Gia-fu Feng: Personal Cultivation and Community Building

"Move as slowly as possible, as lightly as possible, as if drawing on sil. Be tranquil like a mountain. Be alert like a cat watching a mouse. Be natural like a hawk catching a rabbit. Most of all, be aware of the flow within and without." Gia-fu Feng in 'Tai Chi - A Way of Centering & I Ching. 1970. Collier Books.

One of my ongoing interests is the evolution of Taijiquan through the generations - partly why I chose the name 'Echoes of Taijiquan' - together with the transmission, development, and spread of Taijiquan outside of China. In the case of the spread of Taijiquan, I’m specifically interested in how it got to the US and UK, and there are some well known names associated with this process in the US (Cheng Man-ch'ing, T. T. Liang, and William C. C. Chen amongst others). I've only relatively recently come across the name of Gia-fu Feng (b.1919 Shanghai, d.1985 Colorado) and largely due to his translation of classic Chinese texts such as the Dao De Jing and Yi Jing.

Aside from his translations though, it was his practice and teaching of Taijiquan in the US during the mid- to late-20th century that piqued my interest so I duly picked up a copy of Still Point of the Turning World, a biography of Feng written by Carol Ann Wilson in 2009. The book is based largely on Feng’s own notes and draft autobiography alongside numerous interviews Wilson conducted with those who knew him. While his practice of Taijiquan is almost a footnote within the book (there’s no real information on where he learnt it or the style he practiced) I find the constant effort throughout his life to build and maintain communities (Esalen, Still Point) based around key practices such as meditation, ‘Cultural’ and Gestalt therapy, and Taijiquan to be of real interest. Other accounts of his life venture into the ‘Free Love’ movement and ‘guru' territory, with the latter something that Wilson’s account on numerous occasions highlights as a notion or role that Feng himself struggled with.

"Therefore the sage takes care of all men
And abandons no one.
He takes care of all things
And abandons nothing."

Tao Te Ching, 27, trans. Gia-fu Feng and Jane English

The form Taijiquan took in the US during it's early year got me thinking whether it naturally evolved into something of a self-help or self-improvement art? Or has this always been core to it as an art? I've largely approached my own Taijiquan as an individual practice, one of personal cultivation but with a distinctly martial emphasis, but for as long as I've practiced Chinese martial arts the element of personal development, both through physical training and qigong, and through mental aspects such as perseverence and focus, has been present.

Since lockdown however, and the enforced solitary practice, I've noticed more how much 'community' is important to my practice, not in the least in actually being able to push hands. It's 'community' on many levels too: the individual classes, the wider group of schools of which I'm a part, and the wider communities focussed on styles or specific aspects (e.g. the online CMC weekly group meetings). This now plays an important role in how I view Taijiquan and the role it plays in the lives of others.

Should this come as a surprise? Probably not. I've been involved in Chinese martial arts for nearly thirty years and an obvious element has always been that the arts are associated with distinct groups, most obviously families, both in terms of practice and preservation. Getting back to Gia-fu, it doesn't seem to have been a 'family art' which he practiced nor one that he obviously passed on.

“What is firmly established established cannot be uprooted.

What is firmly grasped connot slip away.

It will be honored from generation to generation.”

Tao Te Ching, 54, trans. Gia-fu Feng and Jane English

Gia-fu Feng & Jerome Kirk. 1970. 'Tai Chi - A Way of Centering & I Ching. Collier Books.

Lao Tsu. Tao Te Ching. Translation by Gia-fu Feng and Jane English. Vintage. 1972.

Wilson, C. A. 2009. Still Point of the Turning World. Amber Lotus Publishing.