I have a question (sorry guys, I'm that annoying kid at the back of the class, in his own little reality who wasn't paying attention who pipes-up with something that frustrates the teacher, was nothing to do with the lesson and all the other kids laugh....but here goes!)
Anyway, re: origins of Taijiquan.
I read alot of histories and tend to accept with Hai Yang (
https://www.youtube.com/@HaiYangChannel) that Taijiquan as a particular set of principles & etc is probably no more than 400 years old. However, the individual principles and concepts originate anywhere from anytime on the evolutionary journies from stoneage to civilisation, healthcare, physical performance, survival, warfare, ordinary life, religions & philosophies, medicinals, martial arts, politics and economics & etc?
If so, then wouldn't 'Origins of Taijiquan' actually include a lot of individual conceptual and practical origins (maybe such as i.e:'The arts of patrolling the Silk-road without getting worn-out or killed') that find a confluence in the stated methodology of the 19th Century Yang family art and its stated evolution from a Chen discipline of that era which could have had several similar 'competitor disciplines' but, for all intents and purposes, 'that art' is the origional Taijiquan?
If so, then to seek a further-back origins would actually be to seek the origins of 'the individual things and concepts' of that art ?
The reason I enquire in such a manner is because my experience of studying, exploring, training, evaluating, trying applying (to work life and ordinary life) and hopefully evolving into an 'operational persona' the priciples and dynamics of Taijiquan result in a 'spidey-sense', from realising the brilliance and beauty of this stuff relating to health/motility/energy/performance/attitude/spirit etc, is that its pre-Yang family Taijiquan origins must have been a very diverse, from a lot of co-related or unrelated disciplines and over a long period of time ?