heng. Hsu I-chung is the current director.
While living in New York City, Cheng often spent several hours in the early afternoons studying or teaching classes of three or four students in the C. V. Starr East Asian Library in Columbia University, usually in a small, mahogany-panelled loft above the main floor. For relaxation, he raised orchids.

Writings

In 1967 in collaboration with Robert W. Smith, and T. T. Liang, Cheng published "T'ai Chi, the Supreme Ultimate Exercise for Health, Sport and Self-defense," which was his second t'ai chi book in English. He wrote over a dozen other books on a variety of subjects, including the I Ching, the Tao Te Ching, the Analects of Confucius, books of poetry, essays, medicine, and art collections. Translations of his works include: "Master Cheng's New Method of T'ai Chi Ch'uan Self-Cultivation"; "Cheng Man Ch'ing: Essays on Man and Culture"; "Cheng Man Ch'ing: Master of Five Excellences," and "T'ai Chi Ch'uan: A Simplified Method of Calisthenics for Health and Self-Defense."
Cheng also produced several t'ai chi films, and some of his classes and lectures were recorded and in later years released on DVD.

Cheng Man-ch'ing's t'ai chi ch'uan

Cheng Man-ch'ing is best known in the West for his t'ai chi ch'uan. The following are some of the characteristics of his "Yang-style short form."
These changes allowed Cheng to teach larger numbers of students in a shorter time. His shortened form became extremely popular in Taiwan and Malaysia, and he was one of the earliest Chinese masters to teach t'ai chi ch'uan publicly in the United States. His students have continued to spread his form around the world.
Cheng rejected the appellation "Yang-style Short Form" to characterize his t'ai chi. When pressed on the issue, he called his form "Yang-style t'ai chi in 37 Postures." However, the postures in his form are counted differently from those in the Yang Chengfu form. In the older form each movement counts as a posture, whereas in the Cheng form postures are counted only the first time they are performed, and rarely or not at all when they are repeated. These differences in how the postures are counted have led some Cheng practitioners, such as William C. C. Chen, to characterize their own forms as exceeding 70 "movements," and indeed, upon close comparison with the Yang Chengfu form, Cheng's postures, if counted the same way as Yang's are, would number over 70. Moreover, there is nothing in Cheng's teaching to prohibit a practitioner of his style from repeating any number of movements just as many or more times than they are repeated in the Yang Chengfu form.
Cheng's changes to the Yang-style form have never been officially recognised by the Yang family and his style is still a source of controversy among some t'ai chi ch'uan practitioners. From Cheng's own point of view, the approval of his elder brother disciple Ch'en Wei-ming was all the recognition he needed, since by that time Yang Chengfu was deceased, and all of the current generation of Yang Chengfu leaders were junior to him.

Legacy

Cheng Man-ch'ing's legacy includes many hundreds of schools around the world that follow his lineage. In Taiwan, a number of his direct students still teach, and the Shih Chung school still operates. Huang Sheng Shyan, one of Cheng's most accomplished disciples, established over 40 schools in South East Asia, through which Cheng's T'ai Chi has continued to reach over 10,000 practitioners. Grandmaster William C.C. Chen continues to teach in New York City.
A little-appreciated dimension of Cheng's legacy was his willingness to teach non-Chinese students. While he was not the first Chinese martial artist to do this in America, his warm embrace of Westerners, who ran the gamut from experienced fighters to long-haired hippies of the day, proved controversial with the Chinese Association that had initially sponsored his move to New York. At one point, when Cheng was out of the country, the Association members locked the Western students out of the Canal Street school. Informed of this, Cheng instructed Ed Young to find a new location. Upon his return to New York, Cheng taught at the new location, 87 Bowery, sending an unmistakable message of inclusiveness and rejecting the insularity that was traditional in the Chinese martial arts community.
In New York City, among Cheng's senior students, Maggie Newman and Ed Young are still teaching. While Prof. Cheng was still teaching in New York, he asked Fred Lehrman to help initiate schools in Milwaukee WI, Minneapolis MN, Gainesville FL, Boulder CO, and Halifax, Nova Scotia. Among these, the ones in Milwaukee and at Naropa Institute in Boulder have continued into the new millennium. The official program at Naropa Institute was initially created by Judyth O. Weaver with the permission of Chögyam Trungpa in 1974. It had over 500 students in the first Tai Chi summer session. From 1975 it included several of the main Shih Jung teachers, including Lehrman, Tam Gibbs, Maggie Newman, Ed Young, and Wolfe Lowenthal as visiting instructors over the next period of years, in addition to resident teachers Jane and Bataan Faigao from 1977. The Faigaos also established Rocky Mountain T'ai Chi Ch'uan in Boulder. The New York School of Tai Chi Chuan, later the T'ai Chi Foundation, was founded by Patrick Watson at the request of Prof. Cheng. William C. Phillips operates Patience T'ai Chi Association in Brooklyn, NY. Don Ahn founded the Ahn T'ai Chi Studio and taught thousands of students form and Taoist techniques.
Cheng's students carried on his tradition of writing about t'ai chi, creating study material, and documenting his teaching. A recent feature film "The Professor" documents his years in New York City.

Cheng Man-ch'ing's Sequence

  1. Preparation
  2. Beginning
  3. Ward Off, Left
  4. Ward Off, Right
  5. Roll Back
  6. Squeeze
  7. Push
  8. Single Whip
  9. Raise Hands
  10. Shoulder Strike
  11. White Crane Stretches Its Wings
  12. Brush Knee Left
  13. Play Guitar
  14. Step Up and Block
  15. Parry and Punch
  16. Apparent Close-up
  17. Cross Hands
  18. Embrace Tiger, Return to Mountain
  19. Fist Under Elbow
  20. Step Back and Repulse Monkey, Right
  21. Step Back and Repulse Monkey, Left
  22. Diagonal Flying
  23. Wave Hands Like Clouds, Left
  24. Wave Hands Like Clouds, Right
  25. Single Whip, Lower Style
  26. Golden Cock Stands on One Leg, Right
  27. Golden Cock Stands on One Leg, Left
  28. Separation of the Right Foot
  29. Separation of the Left Foot
  30. Turn Body and Kick With Heel
  31. Step Forward and Punch
  32. Fair Lady Weaves Shuttle I- A textbook example of how defense precedes offense in Tai Chi
  33. Fair Lady Weaves Shuttle II
  34. Step Up to Seven Stars
  35. Retreat to Ride Tiger
  36. Turn Body Sweep Lotus Leg
  37. Bend Bow Shoot Tiger

    T'ai chi ch'uan lineage tree with Yang-style focus