Tung Ying-chieh

Tung Ying-chieh (Dong Yingjie in Pinyin, 董英杰 8 November 1898-1961) was an influential teacher of T'ai Chi Ch'uan. He was born in China's Hebei province. A senior student of Yang Ch'eng-fu (1883-1936), he originally studied Wu/Hao style T'ai Chi Ch'uan as a young man. Tung also studied with Ch'eng-fu's older brother Yang Shao-hou (1862-1930) and was the founder of Dong Tai Chi. In Shao-hou's classes he was an older classmate of the Wu style's Wu Kung-i (1900-1970) and Wu Kung-tsao (1902-1983), and the men remained close colleagues in later years. Following the trend of many famous T'ai Chi masters who moved south during the War years, Tung moved to Hong Kong in 1939 and taught Yang Style there. The Dong (Tung) style as it eventually developed included training features researched by Tung Ying-chieh, both with Yang Ch'eng-fu and independently.

He wrote a book called "T'ai Chi Ch'uan Explained" or "Principles of T'ai Chi Ch'uan" (T'ai Chi Ch'uan Shih I 太極拳釋義) which has recently been translated from Chinese into English. First published in 1948, it has been reprinted (notably in Hong Kong in 1975) and updated continuously since its first publication.

Tung Ying-chieh was followed by son Dong Hu Ling (董虎岭) who is followed by Tung Kai Ying and Dong Zeng Chen. The members of the Tung family teach T'ai Chi Ch'uan in Asia, Hawaii, North America and Europe.