Class Guide
Tai Chi Chuan Style
The Lee style
The Lee family style was originally created by Ho Xie Li around 1000BC, so this style is around 3000 years old. The original form consisted of only eight movements, and whilst these same movements still exist within the form, it now comprises 140 movements structured into 42 sets.
Ho Xie Li lived with his family just outside Beijing. Later in his middle fifties he moved his family to Wei Hei Wei, a fishing village about 200 miles east of Beijing, where their descendents remained until 1934. The family had always been Taoists practising the Taoist Arts of: the complete range of Tai Chi Chuan – Tai Chi Stick, Tai Chi Sword, Tai Chi Silk and more recently Tai Chi Dance. The self defence arts which are taught in separate classes include Feng Shou Chuan ( Hand of the Wind Boxing) ; Chi Shu ( the equivalent of Chinese Aikido); Chiao Li (Taoist Wrestling) and weapons training. The family practised together, with the parents teaching their children. The last three children, one daughter and two sons, had the responsibility of continuing the Family Arts. In fact the eldest of the three, Cham Kam Li, was the only one to do so.
Cham Kam Li, an unmarried business man dealing in precious and semi-precious stones, finally opened a small office in the Holborn district of London, which in those days was the world centre of this trade. In 1933 he started a small class in the Red Lion Square to keep himself fit and teach a few close friends. A chance meeting in Hyde Park brought a fourteen-year-old boy, himself Chinese into contact with Cham Kam Li.
The two became friends and Cham Kam Lee invited this boy to join his little group in Holborn. That boy’s name was Chee Soo.
Cham Kam Li died in a storm off the coast of China in the winter of 1953/54 and Chee Soo continued to promote the Taoist Arts and became its President in Britain where it is still taught to this very day.
Anthony Fitzpatrick
I became interested in Chinese Culture in the mid 80’s and trained in Traditional Chinese Medicine around that time. I worked for a short while in the main hospital called the Affiliated Hospital in NanJing( southern capital). While there I was fascinated to arise out of bed and look out my window and see all these people practising, what seemed then to be these strange movements. I later learned that it was called Tai Chi Chuan. I resolved that when I returned to Ireland I would try to find a good teacher. I was extremely fortunate to come into contact with Howard Gibbon, Chee Soo’s best pupil. Chee Soo died in 1994 and Howard now continues the teaching of the Chinese Taoists Arts in Britain.