Ma Hailong: From Laboratory to Legacy in Wu Style Tai Chi

Ma Hailong (1934–c.2022), courtesy name Xiaoyu, was the grandson of Wu Chien Chuan, eldest son of Wu Ying Hua and Ma Yueh Liang, and a fourth-generation lineage holder of Wu Style Tai Chi Chuan. A biochemistry graduate of Shanghai Second Medical College, he served as director of the central laboratories of Changning District Central Hospital and Guanghua Hospital with the rank of associate chief technologist. From 1998 he led the Shanghai Chien Chuan Tai Chi Chuan Association for sixteen years, created the Wu Style 16-form for university programs, edited the Detailed Explanations of Wu Style Tai Chi Chuan, and lived to see Wu Style entered first on the Shanghai municipal and then the national intangible cultural heritage registers. As he put it: “My higher education helped me enormously in studying tai chi theory — the classical texts are written in such archaic language that without a solid foundation in classical Chinese you simply cannot get through them.”

Key Facts

Grandson of Wu Chien Chuan; eldest son of Wu Ying Hua and Ma Yueh Liang; began training at six under his grandfather
Biochemistry, Shanghai Second Medical College (class of 1958); associate chief technologist — the second physician-trained heir in the family after his father
President of the Shanghai Chien Chuan association 1998–2014, then honorary president
Created the Wu Style 16-form (2010) for university teaching, plus seated and senior forms
Edited Detailed Explanations of Wu Style Tai Chi Chuan (2018) and Tai Chi Fa Shuo and the Wu Family Tai Chi Chuan (2018)
Wu Style listed as Shanghai municipal heritage in 2015 and national heritage in 2021; Ma Hailong was a municipal-level representative bearer

I. Grandson, Eldest Son, and a Medical Family

Ma Hailong carried two family lines in his blood. His mother Wu Ying Hua was Wu Chien Chuan’s daughter; his father Ma Yueh Liang was Wu Chien Chuan’s son-in-law and a formal disciple from 1921. As the eldest son, he began learning from his grandfather Wu Chien Chuan at the age of six, and later trained further under his parents and his uncle Wu Kung Yi.

His classical-Chinese teacher, notably, was his grandfather Ma Changquan — a scholar who had taught at Yenching University in Beijing and Chih Kiang University in Zhejiang. Family learning and modern schooling met in the grandson: the archaic diction of the classical tai chi manuals was a foundation laid at home.

Medicine was the family’s other through-line. Ma Yueh Liang was a bacterio-serologist trained at Peking Union Medical College; Ma Hailong studied biochemistry at Shanghai Second Medical College, graduating in 1958 into clinical laboratory work at Changning District Central Hospital, where he eventually directed the central laboratory (also serving Guanghua Hospital) as an associate chief technologist. Two consecutive generations of physician-trained heirs are unique in the tai chi world — and it is why the books he edited always carry a perspective no other school can claim: analyzing tai chi’s health benefits and therapeutic effects through medical science.

II. From the Laboratory to the Chien Chuan Association

In 1987 Ma Hailong became vice-president of the Shanghai Chien Chuan Tai Chi Chuan Association (second council, with his mother Wu Ying Hua as president). After his father’s death, he took over as president in 1998.

His early moves all pointed the same way — bringing an association founded in 1931 into the modern age: the association’s official website launched in 1999; in 2000 he performed at the Fifth Shanghai International Wushu Exposition and edited the Chien Chuan Association Memorial Album. From 2014 he served as honorary president, beginning the handover.

Those who saw his form describe it in near-identical terms: orthodox, calm, settled — “like a spring river flowing without pause.” It matched the man: an even face, unhurried manner, mild speech.

III. The Wu Style 16-form: Bringing Tai Chi into Universities

Ma Hailong’s most consequential contribution to spreading Wu Style was building a set of steps that could carry beginners into a classroom:

2004: drafted the Wu Style Tai Chi Chuan Sixteen Forms, an early prototype
2010: formally created the Wu Style 16-form, condensed from the family’s traditional long form; five to six minutes to perform, preserving the signature Wu qualities — softness, natural ease, compact agility
2016: the sixteen-form training class at Tongji University graduated, with Ma personally training the instructors
2019: passed expert review by the national senior sports association for nationwide promotion

Beyond the sixteen-form came seated forms for wheelchair users and those with limited mobility (2015, co-created), the 26-form Senior Wu Style (2019), and an intermediate Simplified 30-form. From university halls to morning parks to wheelchairs, the ladder of Wu Style Tai Chi reached nearly every audience.

