Monday, September 22, 2008

Tung Ying-chieh

Tung Ying-chieh was an influential teacher of T'ai Chi Ch'uan. He was born in China's Hebei province. A senior student of Yang Ch'eng-fu , he originally studied Wu/Hao style T'ai Chi Ch'uan as a young man. Tung also studied with Ch'eng-fu's older brother Yang Shao-hou and was the founder of ''Dong Tai Chi''. In Shao-hou's classes he was an older classmate of the Wu Kung-i and Wu Kung-tsao , and the men remained close colleagues in later years. Following the trend of many famous T'ai Chi masters who moved south during the years, Tung moved to Hong Kong in 1939 and taught there. The Dong style as it eventually developed included training features researched by Tung Ying-chieh, both with Yang Ch'eng-fu and independently.

He wrote a book called "T'ai Chi Ch'uan Explained" or "Principles of T'ai Chi Ch'uan" which has recently been translated from into . First published in 1948, it has been reprinted and updated continuously since its first publication.

Tung Ying-chieh was followed by son Dong Hu Ling who is followed by Tung Kai Ying and Dong Zeng Chen. The members of the Tung family teach T'ai Chi Ch'uan in Asia, Hawaii, North America and Europe.

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