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Yang style (楊家) T'ai Chi Ch'üan in its many variations is the most popular and widely practised style in the world today and the second in terms of seniority among the primary five family styles of T'ai Chi.The Yang family first became involved in the study of T'ai Chi in the early 1800s. The founder of the Yang style was Yang Lu-ch'an (楊露禪), aka Yang Fu-k'ui (楊福魁, 1799-1872), who studied under Ch'en Chang-hsing starting in 1820. Yang's subsequent expression of T'ai Chi as a teacher in his own right became known as the Yang style, and directly led to the development of the other three major styles of T'ai Chi (see below). Yang Lu-ch'an (and some would say the art of T'ai Chi Ch'üan in general) came to prominence as a result of his being hired by the Chinese Imperial family to teach T'ai Chi to the elite Palace Battalion of the Imperial Guards in 1850, a position he held until his death.
Yang Lu-ch'an passed his art to:
- his son Yang Pan-hou (楊班侯, 1837-1890) who was also retained as a martial arts instructor by the Chinese Imperial family, became the teacher of Wu Ch'uan-yü (Wu Quanyou), a Manchu Banner cavalry officer of the Palace Battalion. Wu Ch'uan-yü's son, Wu Chien-ch'üan (Wu Jianquan), also a Banner officer, became known as the co-founder (along with his father) of the Wu style.
- his son Yang Chien-hou (Jianhou) (1839-1917), who passed it to his sons, Yang Shao-hou (楊少侯, 1862-1930) and Yang Ch'eng-fu (楊澄甫, 1883-1936). Yang Ch'eng-fu removed the vigorous Fa-jing (release of power), energetic jumping, heavy stepping, and other abrupt movements to emphasise Ta Chia (大家 large style). This style has slow, steady, expansive and soft movements suitable for general practitioners. Thus, Yang Ch'eng-fu is largely responsible for standardizing and popularizing the Yang style T'ai Chi widely practised today. Yang Ch'eng-fu's descendants are still teaching in many schools associated with their family internationally.
- Wu Yu-hsiang (Wu Yuxiang, 武禹襄, 1813-1880) who also developed his own Wu style.
Tung Ying-chie (Dong Yingjie), Ch'en Wei-ming (Chen Weiming), Fu Zhongwen (Fu Chung-wen) and Cheng Man-ch'ing were famous students of Yang Ch'eng-fu. Tung, Fu and Cheng each taught extensively, founding groups teaching T'ai Chi to this day. Cheng Man-ch'ing, perhaps the most famous of the three, significantly shortened and simplified the traditional forms Yang taught him after his teacher's passing, supposedly to make them more accessible to larger numbers of students. Although Cheng's modifications are considered controversial by most other schools and are not recognized by the Yang family, Cheng Man-ch'ing is known as the first to teach T'ai Chi Ch'üan in the West.
There is another relatively well known variant of the Yang style known as Kuang-p'ing style T'ai Chi Ch'uan （广平太极 - 扬派）.
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