An Interview with Grandmaster Eddie Wu Kwong Yu

Rosalind Gill
April 2007

Sifu, we know that athletic trainers for various sports sometimes seek your advice on how to improve the performance of their athletes. Could we discuss today how the principles of Wu Style Tai Chi Chuan can be beneficial to athletes?

Yes, that is a very interesting topic. There is no doubt that a relaxed mind and the unique balance of yin and yang can help athletes greatly with their performance.

In the “brute force” style approach to sport, athletes are trained to use their muscles and attain maximum force for competitive reasons. However, they often have problems with injuries (knee injuries are very common). As well, they suffer from stiffness, and breathing and stamina problems, which hinder their performance. The basic principles of Tai Chi can be very useful in alleviating these problems and improving performance. For example, if volleyball players can be made aware of correct body posture and learn to move from the hip and jump in a loose manner, rather than landing hard on their heels, they suffer less knee damage. Looseness can make a huge difference to the quality of an athlete’s performance. Another important Tai Chi principle that can help athletes is balance. In the case of golf, for example, balance, and moving around your centre line is everything. Many golfers have had Tai Chi Chuan training. Also, I recently spoke to a swimmer who experienced tightness in the chest and suffered breathing problems just before jumping into the water. We know that Tai Chi training in coordinating the mind and the breath can be invaluable in helping athletes attain relaxation and focus.

Swimmers can also benefit greatly from learning to power from the hip and move their arms with the three sections and nine joints in mind. Combining this looseness with coordination and good breathing will help them fly through the water. Bicyclists can also benefit from the endurance that comes from using reverse breathing and from relaxing the muscles. Peddling, not with brute force, and not from the knee, but with looseness from the hip can improve their performance.

Sifu, would training athletic trainers and their athletes in the principles of Tai Chi Chuan require a special approach?

No, like all students of Tai Chi Chuan, they have to learn basic walking, yin and yang balance, body alignment, breathing, focus, sensitivity and coordination.

Sifu, I would think that when it comes to competition and winning, which involves ego, the culture surrounding most sports is quite different than that of Tai Chi Chuan. Does an athlete who learns Tai Chi learn a different concept of training?

In Wushu tournaments there is competition around how low you can sit and how high you can kick and yes, winning is important. But traditional Tai Chi Chuan competitions focus on how well you have learned to perform Tai Chi Chuan techniques such as concentration, coordination, balance, sensitivity and calmness. When Wu Style Tai Chi Chuan members enter tournaments it is more about experience than about winning or losing.

In training for traditional Tai Chi, you simply cannot let your ego get in the way. In Tai Chi, you work on yourself, on your own focus, coordination, balance, looseness and sensitivity. In order to do so, you have to go through a long period of training in which you make mistakes, like falling over, for example. You need to fall over to learn about your own balance. For those who wish to compete in tournaments, it is a matter of
working away at the basic principles and taking their falls until they are ready for competition. If they have learned to stop using strength, which is ego, and can apply the basic Tai Chi techniques, they should be successful competitors. In a way, it is ironic, in that the humble, non-ego, hard-working approach to training can bring you a glorious win in the end. By not involving the ego, you mind is open and you see more and learn more.

Sifu, people often ask if training Wu Style Tai Chi means that you can defend yourself if attacked in the street.

When I am asked this question, I always think of the expression that says that you have to learn to walk before you learn to run. In Wu Style Tai Chi Chuan, we make a distinction between training and competition. Not everyone who studies our Tai Chi wants to become a competitor or use Tai Chi in self-defence situations. If you are prepared to train using the basic principles, you can improve the quality of your health and well-being. In fact, many people learn Tai Chi simply for health reasons. However, eventually, if you train hard enough, you could use Wu Style Tai Chi for self-defence. But that is a long process that not everybody is prepared to go through. It is up to the individual.

An interesting point about Wu Style Tai Chi Chuan training is that in training Push Hands, we allow our students to push on the chest instead of deflecting the force. Clearly, in a real-life self-defence situation, you would not allow a person to push on your chest the way we do in our Push Hands classes. But contact is an important element of sensitivity training. This approach allows students to develop their sensitivity, learn to gauge the force coming their way and govern themselves accordingly. Wu’s Tai Chi is unique in providing this type of sensitivity training in Push Hands.

Sifu, if there are athletes who use Tai Chi Chuan techniques to enhance their performance, is the potential of Tai Chi generally recognized?

There are many styles of Tai Chi. Some Tai Chi trainers have started schools and have become well-known. Yet, even with commercial success, it is always difficult to achieve recognition for the art of Tai Chi Chuan. So far as recognition is concerned, I have been lucky because I was born into a recognized Tai Chi tradition. As the head of the Wu family, I travel a great deal. However, I have had to work very hard at maintaining
traditional principles. This is a greater difficulty than wider recognition of the potentials of Tai Chi. I see that traditional principles of Tai Chi Chuan are very diluted through lack of supervision. I use my recognized role in Tai Chi to ensure that the traditions of this beautiful art do not get lost. I see it as my duty to preserve traditional Tai Chi Chuan, keep it intact and pass it on to the next generation. This is why we insist that our instructors be well-trained and that standards be kept up at all times. Wu Style Tai Chi
Chuan is not a commercial endeavour.