The Wu or Wu/Hao style (武家 or 武/郝家) of T'ai Chi Ch'üan is a separate family style from the more popular Wu style (吳家) of Wu Chien-ch'üan. Wu/Hao is third among the five T'ai Chi families in seniority and fifth in terms of popularity.
The school was founded by Wu Yu-hsiang (武禹襄, 1813-1880), a senior student (along with his two older brothers Wu Ch'eng-ch'ing and Wu Ju-ch'ing ) of Yang Lu-ch'an. There is a relatively large body of writing attributed to Wu Yu-hsiang on the subject of T'ai Chi theory, writings that are considered influential by many other schools not directly associated with Wu/Hao style. Wu Yu-hsiang also studied for a brief time with teachers from the Ch'en family, to whom he was introduced by Yang. His most famous student was his nephew, Li I-yü (李亦畬, 1832-1892), who also authored several important works on T'ai Chi. Li I-yü had a younger brother who was also credited as an author of at least one work on the subject of T'ai Chi, Li Ch'i-hsüan . Li I-yü taught Hao Wei-chen (郝為真, 1842-1920), who taught his son Hao Yüeh-ru (郝月如) who in turn taught his son Hao Shao-ju (郝少如) Wu Yu-hsiang's style of training, so that it is now sometimes known as Wu/Hao or just Hao style T'ai Chi Ch'üan. Hao Wei-chen also taught the famous Sun Lu-t'ang. Hao Yüeh-ru was teaching in the 1920s, a time when T'ai Chi Ch'üan was experiencing a large degree of popularity, and he is known for having smoothed out (in the sense of under-emphasising jumps and snap kicks, etc.) and standardized the forms he learned from his father in order to more effectively teach large numbers of beginners. Both Yang Ch'eng-fu and Wu Chien-ch'üan made similar modifications to their beginning level forms around the same time.
Wu Yu-hsiang's T'ai Chi is a distinctive style with small, subtle movements; highly focused on balance, sensitivity and internal ch'i development. It is today a rare style, especially compared with the other major styles. While there are direct descendants of Li I-yü and Li Ch'i-hsüan still teaching in China, there are no longer Hao family members teaching the style. The last inheritor to learn under Hao Shao-ju currently living is Liu Jishun, who has many students around the globe but only two disciples in the United Kingdom.
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