Wu Tu Nan: From Sickly Child to Tai Chi Grand Master

Wu Tu Nan (1884–1989), born Ulabu of the Mongol Ula Khan clan in Beijing, took the Chinese surname Wu. At nine he became a disciple of Wu Chien Chuan (1870–1942); at seventeen, on Wu Chien Chuan’s own recommendation, he went on to study the Yang family’s secret Taiji Gong under Yang Shao Hou. A medicine graduate of the Imperial University of Peking, he wrote Scientific Tai Chi Chuan in 1929, dictated Research on Tai Chi Chuan in old age, and lived to one hundred and five — earning the title “witness to a century of Tai Chi Chuan.” His life traces the art’s road from private Beijing courtyards to scientific study and mass practice.

Key Facts

Name: Wu Tu Nan (1884–1989), Mongol Ula Khan clan, birth name Ulabu, adopted the Chinese surname Wu; lived to 105
Lineage: began under Wu Chien Chuan at about age nine for eight years; at seventeen moved to Yang Shao Hou for four years of Taiji Gong — twelve years in all
Taiji Gong: the Yang family’s esoteric training — posture, stake, jin, relaxation, and breath work — transmitted orally to indoor disciples only
Landmark book: Scientific Tai Chi Chuan (1929, Commercial Press) — analyzed tai chi anatomy with X-ray comparisons
The “two gates”: contemporaries called Wu Tu Nan and Hsu Chih Yi the two gates of Wu Chien Chuan; challengers had to get past both
Legacy: Research on Tai Chi Chuan first published 1984 by the Commercial Press of Hong Kong (“Wu narrates, Ma compiles”); simplified-Chinese mainland edition 2013

The Child “Washed in Sophora Water”

As a boy Wu Tu Nan was ill almost beyond help: congenital hepatitis, tuberculosis with frequent coughing of blood, epilepsy, and one leg shorter than the other. His sallow skin earned him a childhood nickname — “the child washed in sophora water.”

After doctors had exhausted their options, Li Tzu Yu, a chief physician of the Imperial Medical Academy, gave the advice that changed his life: take up martial arts to strengthen the body. At nine, Wu Tu Nan entered Wu Chien Chuan’s school.

Four years later the change was plain: the hepatitis never returned, the tuberculosis healed, the epilepsy stopped, and the uneven legs “trained themselves even.” He fell seriously ill almost never again, and lived to 105. He told this story for the rest of his life: tai chi saved him — and that is where his lifelong study of the art’s health value began.

Twelve Years of Hard Training: First Wu, Then Yang

Wu Tu Nan’s training record is a complete specimen of early Wu Style transmission:

Zhang Che: before age nine, tongbei quan and saber — an external foundation;
Wu Chien Chuan: from age nine, Wu Style form, sword, saber, long pole, and push hands — eight years;
Yang Shao Hou: at seventeen, on Wu Chien Chuan’s personal recommendation, Taiji Gong, push hands, and the small frame — four years.

Twelve years in all. In old age he described it without decoration:

“The training was so bitter I once wanted to kill myself.”

“What generations of us practiced was not soft, flowing tai chi routines — it was Taiji Gong, the bitter work no one could endure. What a pity so few ever knew of it.”

Taiji Gong comprises five branches — posture work, stake work, jin work, relaxation work, and breath work — the Yang family’s esoteric art, absent from printed classics, transmitted orally to indoor disciples only. Yang Shao Hou, eldest son of Yang Chien Hou and the sternest technician of the Yang fighting line, accepted him on the strength of Wu Chien Chuan’s recommendation — and on the boy’s capacity to endure. Those four years became the foundation of his whole art.

The “Two Gates” of Wu Chien Chuan

Republican-era Beijing had a saying: Wu Chien Chuan’s school had “two gates” — Wu Tu Nan and Hsu Chih Yi. Anyone who came to test skills had to get past both.

