Ma Yueliang

Ma Yueliang or Ma Yueh-liang (1 August 1901 – 13 March 1998) was a famous Manchu teacher of tai chi. He was the senior disciple of Wu Jianquan, the founder of Wu-style tai chi, and married Wu's daughter Wu Yinghua in 1930.

Biography Ma Yueliang trained in laboratory medicine at the Peking Union Medical College, graduating around 1923 with a specialty in hematology, before relocating to Shanghai in 1929. He established the First Medical Examination and Experiment Office and ran the blood clinics at Zhongshan Hospital in Shanghai. Like Wu Quanyou and Wu Jianquan, Ma was of Manchu descent. Ma was educated both in the traditions traditional Chinese medicine and Western science.

There are accounts that Ma was a gifted martial artist in his youth. He had studied a number of martial arts including, Shaolinquan, Three Emperors Pao Chui, Baguazhang and Tongbeiquan. However, Wu Jianquan would accept Ma as a student only if he concentrated on Wu-style tai chi. From about age 18, Ma exclusively studied Wu-style tai chi. Wu Jianquan started the Jianquan Taijiquan Association in Shanghai in 1933, and Ma became the deputy director of the association. Ma studied tai chi with Wu Jianquan until the latter's death in 1942. The Jianquan Association still exists today internationally and remains a resource for the study of Wu-style tai chi.

It is difficult to overstate the importance of Ma Yueliang and his wife in the emergence of Wu-style tai chi after the Cultural Revolution in China. Even at an advanced age, Ma was named one of the honorees in the Election of the Top 100 Chinese Wushu Masters, with the selection held in Beijing in July 1994 and results announced in Laiyang, Shandong in December 1995.

Wu Yinghua and Ma continued to teach in tai chi until their deaths. They taught a large number of students together in Shanghai for over sixty years, and both later traveled to perform in Australia, New Zealand and Hong Kong. Ma Yueliang also traveled individually to teach in Germany, Austria and the Netherlands, according to his own account. Ma and Wu Yinghua's Wu-style sword/weapons book includes a family picture with several of their closest students. Ma Yueliang also publicly practiced a number of formerly closed door (private or family secret) forms and methods so that they would not be lost.

In public, Wu Yinghua would often demonstrate the Wu-style Slow Set and Ma would follow by demonstrating the Wu Style Tai Chi Fast Form. Ma taught many high level students, including Xie Bingcan and Fei Gua-ching, who is still active in the Jianquan Taijiquan Association in Shanghai. Li Liqun is one of Grandmaster Ma's oldest and closest living students. He was the deputy vice-secretary of the Jianquan Association in Shanghai under masters Ma and his wife Wu Yinghua.

Ma Yueliang and Wu Yinghua are survived by their children and grandchildren, including: Ma Jiangchun (b. 1931), Dr. Ma Hailong (1935–2022), Ma Jiangbao (1941–2016), and Ma Jiangling (b. 1947). Ma Jiangbao lived in the Netherlands and taught traditional tai chi throughout Europe. Their adopted daughter Shi Mei Lin now lives and teaches Wu-style tai chi in New Zealand. She also has students in France and the United States.