the forgotten (female) pioneers of tai chi in the west _ fightland

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3/30/2016 The For gotten ( Femal e) Pi oneer s of Tai Chi i n the W est | FIGHTLAND

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THE FORGOTTEN (FEMALE) PIONEERS OF TAI CHI IN THE WEST

FIGHTLAND BLOGBy Charles Russo

Gerda Geddes (left). Photo courtesy of her daughter, Harriet Devlin / Sophia Delza (right). Photo courtesy of the NY Public Library

Gerda Geddes first encountered tai chi at dawn.

Walking the misty morning streets of Shanghai in 1949, she observed an old Chinese man performing slow,

meditative movements in an open field. As a formally trained modern dancer from Norway, Geddes quickly

fell spellbound to the spectacle: “As I watched I had a sensation of hot and cold streaming up and down my

spine…and I remember thinking, ‘This is what I have been looking for all my life.’”

Oddly enough, Geddes wasn’t alone in her interest. Sophia Delza—an American with her own established

career in dance and choreography—was also compelled to learn the Chinese martial art of tai chi while in

Shanghai during that very same year. Like most westerners at the time, neither women had any exposure to

tai chi, but both quickly found value in what they were witnessing. In a pair of trailblazing scenarios that

defied the era’s well-established boundaries of race and gender, Geddes and Delza trained separately under

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renowned tai chi masters before then bringing the Chinese martial art back to their home countries. In a

curious mirror image of one another, the two women played pioneering though widely forgotten roles within

the early martial arts culture of the West, spreading tai chi far beyond China, and launching it towards its

current incarnation of a thriving global culture.

+ + +

Tai chi is easily one of the most popular martial arts in the world today, with daily practitioners around the

globe numbering in the millions. Yet, if the centuries-old Chinese art is widely embraced across cultures and

age groups, it has been more for health and recreation than for its martial applications. In this regard, it can

be easily forgotten that tai chi originated as a fighting art, and that it falls under the wide umbrella of Chinese

kung fu.

Although it’s origins are oft en s hrouded in folklore, tai chi chuan—which translates as “supreme ultimate

fist”—most likely emerged several centuries ago from Taoist monks in China, at a time when martial

systems had great relevance amid the violent social realities of the era. Over time tai chi would evolve to be

increasingly characterized as a “soft” fighting style, which seeks to redirect an opponent’s energy and motion

to work against them.

The art’s emphasis on slow movement, breathing and other notions of Qigong (or, energy cultivation) have

made it increasingly appealing over time as a healthy exercise apart from any martial context. While

numerous systems of kung fu fighting styles have battled for relevance in recent years, tai chi’s popularity is

surging in the 21st century, especially as contemporary research increasingly qualifies the health benefits

that have long been touted by its practitioners.

As martial arts historian Ben Judkins writes, “…the medical benefits of practices like Taijiquan have been

discussed from time to time in the West for more than a century. Yet only recently have medical

professionals dedicated the attention and resources necessary to systematically test and describe thebenefits of Taiji for a wide number of (most chronic) conditions.”

Sophia Delza practicing tai chi. Negatives courtesy of the NY Public Library

Clinical studies in recent years have linked practicing tai chi to a wide range of health benefits, including the

reduction of heart disease, curbing stress and improving the overall physical well-being of seniors. Last year,

the British Journal of Sports Medicine suggested that the beneficial attributes of practicing tai chi were

substantial enough that it should possibly even be “prescribed” by doctors to address a variety of conditions,

including diabetes and arthritis.

“It boils down to relevance,” explains Jess O’Brien, author of the book Nei Ji Quan: Internal Martial Arts,

“Northern Praying Mantis [fighting style] is not for everyone, but tai chi is well-suited to the public need. For

most people, the appeal is in its mind/body training.”

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More Photos

This modern appeal is especially fascinating to consider in the historical context of Delza and Geddes, who

both envisioned tai chi's relevance and potential health benefits more than a half century ago, but were

eventually forgotten amid more masculine martial art storylines.

+ + +

By the time they traveled to China in the late 1940s, Delza and Geddes had already lived colorful lives.

Delza had been born to a bohemian family in Brooklyn, surrounded by art and liberal politics. She trained in

modern dance, studying in Paris for a time, before returning to New York for a career that spanned stage and

film. In 1928 she danced opposite James Cagney in the Grand Street Follies on Broadway, and later

performed solo recitals at notable theaters around the city. In following her husband to Shanghai in 1948,

Delza quickly broke ground as the first American dancer to perform and lecture in Chinese theaters anddance schools.

