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The current popular estimate has around 250 million people worldwide practising various styles of Tai Chi regularly. It is only an estimate and it’s very probably wrong, but in terms of general scale it’s in the ballpark. 

Among these millions of practitioners, there are multiple styles of Tai Chi practised across the globe. Chen Style Tai Chi is regarded as the parent form of most of the Tai Chi being practiced today. Documented history dates Chen Style Tai Chi back some 400 years (though various origin theories place it far earlier), and it is Chen Style Tai Chi Chuan that we practice at White Tiger.

Chen Style Tai Chi was developed in Chen Village - or Chenjiagou - in China, and this remains the heart and focal point of worldwide Chen Style Tai Chi. The leading exponents of Chen Style Tai Chi in Chenjiagou at any given time are referred to as “Buddha’s Warrior Attendants” - named after the first move in the Tai Chi open hand form. There are currently four Attendants. These particular four individuals are known in China as the Four Tigers of Tai Chi, and are recognised as the outstanding exponents of Chen Tai Chi within their generation in Chenjiagou.

They are: -

• Chen Xiaowang 
• Chen Zhenglei 
• Wang Xian 
• Zhu Tiancai 

One measure of the lineage of a Chen Tai Chi school is how short the chain is - teacher to teacher to teacher etc. - between a school’s head instructor and one of the Attendants.

The chief instructor at White Tiger, Michael Singleton, is a direct indoor student of Chen Zhenglei. A one link chain.

The granting of indoor student status requires a Grandmaster to be satisfied that the Tai Chi of that practitioner is sufficiently well honed that it can be regarded as a good representation of the Grandmaster’s style and teachings.

For a Tai Chi student at White Tiger this is encouraging, as it means that the Tai Chi being being taught at White Tiger has been recognised, at the highest level, as being excellent and ‘close to the root’. It’s the real stuff.

The chief instructor at White Tiger, Michael, is also indoor student to UK Grandmaster Liming Yue.