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| Cheng Man-Ching, influential Taijiquan teacher associated with Taiwan and the United States |
Cheng Man-Ching (鄭曼青, 1902–1975) was one of the most influential Chinese martial-arts teachers associated with Taiwan during the twentieth century.
To martial artists he is best known as a teacher of Taijiquan. But describing Cheng simply as a martial-arts teacher gives an incomplete picture of the man.
He was also deeply involved in painting, calligraphy, poetry and traditional Chinese medicine. His accomplishments in these fields contributed to his reputation as the “Master of Five Excellences.”
More importantly for the history of Chinese martial arts, Cheng belonged to a generation for whom martial practice could exist alongside classical scholarship, medicine and the arts.
His later teaching in the United States would make him one of the important figures in the early transmission of Taijiquan to Western students.
From Art and Scholarship to Taijiquan
Cheng was born in Zhejiang province in 1902.
From an early age he pursued traditional Chinese painting, calligraphy and poetry, eventually establishing himself professionally in the arts and education.
During the Republican period he taught painting and became involved with some of the important artistic circles of the period.
Martial arts entered his life alongside these other interests.
Cheng eventually became associated with Yang Chengfu (楊澄甫), one of the most important figures in the twentieth-century development and popularization of Yang-style Taijiquan.
The precise details of Cheng's period of study with Yang Chengfu have been presented differently in different biographical accounts, and later lineage narratives should therefore be approached carefully.
What is beyond dispute is that Cheng subsequently became one of the best-known representatives of Yang-derived Taijiquan.
Cheng Man-Ching's Taijiquan
Cheng became particularly famous for the shortened form generally known today as his 37-posture form.
This was significant.
Chinese martial arts were changing rapidly during the first half of the twentieth century. Traditional methods increasingly entered public schools, athletic associations, books and other forms of instruction intended for audiences beyond the small communities in which martial arts had previously been transmitted.
Cheng's approach belonged partly to this broader process of modernization.
His Taijiquan emphasized relaxation, sensitivity, balance, structural organization and the cultivation of principles rather than simply memorizing a long sequence of movements.
He also presented Taijiquan as something larger than fighting technique.
For Cheng, martial practice was connected with health, self-cultivation and ideas drawn from traditional Chinese philosophy.
Cheng Man-Ching in Taiwan
Following the Chinese Civil War, Cheng moved to Taiwan in 1949.
Taiwan became an important refuge for numerous martial artists, intellectuals, military officers, artists and scholars who left mainland China during this period.
This migration had a profound effect on Taiwanese martial culture.
Cheng continued teaching Taijiquan while also pursuing painting, calligraphy, medicine and scholarship.
He established the Shih Chung T'ai Chi Association (時中學社) in Taipei, through which his martial teaching became increasingly influential.
One particularly important aspect of his work was his willingness to teach foreign students.
This matters because a persistent popular story claims that Chinese martial arts remained completely closed to Westerners until people such as Bruce Lee challenged the tradition.
The actual history is considerably more complicated.
Foreign students were learning Chinese martial arts before Bruce Lee became famous, and Taiwan was one of the places where these encounters occurred.
Cheng Man-Ching became an especially important part of that history.
From Taiwan to New York
In the 1960s Cheng moved to the United States and eventually established a teaching community in New York.
There he attracted a group of Western students who would become important in spreading Taijiquan in North America.
His influence therefore extended far beyond the students he personally taught.
Students taught students, books circulated, organizations developed, and Cheng's interpretation of Taijiquan became one of the versions most familiar to early generations of Western practitioners.
In 1967, T'ai Chi: The Supreme Ultimate Exercise for Health, Sport, and Self-Defense, produced with Robert W. Smith, brought his teaching to an even wider English-speaking audience.
For many Western readers, books and teachers associated with Cheng became an early doorway into Chinese martial arts and Chinese thought.
More Than a Martial Artist
One of the most interesting things about Cheng Man-Ching is that martial arts represented only one part of his intellectual life.
Painting was not a hobby added to his martial career.
Neither were calligraphy, poetry and medicine simply decorations surrounding his reputation as a martial-arts master.
They belonged to the way Cheng understood cultivated human life.
This makes him particularly interesting today because modern martial-arts culture frequently separates these fields.
We tend to classify someone as a martial artist, painter, physician or scholar.
Cheng came from an intellectual environment in which these boundaries could be considerably less rigid.
Understanding that background helps us understand why he taught Taijiquan as more than a collection of fighting techniques.
An Important Bridge Between Taiwan and the West
It would be an exaggeration to say that Cheng Man-Ching single-handedly introduced Taijiquan—or Chinese martial arts generally—to the Western world.
Others came before him, and many worked alongside him.
But his historical importance is nevertheless substantial.
Cheng belonged to the extraordinary generation shaped by Republican China, moved to Taiwan during the upheavals of the Chinese Civil War, and subsequently carried parts of that cultural world into the United States.
Through his students, books, teaching and art, his influence continued long after his death in 1975.
For martial-arts history, perhaps his most important position is therefore not that of an isolated genius or legendary master.
He was a bridge.
A bridge between the classical arts and martial practice.
Between Republican China and post-war Taiwan.
And between Chinese Taijiquan and generations of Western practitioners who would encounter the art through his teaching.
Sources
1. Cheng Man-Ching Memorial / Shih Chung Society (鄭曼青紀念館 / 時中學社)
This is probably our most useful Taiwanese source. Its biography says Cheng studied Taijiquan with Yang Chengfu at age 27, later developed the 37-posture form, moved to Taiwan at age 48, and established the Shih Chung organization in Taipei. It also documents his medicine, painting and other activities.
Cheng Man-Ching Memorial — Biography (Traditional Chinese)
Importantly, this source does not support our old article's simple statement that he studied with Yang Chengfu for seven years. It says he began studying with Yang at 27 and describes subsequent transmission, but the chronology is more complicated. So my instinct to remove the definite “seven years” was correct.
2. Contemporary 1975 memorial biography
This is particularly useful because it was published shortly after Cheng's death in the Taipei Martial Arts Association Taijiquan Bulletin. It records his early artistic/academic career, his study of Chinese medicine under Song You'an, and his study with Yang Chengfu.
1975 biographical memorial for Cheng Man-Ching
That's considerably more valuable for us than copying later internet biographies.
3. A second 1975 account specifically about Cheng's martial arts
This one is written by Zhou Depei and discusses Cheng's Taijiquan training, Yang Chengfu and other aspects of his martial development. Because it comes from within Cheng's martial community, we should identify it as a disciple/lineage source rather than independent historical scholarship, but it is excellent evidence for how his students understood his martial career.
1975 account of Cheng Man-Ching's martial arts
4. Museum of Chinese in America (MOCA)
This is an excellent independent source for the American part of the story. MOCA holds a Cheng Man-Ching collection and confirms that Cheng and his family moved from Taiwan to New York City in 1964, that he taught at the New York T'ai Chi Association in Chinatown and subsequently at his own Shr Jung school at 87 Bowery. It also identifies him with the 37-form and his work in medicine, calligraphy, painting and poetry.