Wu's Tai Chi Chuan Academy, Hong Kong

Wu's Tai Chi Chuan Academy, Hong Kong was founded in 1937 by Grand Master Wu Kung Yi. It is the headquarters of the Wu family schools and one of the oldest Tai Chi Chuan academies in continuous operation. The Wu Style Tai Chi Chuan taught at the Academy is inscribed on the Hong Kong Intangible Cultural Heritage inventory.

Founding and the War Years (1937-1948)

Grand Master Wu Kung Yi opened the Academy on Hennessy Road, Hong Kong Island, in 1937, after his father Grand Master Wu Chien Chuan had established the first Chien Chuan Tai Chi Chuan Association in Shanghai in 1935. When Hong Kong fell in 1943, Wu Kung Yi returned to Shanghai and served as president of the Shanghai association. He came back to Hong Kong in 1948 and rebuilt the Academy at 387 Lockhart Road in Wan Chai.

The 1954 Macau Charity Contest

In 1954, at the invitation of Macau community leaders, Grand Master Wu Kung Yi fought a public charity contest in Macau to raise funds for Kiang Wu Hospital and the victims of the Shek Kip Mei fire in Hong Kong. He was fifty-three years old, nearly twenty years older than his opponent. After two rounds the contest was declared a draw, and spectators across Asia accepted the demonstration as proof of the practical martial value of Tai Chi Chuan.

The contest made Wu Style famous throughout Southeast Asia. Community leaders wrote to request branches, and Grand Master Wu Kung Yi sent his second son Wu Ta Hsin and his nephew to open academies in Singapore and Malaysia. He sent his eldest son, Grand Master Wu Ta K'uei, to open a branch in Kowloon.

The Jordan Road Headquarters (1956)

Growing enrolment soon outgrew both premises. In 1956 the Academy purchased two adjoining flats on the top floor of Po Man Building, 37U Jordan Road, in Kowloon, and this became the permanent headquarters. The original Lockhart Road school was renamed the Hong Kong branch under Grand Master Wu Kung Yi's daughter Wu Yen Hsia and her husband Kuo Shao Ching. The rooftop and top-floor studio remain in use today, and visitors can find directions and contact details on our location page.

The Fourth and Fifth Generations

Grand Master Wu Kung Yi died in 1970, and Grand Master Wu Ta K'uei became the fourth-generation head and president of the headquarters. Leadership later passed in turn to Grand Masters Wu Ta Hsin, Wu Yen Hsia, and Wu Ta Hsin again. After Grand Master Wu Ta Hsin passed away in early 2005, Grand Master Eddie Wu Kwong Yu, eldest son of Wu Ta K'uei, became the fifth-generation Gate Keeper and took charge of the worldwide schools.

Under the fifth generation the Academy has hosted major celebrations, including the seventy-fifth anniversary events in Hong Kong and Singapore in 2012, and it continues to teach the full traditional curriculum. The lineage of the five generations is described on the Head of the Family page, and the art itself is introduced on the Wu Style Tai Chi Chuan page.