Translated by Joshua Hehr
Literary works with martial arts themes are too numerous to count. In the writings of contemporary wuxia novel masters Jin Yong, Liang Yusheng, and Gu Long, it is not difficult to find shadows of modern Taiji masters. The activities and exquisite boxing arts of Taiji masters have enriched literary content. Many novelists have deep cultivation in Taijiquan, such as Jin Yong and Xiang Kairan. The Taiji methods and various combat techniques depicted in their novels, while not serving as textbooks for Taiji practitioners, nevertheless provide considerable inspiration. Jin Yong's discussions on Taijiquan are extremely incisive. If martial arts fiction in literature lacked the nourishment of Taijiquan and other martial arts, it would not have today's brilliance.
Stage combat in drama is artistically refined martial arts. It has a significant relationship with the development of Taijiquan, Baguazhang, Xingyiquan, Shaolin, and other martial arts. Predecessors in theatrical performance art such as Yang Xiaolou, Mei Lanfang, and Cheng Yanqiu incorporated Taiji skills into their performing arts. Master Mei Lanfang's graceful postures in "Consort Yu's Sword Dance" and "Heavenly Maiden Scattering Flowers" all benefited from Taiji skills. Master Mei's flowing water sleeves, graceful yet resilient, contained a certain strength within their beauty.
Many Taiji masters have been influenced by theatrical performance, incorporating performance elements into their routine movements, making Taijiquan appear more graceful and beloved by the masses.
Taijiquan and calligraphy-painting share a wonderful parallel. Learning and practicing Taijiquan requires first practicing basic methods, then learning forms, push hands, and free fighting. From tangible to intangible, until reaching spiritual illumination. Finally achieving letting everything follow its natural course, formless and imageless, the entire body transparent, responding naturally to things, a suspended chime on the western mountain, tiger roaring and ape calling, springs quiet and rivers clear, overturning rivers and stirring seas, exhausting one's nature and destiny.
Learning calligraphy also begins with strokes—dots, horizontal, vertical, left-falling, right-falling—then regular script, semi-cursive, cursive script, from copying models to tracing them, and finally must "break free from the model" to create one's own unique artistic characteristics.
Practicing Taijiquan forms and push hands requires following the principles of "heart unites with intent, intent unites with qi, qi unites with force; where intent arrives, qi arrives, where qi arrives, force arrives; using the heart to move intent, using intent to lead qi, using qi to move the body."
Calligraphy and painting also emphasize "intent precedes the brush." Through long-term refinement, calligraphers and painters achieve harmonious unity of "intent, qi, and force," doing as they wish, ink dyeing the paper, naturally substantial, force penetrating through the paper fibers.
Appreciating a Taiji master's skill involves not only observing their spiritual essence and internal power, but more crucially the depth of their comprehension of yin-yang principles. After reaching technical mastery, they ascend to the artistic level, following nature to seek naturalness, achieving unity of spirit and form. When engaging hands with others, they appear completely motionless, but as soon as someone touches their body, that person will float up as if suspended in air, and the person being discharged still doesn't know what happened. This is reaching the level of spiritual illumination.
A highly skilled calligrapher or painter's work must similarly achieve "spirit and form both present," with "spiritual resemblance surpassing formal resemblance." In the 1960s, Master Pan Tianshou said when discussing Huang Binhong's landscape paintings: Master Huang's houses in his landscape paintings all appear collapsed when viewed up close, yet when viewed from a distance they not only don't collapse but have great spirit. Chinese painting's magnificent momentum and abundant spiritual essence, with a three-foot realm containing thousands of mountains and waters—isn't this precisely achieving the realm of spiritual resemblance?
In summary, it is not difficult to see that Taijiquan is rooted in the fertile soil of traditional Chinese culture. It mutually influences and nourishes other forms of traditional culture, and is interconnected with them. Only within China's great cultural context could Taijiquan, with its profound boxing principles, emerge. Therefore, Taijiquan is not merely a simple form of exercise; it embodies the holistic characteristics of traditional Chinese culture. Calling it "Taiji culture" is not at all excessive.