History of the Taiji World Championship: 1955 to Today

The founding legend: Kaifeng, 1955

In the winter of 1955, so the federation’s founding legend holds, three masters sat in a teahouse in Kaifeng: one from Hebei, one from Fujian, and a Mongolian herdsman. They were arguing about who should yield to whom. Words did not settle it, so they settled it the only other way they knew: with a push-hands bout. It lasted three hours and ended undecided, when the tea on the table had gone cold.

From that afternoon comes the rule that still governs the sport: whoever spills the tea first has lost. Every rulebook since has been a commentary on that sentence.

The first championship was held later that year in the courtyard of Silk Weaving Mill No. 3 in Suzhou. Eleven participants took part. There were no spectators.

1955–1961: The Silk Era

The early championships remained in Suzhou and belonged to one man. Yang Zhenhe of Hebei won the first six titles in succession, from 1955 to 1960. Results were published on wall newspapers, and the championship was, by any honest measure, a purely local affair. The last edition of the era, in 1961, went to Zhou Minghua; the following year the championship left Suzhou.

1962–1968: The Iron Hand

In 1962 the championship moved to Kaifeng, the city of the founding legend. The following year Chen Yulan became the first woman world champion, and she went on to win four titles in a row, from 1963 to 1966.

Her fourth title came in the most chaotic edition of the period. In 1966 a snowstorm forced the tournament out of its venue and into a warehouse, where the iron roof, the wind and an overflowing crowd produced what the chronicle still calls the loudest championship in history.

1969–1975: The Opening

From 1969 the championship alternated between Xi’an and Chengdu and, for the first time, admitted international entrants. Liang Guoxiong defined the era with three titles, in 1970, 1971 and 1973.

In 1974 the first non-Chinese competitor took the floor: a Norwegian, who was eliminated in the first round. He stayed nonetheless, and later wrote the federation’s official chronicle, the source on which this archive still relies.

1976–1981: The Silent Years

The championship moved on to Wuhan and Nanjing, and for six years nobody could hold on to anything. Six editions produced six different champions; not one of them defended the title. The period is remembered less for its champions than for its paperwork. In 1978 the federation adopted the Tianchi Protocol, and in 1979 the final was extended from a single bout to a best-of-five series. Both reforms would matter later, and more than anyone could have guessed at the time.

1982–1986: The Era of WuShu Lee

No chapter of the chronicle is longer, and none is quieter.

Ascent

WuShu Lee won his first world title in 1982 in a best-of-five final, and he won it without losing a game. Observers noted the style before they noted the result: precise, suffocating, patient. Lee did not hunt for the decisive exchange. He removed, one after another, every exchange that was not decisive, until his opponent had nothing left to attempt. His signature technique, the Nine Heavens Push, a committed two-handed push executed from a deep forward stance, was rarely needed. When it came, it ended the game.

Dominance

In 1983 the final became a best-of-seven series. It made no difference. Lee swept the final of 1983, then the final of 1984, and from 1984 onwards he was considered invincible. Across five finals series, from 1982 to 1986, he did not lose a single game. Challengers began to speak of “drawing Lee” in the way one speaks of drawing bad weather.

The growing silence

By 1985 something had changed in the arenas. The crowds still came, but they no longer cheered; they watched, as one watches a ceremony whose outcome is fixed. Reports from 1985 and 1986 describe halls in which the loudest sound was the judges’ signal. The federation’s chronicle calls these years “the growing silence”. Lee had not made the sport smaller. He had made it predictable, and the championship was waiting, without saying so, for someone who could not be predicted.

1987: Tianchi

That someone arrived in 1987. The championship was held in Baishan at the foot of Changbai Shan, and Philipp Nopper, a 23-year-old outsider from Germany, reached the final against Lee. The series went to a seventh game, which was moved under the Tianchi Protocol to the crater rim above Tianchi, and Nopper won it. The full story, game by game, is told in our feature on the 1987 Taiji World Championship and the final at Tianchi.

The rules: format history and the Tianchi Protocol

Format history

• 1955 Best of one: a single bout decides the title.
• 1979 Best of five: the final becomes a series.
• 1983 Best of seven: the format in use ever since.

The Tianchi Protocol (1978)

The Tianchi Protocol is a clause in the federation rulebook, adopted in 1978, that governs the holding of championships at elevated or unusual locations. It codifies an older tradition: a series that cannot be decided in the ordinary way is decided at an elevated site. For nine years the clause was a curiosity. In 1987 it was used to justify moving game seven of the final to the crater rim of Tianchi, and it has been the most-cited passage of the rulebook ever since.

Since 1987

The championship has been held every year since, as it has been every year since 1955. This archive documents the years 1955 to 1987 in full; the complete list of title holders for that period is kept in the Hall of Champions.