Three generations of Yang family masters lifted the art of T'ai-chi ch'üan from a closed courtyard in Henan Province to the status of a national treasure and made of it, like India's yoga, a gift to the world. Yang Lu-ch'an in the nineteenth century, followed by his sons and their sons, have given T'ai-chi ch'üan the theoretical and practical standard which still defines and shapes the art for a majority of practitioners today. This book draws together the written and photographic record of their teachings, a legacy spanning more than fifty years of published material. The contents include oral instructions, mnemonic verses and training songs, commentaries to the T'ai-chi Classics, essays autobiography, and family legends, much of which has not been previously translated.