Hsu Chih Yi was famed for the adhering sensitivity of his push hands; Wu Tu Nan for depth of gong and correctness of frame. One became the flag-bearer of tai chi’s scientific explanation, the other the keeper of its esoteric training — the school’s literary and martial branches, carried by two disciples.

Scientific Tai Chi Chuan: The 1929 Strike

Wu Tu Nan’s scholarly credentials were as unusual as his martial ones: he read Chinese and Western medicine at the Imperial University of Peking, then mastered archaeology, history, psychology, meridian theory, and longevity studies; he spoke English and French; he taught at National Central University in Nanjing, the Northwest Associated University, and the Beiping Art College, and served on the Palace Museum’s specialist committee.

In 1929 he brought that training down on tai chi: Scientific Tai Chi Chuan appeared with the Commercial Press in Shanghai — written in two months of spare time, its postures analyzed against X-ray plates of the living body. It was among the earliest technical monographs on tai chi in China, and, following Hsu Chih Yi’s 1927 Introduction to Tai Chi Chuan, it completed the scientific turn: Hsu argued from psychology and mechanics, Wu from medicine and anatomy.

Over the next decade he published at nearly a book a year, all with the Commercial Press:

1933, An Introduction to Archery — a call to physical training on the eve of war;
1934, Neijia Quan, Taiji Gong and the Xuanxuan Saber — a tai chi saber classic;
1936, Tai Chi Sword — a tai chi sword classic;
1937, An Introduction to National Arts — a systematic survey of theory, history, teaching, and weapons.

Books and Catastrophe: Master of the “Hall of One Half Fen”

During the Cultural Revolution Wu Tu Nan’s home was ransacked and more than ten manuscripts were destroyed — A History of Chinese Wushu, an early Research on Tai Chi Chuan, Longevity Studies, Tai Chi Spear Method, even A History of Chinese Ceramics, all gone.

Yet he told the story of that day laughing:

“After the raid my wife and I searched the house, found one fen, and split it — I was the master of the ‘Hall of One Half Fen.’”

Assigned to sweep streets at thirty fen a day while his wife dug air-raid shelters, he kept practicing by quoting the line “play tai chi chuan” from the Quotations of Chairman Mao as his “theoretical basis.” Years later, allotted a proper apartment at last, the unbreakable old professor of the Northwest Associated University welled up like a child.

Research on Tai Chi Chuan: Wu Narrates, Ma Compiles

In 1983, at ninety-nine, Wu Tu Nan reviewed his life’s books in a preface and announced a new arrangement:

“I have previously published Scientific Tai Chi Chuan, Neijia Quan, Taiji Gong and the Xuanxuan Saber, Tai Chi Sword, An Introduction to Archery, An Introduction to National Arts… I have now agreed with my disciple Ma Yu Ching that his decades of reports on longevity and tai chi, together with the materials of my daily teaching, shall be organized and published in installments… future volumes will proceed by the method of ‘Wu narrates, Ma compiles,’ to spare my strength.”

In 1984, Research on Tai Chi Chuan was published by the Commercial Press of Hong Kong — narrated by Wu Tu Nan, edited by Ma Yu Ching. In April 2013, World Book Publishing’s Beijing company brought out the simplified-Chinese mainland edition in two volumes.

Volume One, Research on Tai Chi Chuan: An Outline of Tai Chi Chuan (118 pages), has four parts: origins (transmission traced from the Southern Dynasties to modern times, with legends corrected), health cultivation (the “finger-guiding method” published for the first time), selected classics (the form, the Xuanxuan saber, the sword, and the Song of Empty-Force), and Yang Shao Hou’s fighting frame — photographs of the fast and small frames, an endangered technique Wu demonstrated himself. Most precious of all is the story of the Song family’s ancient Taiji Gong manuscript: between 1908 and 1909 Wu Tu Nan obtained it from a friend, hand-copied it, and presented copies to Wu Chien Chuan and Yang Shao Hou, confirming it against the Song Shu Ming family text — the very document where the Wu family art and the Song line of taiji gong intersect. The volume also contains his field notes from a visit to Chenjiagou and his critical scrutiny of claims like “silk-reeling energy.”

