1. The Origin of Tai Ji Gong
As the saying goes, “If you practice boxing without Gong*, you’ll end up with nothing in old age”. The implication of this saying is that Tai Ji Gong is the means for honing your Tai Ji Quan skills. According to A Treatise on the Origin of Tai Ji Gong of the Song Yuan Qiao Lineage, the boxing aspect of Tai Ji Gong is Tai Ji Quan. In this sense, Tai Ji Quan can be seen as an alternative name for Tai Ji Gong. To be specific, the martial side of Tai Ji Gong is the combat skills while the civil side is self-cultivation to realize the Tao.
The earliest recorded reference to Tai Ji Gong is found in A Treatise on the Origin of Tai Ji Gong of the Song Yuan Qiao Lineage according to which a boxing form called ‘small nine heavens’ (Xiao Jiu Tain), an embryonic form of Tai Ji Quan, was practiced starting from the Southern and Northern Dynasties. Other forms of boxing that contributed to the formation of Tai Ji Quan and Tai Ji Gong are the ‘thirty-seven steps’ taught to Song Yuan Qiao’s ancestors by Xu Xuan Ping of Tang Dynasty; the ‘innate boxing’ (Xian Tian Quan) taught to Yu Lian Zhou’s ancestors by Li Dao Zi; the ‘nurtured elbow boxing’ passed on by Hu Jing Zi.
The Tai Ji Gong practiced within the Wu Tu Nan lineage was synthesized by the late Great Grandmaster who combined all different forms of Tai Ji Gong into a comprehensive scientific system which comprises of four parts: Zhao Gong (Applications), Jin Gong (Jin Techniques), Sung Gong (relaxation techniques) and Qi Gong (Chi Techniques).
2. The Four Levels of Tai Ji Gong
In the early 1980’s, Great Grandmaster Wu Tu Nan made a speech entitled ‘On the Four Kinds of Gong of Tai Ji Quan’ at the International Display of Tai Ji Quan and Sword held in Wu Han, China. The four kinds of Gong he talked about are four different levels of Tai Ji Quan practice, namely: applications, Jin techniques, relaxation techniques and Qi Gong. It doesn’t matter which level you’re working on, all the four levels are inter-related to each other and should not be segregated from each other.
*[Translator’s Note - There is no equivalent in English for the Chinese word Gong 功 which in general means ‘training’ or ‘practice’. It is most commonly used to refer to some specific martial skill or spiritual discipline. Another layer of meaning for Gong is ‘time’ as an indication to the length of time required for obtaining such skills.]