IV. The Detailed Explanations and the Wu Style Series

In August 2018, Shanghai People’s Publishing House issued the Detailed Explanations of Wu Style Tai Chi Chuan (ISBN 9787208153776, 214 pages, 16-mo), edited by Ma Hailong — the first title in the “Wu Style Tai Chi Chuan Series.” Its five chapters map the system he spent a lifetime organizing:

The Wu Style 16-form — foundation set
The Simplified 30-form — intermediate set
The Traditional 108-form — the family long form
The Fast Form — the martial fast frame
The Seated 16-form — for special populations

The introduction analyzes tai chi’s health benefits (improved cardiopulmonary function, joint mobility), physiological basis, and practice standards through a medical lens — two generations of “medicine and martial arts together,” from Union College to Second Medical College.

The companion volume Tai Chi Fa Shuo and the Wu Family Tai Chi Chuan (original texts by Wu Kung Cho and Wu Kung Yi, edited by Ma Hailong, 140 pages) collects the family’s theoretical manuals. Together the two books form the complete documentary system of contemporary Wu Style transmission. On 16 August 2018 the Shanghai Book Fair hosted the launch signing, with Ma leading his disciples in a form demonstration.

V. Heritage Recognition: A Decade, Two Steps

Wu Style’s heritage journey took ten years in two steps:

14 July 2015: Shanghai document Hu Fu Fa [2015] No. 24 announced the fifth batch of Shanghai municipal intangible cultural heritage items, with Wu Style Tai Chi Chuan included (protecting institution: the Shanghai Chien Chuan Tai Chi Chuan Association); at the ceremony on 16 July, honorary president Ma Hailong accepted the plaque and was recognized as a municipal-level representative bearer
10 June 2021: State Council document Guo Fa [2021] No. 8 announced the fifth batch of the national intangible cultural heritage list, item “Tai Chi Chuan (Wu Style Tai Chi Chuan),” with the Shanghai Chien Chuan association as protecting institution

A common misreading needs untangling here: a project entering the national list does not make its bearer a national-level bearer. Bearer recognition runs on separate batches and procedures — Ma Hailong’s standing was Shanghai municipal; on 20 February 2025 his son Ma Wenzhao was recognized in the seventh municipal batch.

VI. Ma Wenzhao and the Standardized New Era

The successor, Ma Wenzhao, is the eldest grandson of Wu Ying Hua and Ma Yueh Liang and son of Ma Hailong; he began training with his grandparents at six. From 2015 he assisted with association affairs under his father’s guidance; in 2019 he formally became president (seventh council, with Ji Bei as vice-president and Sun Lin as secretary-general), and was re-elected in August 2023.

The transformation completed in this generation is structural: the national heritage application, the book series, the “Six Entries” campaign bringing tai chi into schools, communities, and enterprises, ongoing wheelchair tai chi, the website and official account — recasting the association from a loose master-disciple circle into a properly registered municipal social organization. The family’s other branches extend abroad too: Ma Hailong’s fourth son Ma Chiang Pao has taught in Germany for years, and fifth son Ma Chiang Hsiung carries on the family art.

In 2021, at eighty-eight, Ma Hailong still attended the induction ceremony for fifth-generation disciples and performed the traditional three kneelings and nine bows. He never let go of the weight of tradition. Around 2022, Ma Hailong passed away at the age of eighty-eight.

Timeline

1934 — born (variant: 1935), courtesy name Xiaoyu
c. 1940 — begins training at six under grandfather Wu Chien Chuan; grandfather Ma Changquan teaches him classical Chinese
1950s — enters Shanghai Second Medical College, biochemistry
1958 — graduates; joins Changning District Central Hospital clinical laboratory
1987 — vice-president of the Chien Chuan association (Wu Ying Hua president)
1998 — becomes president after his father’s death
1999 — association website launches
2000 — Fifth Shanghai International Wushu Exposition performance; edits the Memorial Album
2004 — drafts the Sixteen Forms
2010 — formally creates the Wu Style 16-form; receives the Tai Chi Merit Award
2014 — becomes honorary president, beginning the handover
July 2015 — Wu Style listed as Shanghai municipal heritage; recognized as municipal representative bearer
2016 — Tongji University sixteen-form class graduates
August 2018 — Detailed Explanations and Tai Chi Fa Shuo published together
2019 — creates the 26-form Senior set; sixteen-form passes national review; national heritage application begins
June 2021 — Wu Style enters the national heritage list; attends the fifth-generation induction at 88
c. 2022 — dies, aged eighty-eight
August 2023 — Ma Wenzhao re-elected president
February 2025 — Ma Wenzhao recognized in the seventh Shanghai municipal bearer batch