Wu Ying Hua: The Matriarch of Wu Style Tai Chi Chuan

Wu Ying Hua (1907–1997) was born in Beijing into Manchu nobility, and Wu Style Tai Chi Chuan was the family trade. Her grandfather Wu Chuan Yau (1834–1902) founded the style; her father Wu Chien Chuan (1870–1942) carried it from Beijing to Shanghai; her husband Ma Yueh Liang (1901–1998) was her teaching partner for sixty years. She began training at age nine, was teaching professionally in Beijing by seventeen, became deputy director of the Shanghai Chien Chuan Tai Chi Chuan Association in 1933, and led the association as president after its 1980 reopening. Based on her own first-person account, this article traces the life of the woman her father praised with the phrase “the heroine who outshone the men” — one of the first instructors to teach Wu Style inside Shanghai’s banks and trading houses, and a principal author of the Wu family’s published works.

Key Facts at a Glance

Name: Wu Ying Hua (吳英華, 1907–1997), born in Beijing, of Manchu descent
Family: granddaughter of Wu Chuan Yau, eldest daughter of Wu Chien Chuan, wife of Ma Yueh Liang
Generation: third-generation lineage holder of Wu Style Tai Chi Chuan (second generation of the Wu family)
Principal roles: Deputy Director, Shanghai Chien Chuan Tai Chi Chuan Association (1933–1954); President after the 1980 reopening; coach at the Shanghai Sports Palace (1956–1966, again from 1979)
Major works: co-authored with Ma Yueh Liang — Wu Style Tai Chi Chuan Explained (1985), Simplified 36-Form Wu Style Tai Chi Chuan, Wu Style Fast Form
Notable students: Shi Meilin, Ma Chiang Pao

Three Generations: Wu Chuan Yau, Wu Chien Chuan, and the Wu Children

Wu Chuan Yau first learned tai chi from Yang Lu Chan (1799–1872), then — at the master’s own instruction — continued under Yang’s second son Yang Ban Hou. He was celebrated for his soft-neutralizing skill (rou hua), and the style he founded kept the light, continuous, balanced-hard-and-soft frame that many Manchu and Han court officials came to study in the late Qing.

Wu Chien Chuan served in the imperial guards; after the 1911 revolution, recommended by Chief of the General Staff Yin Chang, he became martial arts instructor to the 11th Division of the presidential guard, teaching figures such as Chang Yi-lin and Duan Zhigui. In 1912 he co-founded the Beijing Physical Education Research Society with Yang Shao Hou, Yang Cheng Fu, and Hsu Yu Sheng, training more than sixty physical-education teachers from Beijing’s schools — his sons Wu Kung Yi and Wu Kung Cho were among its first graduates, and the results drew praise from Peking University chancellor Cai Yuanpei. After the Northern Expedition he served as a judge at the Nanjing Central Guoshu Academy. Around 1926, invited by the Shanghai municipal authorities, the Chin Woo Athletic Association, the Sino-French University, and prominent citizens including Huang Jinrong, Du Yuesheng, and Wang Xiaolai, he moved south to teach in Shanghai; Xiong Shihui, Chen Bulei, and Zhang Naiqi were among those who later studied under him.

Elder Brother Wu Kung Yi: Whampoa Instructor and the Macau Contest

The eldest brother Wu Kung Yi had a deep command of the family art. In 1924, invited by telegram from Whampoa Military Academy commandant Chiang Kai-shek, he went to Canton as academy instructor and lecturer in physical education at Sun Yat-sen University, teaching figures such as Tan Yankai and Zhu Peide; he later established Chien Chuan Tai Chi Chuan Associations in Canton and Hong Kong (the Hong Kong academy dates to 1937). On 17 January 1954 he fought White Crane stylist Chen Ke-fu poolside at Sin Wah Amusement Park in Macau, a charity fundraiser: in the first round Wu’s punch drew blood from his opponent’s nose; about a minute into the second round the judges stopped the contest and, honoring its charitable purpose, declared no victor. The sensational “Wu–Chen contest” made Wu Style Tai Chi Chuan famous worldwide.

Second Brother Wu Kung Cho: Theory and the Southern Spread

The second brother Wu Kung Cho was the family’s theorist. In 1933 he traveled to Changsha with Wu Zhihui and Li Shucheng; his tai chi performance at the welcome banquet so impressed Hunan governor Ho Chien that he was appointed instructor at the Hunan Guoshu Training Institute. In 1934 he led the Hunan delegation to the second national martial arts examination held by the Nanjing Central Guoshu Academy, and in 1939 he founded the Chien Chuan Tai Chi Chuan Association in Hong Kong. Through the brothers’ efforts tai chi flourished in Hong Kong, Macau, Malaysia, and Singapore, and spread overseas.

