Before yin and yang divide, there is the undivided whole — the Tài Jí, the Supreme Ultimate. From it the two arise, and from the two the whole system of correspondences on which the medicine stands: the pulses, the meridians, the five phases, the constitutions. To understand Tài Jí is to understand the ground from which every diagnosis and every treatment unfolds.
The medicine and the internal art share one root. In Taijiquan the same principles are moved rather than needled — rooting and yielding, sinking the qi, meeting force with softness, returning always to centre. What the physician reads in the pulse, the practitioner of the form cultivates in the body. Both are the study of qi: how it gathers, how it flows, how it is restored.
The Form
Cheng Man Ching himself performing the 37-posture short form — the refined Yang-style sequence he distilled and brought west, carried down through Huang Sheng Shyan and Patrick Kelly to this practice.
Huang Sheng Shyan
黃性賢 — the art of softness and relaxation (sōng), and push hands, as taught by Patrick Kelly's own teacher.
The Tai Chi Lineage
Andrew Fraser’s practice descends, through his teachers, to the great master of the Yang style.
1883 – 1936 · master of the Yang style
1902 – 1975 · the short form; Tai Chi to the West
1910 – 1992 · softness & relaxation, push hands
internal & meditative depth
Sage Medicine
From Yang Cheng Fu, who opened the Yang-style form to the world, through Cheng Man Ching’s refined short form, Huang Sheng Shyan’s art of softness, and the internal depth of Patrick Kelly — the practice that grounds the physician’s hand.