Dan Docherty’s Tai Chi Chuan, Decoding the Classics for the Modern Martial Artist, The Crowood Press 2009, reviewed by Marnix Wells, September 2009.

Dan Docherty has written here a no-nonsense, hands-on, bare-knuckled interpretation of the core writings of tàijíquán, as transmitted by Lî Yìyú of southern Hébêi province in the late nineteenth century. Dan has done more than this. He relates these classics to their conceptual parents in Zhou Dunyí (1017-1073)’s Tàijí Diagram on the cultural side, and to General Qi Jìguang’s Boxing Classic on the martial side, translating both seminal texts with copies of their original illustrations. Clear colour photographs with analyses eludcidate demonstrations by Dan’s students of tàijí’s core martial techniques.

We are introduced to the yin-yáng cosmology of Chinese philosophy, extrapolated over centuries from the mysterious Book of Change. Dan makes the tàijíquán connection to Daoism through “philosophical, alchemical, meditative and martial practices and not religious practices such as exorcism and prayer.” It is clear Dan speaks from personal experience as an ‘in-door’ adept of late Master Cheng Tin-hung in Hong Kong. He trained not only in standard tàijí forms and exercises, but also in the esoteric ‘internal alchemy’ or yogic nèigong under personal supervision of his master.

On the origins of the art, Dan expresses scepticism of many current claims, but adheres to his own school’s veneration for Daoist saint Zhang Sanfeng of Mt Wûdâng as “founder” of tàijíquán. (28) Dan admits similarities between the writings of ‘scholar boxer’ Cháng Nâizhou (1724-1783), who lived across the Yellow River from Chénjiagou, earliest certified home of tàijíquán as we know it. He points to Buddhist and Shàolín elements in Cháng’s art, as well as postural differences from tàijí such as “head tilted up and raised shoulders.” (37-38) Yet Chénjiagou itself bears signs of Shàolín influences, most obviously in its opening ‘Vajrapâni Pounds Mortar’ sequence.

As to the postural dogmas of received tàijíquán wisdom, Dan narrows the gap between the sacred cows of ‘orthodoxy’ and some apparently wrongly proscribed ‘heresies’. In this light, tàijíquán seems less far removed from other ‘internal’ and even ‘external’ martial arts. For example, there is the so-called ban on ‘double weighting’. Dan informs us: “Double-weightedness is often misinterpreted as having an even amount of weight on each foot.” Rather, he says, it is “an absence of Yin and Yang.” For example, Dan explains that “in a horse-riding stance”, often cited as the stock example of Shàolín double-weightedness, “the void and insubstantiality exists in so far as the lower body is full, or Yin, while the upper body is Yang as it has the potential for movement by inclining and turning to shift the weight in another direction...” So in this sense it does not offend against double-weightedness. (55-56, 77-79)

As a practical instance, Dan cites Jack Dempsey’s drop step, used to get our hero out of a tight spot, “stepping in with the front foot to jab with the front hand.” This Dempsey drop step, as I understand it, is a spring or virtual hop. Some tàijí practitioners teach “never move a foot when it is full of weight.” Dan answers: “It is suicidal to shift the weight back before stepping in with the front foot…” He goes on: “In my own form sometimes the one foot is both full and empty…” (79) As for the principle of softness, Dan concludes: “Strength is necessary, but trained strength, not brute strength…” (76)

It seems discussions of tàijíquán outside mainland China still cannot avoid mention of one name, that of Cheng Man-ching (Zhèng Mànqing), idolised in the pioneering books of American Robert Smith. Dan traces what he considers a common misinterpretation of the classics to Cheng’s followers “insisting that the body should be upright and erect at all times…” Yet the Wú style puts “more than 90 per cent of the weight on the front foot when in a front stance,” requiring the torso to incline forward. Even pictures of Yáng Chéngfû and Cheng himself show a forward lean. (95-96)

A practical demonstration of the value of bending the neck in real life occurred to Dan inadvertently one day in 1982 on Nathan Road in the Kowloon district of Hong Kong, near where his master taught. In Dan’s words: “I felt.. something wrong and moved my head to one side: a fist came whizzing past from behind - and missed…” Thus, “in fighting… it is not only permissible, but advisable to move the head independently… ” (74) I would suggest at a higher level of practice such movements, as a sort of bobbing and weaving involving also the torso, are covered by the classic lines: “Moving back and forth there must be turning and folding up.” from Practice of the Thirteen Tactics. (88)

In conclusion, we must be grateful to Dan for frankly sharing with us these deep insights and insider stories of his own training and street level experiences. It is a refreshing change to read first-hand accounts rather than legends of hoary feats transmitted as hearsay of hearsay. Dan has no need to exaggerate. He served in the Hong Kong police and won a contact championship in Malaysia in 1980. Since returning to U.K., he helped found the Tai Chi Union of Great Britain, which he heads, and runs the annual British Open Tai Chi Championships at Oxford.

Faced with the current boom in ‘emasculated’ tàijí which tends to deny its martial essence, Dan’s book is a valuable antidote. Dan’s Oxford tournament provides a level playing field for young and old, female and male to compete in forms and ‘pushing’ with minimal risk of injury. I would like to add one Daoist tale from my own store. An immortal said: I can’t teach you how to always win, but I can tell you how never to be defeated. Yes? Don’t fight. But then competing is not fighting. There everyone is a winner. “He who conquers himself is strong.” (Lâo Zî)