Learning at Nine: Training Through the Deepest Winter

Wu Ying Hua began studying with her father at nine. At the time no fewer than twenty students trained at the Wu household, and she progressed faster than any of them. Her father’s verdict — “the heroine outshines the men” — earned her stricter training, not less: up at five every morning, summer heat and winter cold alike. In the Beijing freezes, when water drops turned to ice, her father pushed her harder — the martial world’s “train through the three hottest weeks, train through the three coldest weeks.” As a small child she practiced standing on upright square bricks; if a brick toppled, she started over. After ten years of this she had deep attainment not only in the form but in the saber, sword, and spear. From seventeen she taught at the Beijing martial arts hall and in distinguished households including the Tong Ren Tang pharmacy family, soon known for rigor and precision.

South to Shanghai: Wu Style in Banks and Trading Houses

Through an introduction from the Tong Ren Tang family, Wu Ying Hua moved to Shanghai to teach at the Siemens trading house, and later at the China & South Sea Bank and the Kincheng Banking Corporation — making her one of the very first instructors to bring Wu Style Tai Chi Chuan to Shanghai. The style quickly drew wide attention in the city’s martial arts circles. When her father moved south, she served as his assistant. In 1930 she married Ma Yueh Liang. In 1933 the Shanghai Chien Chuan Tai Chi Chuan Association opened on the tenth floor of the YMCA building at Baxianqiao, with Wu Chien Chuan as president and Wu Ying Hua and Ma Yueh Liang as deputy directors — a landmark event for Shanghai martial arts. After her father’s death in 1942 the association was led in turn by Ma Yueh Liang and Wu Kung Yi, with Wu Ying Hua continuing as deputy director until the association closed its doors in 1954. In 1956 she was appointed coach at the Shanghai Sports Palace for a ten-year term; she taught at home through the Cultural Revolution years and returned to the Sports Palace in 1979.

Leading the Reopened Association and the Three Books

In 1980 the Shanghai Chien Chuan Tai Chi Chuan Association reopened, with Wu Ying Hua as president. Around this time she and Ma Yueh Liang threw themselves into writing:

Wu Style Tai Chi Chuan Explained: at the suggestion of her student Luo Qian, who reported growing overseas interest and urged that the essentials be set down in print “before errors spread,” the couple shut their doors to visitors for a year of writing; the book was published in Hong Kong in 1985.
Simplified 36-Form Wu Style Tai Chi Chuan: answering the 1982 national martial arts work conference’s call for simplified sets of the major styles, she distilled the key postures of the traditional form into thirty-six movements for popularization.
Wu Style Fast Form: the Wu family’s fast form — the martial, combative side of tai chi, never previously taught outside the family — released without reservation.

Across a teaching career of more than sixty years she trained several thousand students. Her student Shi Meilin had practiced Shaolin boxing and been on the Chinese wushu team alongside Jet Li (Li Lianjie); she began studying with Wu Ying Hua in 1980. The challenge was that tai chi’s lightness and continuity demanded unlearning the fast, fierce Shaolin habits — but with strong fundamentals and Wu Ying Hua’s guided, step-by-step method, Shi Meilin went on to win repeated national tai chi and sword championships, including an excellence award at the 1983 national traditional wushu exhibition. Her third son Ma Chiang Pao, a former medical student, mastered changquan, tai chi saber, sword, and spear; after performing in West Germany in 1985 he settled in the Netherlands and has taught across Switzerland, Sweden, Denmark, and Germany — among the most accomplished carriers of the family transmission in Europe.

Honors and Later Years

In 1982 she attended the national martial arts work conference as a member of the Shanghai wushu delegation. She served on the organizing committees of the 1984 China–Japan tai chi championships in Wuhan and the 1988 China–Japan exhibition in Shanghai. In November 1984 she and Ma Yueh Liang were simultaneously appointed researchers of the Shanghai Literature and History Research Institute, and she was made an honorary committee member of the Chinese Wushu Association — one of only three people in Shanghai so honored, a measure of the standing Wu Style enjoyed. In the reform era she performed in Australia, New Zealand, and Hong Kong, and was named an honorary member of the New Zealand Wushu Association. Into old age she still corrected her form before the full-length mirror in her living room — “learning has no end,” as she put it, the fitting epigraph for six decades of teaching.

Timeline of Wu Ying Hua’s Life

1907 — born in Beijing, of Manchu descent
1916 — age nine, begins training under her father Wu Chien Chuan
1924 — age seventeen, becomes a martial arts instructor in Beijing
1930 — marries Ma Yueh Liang
1933 — Shanghai Chien Chuan Tai Chi Chuan Association founded; becomes deputy director
1954 — association closes; elder brother Wu Kung Yi fights the Macau contest
1956 — appointed coach at the Shanghai Sports Palace
1979 — returns to teaching at the Sports Palace
1980 — association reopens; becomes its president
1982 — attends the national martial arts work conference; publishes the fast form
1984 — appointed researcher of the Shanghai Literature and History Research Institute, with Ma Yueh Liang
1985 — Wu Style Tai Chi Chuan Explained published in Hong Kong