Volume Two, Research on Tai Chi Chuan: Wu Tu Nan’s Taiji Gong (128 pages), presents the Taiji Gong essays (the small preface, the discourse on relaxation, and the discourse on breath), explanations of the transmitted training — relaxation, posture, and stake-jin work, demonstrated by Ma Yu Ching — the full text of the ancient manuscript, and the attainments of past masters.

Ma Yu Ching (a disciple from 1962, close to thirty years at Wu’s side) had earlier studied under Yang Yu Ting and the monk Chi Yun, and helped draft the world’s first push-hands competition rules; he died in 2012. The four characters “Wu narrates, Ma compiles” were a centenarian’s final management of time: the narrator supplied the bloodline, the writer supplied the labor.

Witness to a Century

Wu Tu Nan’s posts ran across a century: instructor at the Beiping Physical Education Institute in the early Republic; after 1928, instructor at the Central Guoshu Academy and professor of wushu theory at the Central College of Physical Education; after 1949, committee member of the Chinese Wushu Association, member of its academic board, vice-chairman of the Beijing Wushu Association, and chief judge of national-games tai chi competitions; in 1980 he was appointed a member of the Beijing Culture and History Research Institute.

In February 1984 the institute held his centenary tea party — the municipal united-front chief, a deputy mayor, and the sports commission’s leadership attended, and Beijing television broadcast it that evening. In 1988 he received the Wushu Contribution Award at the China International Wushu Festival. In January 1991 the People’s Sports Publishing House gathered Scientific Tai Chi Chuan, the Xuanxuan saber volume, Tai Chi Sword, and the national-arts survey into The Essence of Wu Tu Nan’s Tai Chi Chuan (a print run of just 5,000).

Two plain sentences survive him:

“Those who teach the art are not selling it; those who practice it are not talking about it.”

“Gong fu is simply the accumulation of time.”

The first was his rule of free teaching; the second is the footnote to his one hundred and five years. From a sickly nine-year-old to the grand master of the century — the titles “tai chi grand master,” “witness to a hundred years,” and “living fossil” were all earned.

Timeline

1884, Feb 24: born in Beijing; Mongol, birth name Ulabu
c. 1887: begins tongbei quan and saber under Zhang Che
1893 (age 9): on the advice of the imperial physician Li Tzu Yu, becomes Wu Chien Chuan’s disciple
1897: after four years of training, chronic illness gone and legs even
1901 (age 17): on Wu Chien Chuan’s recommendation, studies Taiji Gong, push hands, and the small frame under Yang Shao Hou for four years
1908–1909: obtains the Song family Taiji Gong manuscript and copies it for Wu Chien Chuan and Yang Shao Hou
Early Republic: instructor at the Beiping Physical Education Institute
After 1928: instructor at the Central Guoshu Academy; professor of wushu theory at the Central College of Physical Education
1929: Scientific Tai Chi Chuan published (Commercial Press, Shanghai)
1933 / 1934 / 1936 / 1937: Introduction to Archery, Neijia Quan, Taiji Gong and the Xuanxuan Saber, Tai Chi Sword, and Introduction to National Arts published in succession
1962: Ma Yu Ching becomes his disciple
1966–1976: Cultural Revolution; home ransacked, ten-plus manuscripts destroyed
1980: appointed member of the Beijing Culture and History Research Institute
1984, Feb: centenary tea party; Research on Tai Chi Chuan first published in Hong Kong
1988: Wushu Contribution Award at the China International Wushu Festival
1989, Jan 10: dies at one hundred and five
1991, Jan: The Essence of Wu Tu Nan’s Tai Chi Chuan published (People’s Sports Publishing House)
2013, Apr: mainland simplified edition of Research on Tai Chi Chuan (World Book Publishing)