Human nature being what it is, the teachers and followers of most styles invariably claim superiority over all other styles. On the teacher’s part this is usually either an over-developed ego or the need to market their product as being superior to the competition or a combination of both.

The students also often have a vested interest in seeing themselves as special, as the chosen disciples of some great “guru”-type figure. They bask in the reflected glow of their teacher’s supposed ability, as demonstrated most often by silly displays of mystical chi-gung ability, such as bending steel bars on the throat or breaking objects or having objects broken on their bodies. Bruce Lee said it nicely: “Bricks don’t fight back”. As the expression goes, let the buyer beware!

There are NO superior Tai Chi styles or instructors. At best one style may have an edge over other styles when it comes to a certain facet of practice. Practitioners of the Cheng Man Ching style can, in general, probably achieve better results in terms of relaxation than the Chen stylists. The Chen stylists can get a decent cardiovascular workout as a side benefit of their practice, something that might not be said of most Cheng Man Ching practitioners.

There are no secrets, if the “delayed death touch” really worked on a moving, resisting and well-trained opponent, Tai Chi masters would rule the roost in the big-money mixed martial arts competitions held and televised in Japan and the USA. The “secret” of high ability is the consistent practice of correct basic technique over time. Anyone who claims to be doing anything else is trying to sell you something. In this vein, “Power Tai Chi” is NOT a superior style of Tai Chi, it is the use of traditional Tai Chi techniques and principles, as I have learnt them in the fourteen years of study under my two more than generous instructors, Mr.Fok, Si Yue, of Fatsan, Canton and Dr. Lin, Feng Chao of Kaohsiung, and as modified to suit a much greater number of Western students than would normally have the patience to practice Tai Chi within a health club environment.

I personally have found the long form as taught in most styles and as practiced by me for nearly two decades, to ultimately be boring and the practice of weapons forms with paper thin super-light weapons to be a waste of my time, but this is my personal choice and my own specific development and does not necessarily hold true for anyone else. From a combat perspective, the practice of forms is less optimal than, say, sparring in an alive fashion against a resisting opponent. As for developing rootedness/stability, connectedness and power, the repeated practice of single movements or at best of a combination of movements, allows for a far better focus than trying to remember whether one had just done the second or third lot of “wave hands like clouds” and what comes next. For developing awareness of your energy flow, posture and breathing, standing chi gung (jaam jong) as taught to me by Mr. Fok and as made famous by the founder of I Chuan, Wang Hsiang Chai, is, for me at least, the way to go.

Even if one practices a form, the form is merely a wine bottle, what matters is the quality of wine you pour into it. To simplify quite a bit so as to make a point, the quality of wine comes from specific energy work (chi gung) and specific power-production work (gen gung). When I feel like moving joyfully and continuously, I do so. I start with one movement and continue to move until I no longer feel like moving. Like a jazz musician, I improvise and no form is like any other and therefore it is not even correct to call this “forms” practice, as there is no consistent “form” to it. Once again, this is just my preference, but it works pretty well for my students and me. For those who prefer the unquestioning obedience to orthodoxy, I wish them well, but their path is not my path and at nearly fifty years of age and nearly forty years of martial arts practice, I claim for myself the wisdom and right to focus on and practice only that which has produced results for me.

So, after this little rant on my part (yes, I feel better now, thank you), there may be no superior tai chi style, but which style would be best for you? The one that best serves your needs. Styles are not precious antiques to be kept in display cases and polished to perfection; they are of use only in so far as they improve the practitioner’s quality of life. Other than that, they are sterile theoretical constructs.

If you are a pensioner looking to improve her health, the Chen style may well chew up your knees and back, but the Wu style might well be ideal for you. If you are thirty something years old, want to increase your energy levels, move more powerfully and work up a sweat, the Chen style or Power Tai Chi might be more useful than, say, some versions of the Wu style . As long as whatever Tai Chi style you are practicing is making you healthier and improving the quality and joyfulness of your life, this is clearly the best style for you. So once again, you need to ask yourself the question as to what it is that you are looking to achieve and then select a teacher.