The Major Family Styles: Chen, Yang, Wu, Wu (Hao) and Sun

This page describes each style, explains what genuinely distinguishes them, and then makes an argument that will annoy some readers: that the differences between two teachers of the same style are often larger than the differences between styles.

How the style system arose

Before the twentieth century there were no styles in the modern sense. There was the boxing of a particular family or a particular teacher, learned from that person, varying with each transmission. Nobody described themselves as practising a codified system with a name.

The style system was formalised during the Republican period, when martial arts were being organised nationally, taught in institutes, published in books and entered in competitions. All of those activities require categories. A curriculum needs a defined syllabus, a competition needs classes, and a book needs a title.

The consequence is that the styles were partly documented and partly created by the act of documenting them. A teacher publishing a form was fixing one version of something that had never been fixed, and later practitioners inherited that version as the style.

Chen

The oldest of the five and the ancestor of the others. Chen style retains features the later styles reduced or removed.

The most visible is the alternation of tempo. Chen forms move slowly for long stretches and then accelerate sharply into an explosive release of power, often accompanied by a stamp or an audible expulsion of breath. Where other styles keep an even pace throughout, Chen does not.

The second is spiralling. The rotation described in our Foundations pages is more pronounced and more explicitly taught in Chen than elsewhere, with the limbs and torso continuously winding and unwinding.

Chen also uses lower stances and more physically demanding postures. There are two main routines, a first form and a cannon fist, the latter faster and more martial in emphasis. Within the family there are further divisions of frame, large and small, which developed in the nineteenth century.

One historical point is worth knowing: Chen style was largely unknown outside Henan until Chen Fake brought it to Beijing in 1928. Practitioners there, familiar only with Yang, were startled by how different it looked. Some concluded it could not be the ancestor of what they practised, which was an understandable reaction and the wrong conclusion.

Yang

The most widespread taijiquan in the world, by an enormous margin, and the version most people picture when they hear the name.

Yang style is characterised by large, open, expansive postures, an even and continuous tempo, and the absence of visible explosive release in the standard public form. Movements are round and generous; the frame is upright; the stepping is deliberate.

It descends from Yang Luchan through his sons to Yang Chengfu, who fixed the form now taught almost everywhere. That standardisation was a deliberate simplification for public teaching, and earlier Yang material — including fast forms and explosive work — existed and in places survives.

Yang's dominance is a historical accident of the art having reached Beijing in this form at the moment when publishing, photography and mass instruction became possible. It is not a judgement about quality.

Wu

Descends from a Manchu imperial guardsman who studied under Yang Luchan's son, and was developed by his son, who adopted a Chinese surname.

Wu style is compact where Yang is expansive. The frame is smaller, the circles tighter, and the posture has a characteristic slight forward inclination of the torso — described in the tradition as leaning while remaining centred, which sounds paradoxical and refers to keeping the spine aligned with the rear leg rather than vertical.

Wu style places unusual emphasis on push hands and on sensitivity work, and it became widely established in Shanghai and later Hong Kong, from where much of its international spread came.

Wu (Hao)

The smallest style by number of practitioners and the most compact in movement. It descends from Wu Yuxiang, the scholar who wrote much of the classical corpus, through his nephew Li Yiyu and then Hao Weizhen, whose name is attached to distinguish this style from the other Wu.

The frame here is very small. The hands stay close to the body, the circles are minimal, and a great deal of what is happening is not visible from outside. This makes it the hardest style to learn by watching and the most dependent on direct instruction.

Its influence is far greater than its size, because it produced the written tradition and because it was the style Sun Lutang learned.

Sun

The youngest of the five, created by Sun Lutang, who was already an accomplished practitioner of xingyiquan and baguazhang when he learned taijiquan from Hao Weizhen in his fifties.

Sun style combines all three. Its distinguishing features are high stances, a follow-step in which the rear foot advances with the front, and a repeated opening and closing movement between techniques. The stepping is agile rather than rooted in the usual sense, reflecting bagua influence.

The high stances and continuous stepping make Sun style noticeably easier on the knees, which is one reason it suits older practitioners. It is also the most explicitly synthesised of the five, and Sun Lutang wrote about why he combined what he combined.

Zhaobao and the others

Zhaobao, from a town near Chen village, is sometimes counted as a sixth major style. Its practitioners maintain a lineage distinct from the Chen family, and the relationship between the two is disputed — whether Zhaobao is a branch of Chen or a parallel tradition with a common source.

Beyond these there are many smaller lineages, family variants and hybrid forms. The five-style scheme is a convenience, not a complete map.

A related point about the international spread of the styles. Which style is available where you live has almost nothing to do with the merits of the styles and almost everything to do with which teachers happened to emigrate. Wu style's presence outside China owes much to Hong Kong; Chen style spread late and unevenly because it stayed in Henan for so long; Yang is everywhere because it was already everywhere in China when Chinese communities established themselves abroad. If you find only one style near you, you are seeing the results of twentieth-century migration, not a verdict on quality.

What actually differs

Five things, and they are worth listing plainly because discussions of style usually mix them with things that are not real differences.

Frame size, meaning how far the limbs extend from the body. Tempo, meaning whether the form maintains one speed or varies. Visible power release, present in Chen, largely absent from the standard forms of the others. Stepping, particularly whether the feet remain in defined stances or move continuously. And posture, especially the inclination of the spine.

These are genuine and consequential. A practitioner trained in one will feel awkward attempting another, and the underlying training methods differ enough that competence does not transfer directly.

What does not differ

The principles. Every style teaches relaxation under load, rooting, whole-body power, yielding rather than opposing, and the priority of intent. Every style uses the same classical texts. Every style would identify the same faults in a beginner.

This is not a diplomatic gesture. It is why the styles are recognisably one art despite looking different, and it is why an accomplished practitioner of one style can usually see immediately what an accomplished practitioner of another is doing, even if they could not do it themselves.

Choosing, and why it matters less than you think

Here is the argument. The variation between individual teachers within a style is very large. Two people both teaching Yang style may differ in how much they emphasise structure, whether they teach applications, whether they do push hands with resistance, whether they can correct you by touch, and how much they actually understand. Those differences affect what you will learn far more than the difference between Yang and Wu.

The practical conclusion is to choose the teacher, not the style. Go and watch. See whether the students move well, whether the teacher can explain a correction rather than only demonstrate, and whether anyone in the room is being tested against resistance.

If you have a free choice and no other information, Chen is the most physically demanding, Sun the easiest on the joints, Yang the easiest to find, Wu strong on sensitivity, and Wu (Hao) the hardest to learn without close instruction. But this is a weak consideration compared with who is teaching.

Key points

• Styles in the modern sense were formalised in the Republican period; publishing and competition required categories that had not previously existed.
• Chen is the oldest and keeps alternating tempo, explicit explosive release and pronounced spiralling; it was unknown outside Henan until 1928.
• Yang's dominance is a historical accident of reaching Beijing when mass publication became possible, not a judgement of quality.
• Wu is compact with a characteristic inclined posture; Wu (Hao) is smaller still and hardest to learn by watching; Sun combines taiji with xingyi and bagua and uses high stances.
• Real differences are frame size, tempo, visible power release, stepping and spinal inclination; the principles and the classical texts are shared.
• Variation between teachers within a style exceeds variation between styles, so choose the teacher rather than the style.