Sophia Delza. Photos courtesy of the NY Public Library

Geddes was born to high class society in Norway. Like Delza she trained in modern dance at a young age,

before then studying psychotherapy under controversial psychiatrist Wilhelm Reich at the University of

Oslo. As a young adult Geddes joined the resistance against the Nazi occupation, and after a series of

dramatic encounters she escaped to Sweden hidden beneath a cart of lumber. By the time she followed her husband to Shanghai in 1949, she was developing an idea to merge her studies in dance and psychotherapy

to create some kind of physically-oriented approach to mental therapy. Yet as she watched the old man

perform tai chi at dawn, Geddes realized she no longer had to invent such a system, since the Chinese had

seemingly been cultivating one for centuries. Even still, the notion of a western women learning the Chinese

martial arts was unprecedented at the time.

“These Chinese men had very great trouble with me because women didn’t do tai chi in those days,” Geddes

would later explain. “Most women still had bound feet.”

Even as they were confronted by a Chinese martial arts code excluding foreigners and women, a sizable

language barrier, and the tumultuous circumstances in China after the Communists came to power, both

Geddes and Delza still managed to study with established Chinese masters. Delza studied Wu style tai chi

under celebrated practitioner Mah Yueh-ling in Shanghai, and then returned to promote the arts in New York

City. Conversely, Geddes learned Yang style tai chi under Choy Hak Peng in Hong Kong before returning to

teach in England. In the same time and environment that a teenage Bruce Lee was banned from Ip Man’sWing Chun school on account of his quarter European ancestry, these were revolutionary relationships that

defied the social boundaries of their era.

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Sophia Delza in Popular Mechanics, October 1960

Back in Europe, Geddes’s efforts to promote tai chi were initially met with confusion and disinterest, while

Delza quickly found traction by showcasing the arts in high profile settings around New York City. In 1954

she staged a public demonstration at the Museum of Modern Art. As Judkins explains, this was a landmark

moment for martial arts culture in America: “In 1954 there were virtually no public performances or

demonstrations of any sort of Chinese Martial Art at all. Catching a glimpse of Lion Dancing at the Lunar

New Year, or a short demonstration by the Chinese student association at a University's "international

festival," was the closest that most American might ever come to seeing the Chinese martial arts.” The

interest that was generated from these demonstrations would soon lead to Delza conducting regular tai chi

classes at Carnegie Hall and the United Nations, pre-dating some of the earliest modern martial arts outfits

in America (including Ed Parker’s Kenpo Karate school in Pasadena circa 1957 and Bruce Lee’s teaching in

Seattle beginning in 1959). In the UK, Geddes’s efforts finally gained momentum at the London

Contemporary School of Dance, which eventually incorporated her classes into their freshmen curriculum.

Within a year of each other, both women gave what were presumably the first televised tai chi

demonstrations in their respective countries.

In 1961, Delza also authored what is possibly the first English language book ever written on the Chinese

martial arts: T’ai-Chi Ch’uan: Body and Mind in Harmony . As she explained in the opening chapter, her

intentions were “to bring to the attention of Western people this ancient masterpiece of health exercise…

which…is supremely suitable in these modern times.” But if Delza and Geddes had a health and even

spiritually-oriented vision for an “ancient” art in the modern world, it was an entirely different martial arts

future that soon commanded the spotlight.

+ + +

By the early 1960s, martial arts culture in the west was still in its infancy, though poised to take off towards

a substantial popularity. Since the early part of the century, the Japanese art of judo had been crossing

borders, and was the first Asian martial art to noticeably take root in the Western world (in fact, President

Theodore Roosevelt had trained with a Japanese judo master for a time at the White House. In his more

overzealous moments, Roosevelt was known to exhibit judo techniques on young men visiting the Oval

Office). During World War II, many servicemen were exposed to the Okinawan striking art of karate, and

returned home resolved to continue practicing it and promoting its culture. Ed Parker held his first Long

Beach International Karate Tournament in 1964, the same summer that judo was first introduced into

competition at the Olympic Games. In 1965, Los Angeles-based kung fu master Ark Wong asserted in print

that he would no longer restrict teaching only Chinese students and that enrollment was now wide open to

anyone with dedicated interest.

In 1966, Bruce Lee’s role as Kato on the Green Hornet was the spark that finally lit the fuse. Lee’s

performances were a game-changing spectacle that captured the public’s imagination and quickly pushed

martial arts culture to a booming modern popularity. By the early 70s, the “kung fu craze” was in full swing,

and the mind and body health culture envisioned by Geddes and Delza took a quiet back seat to a new

male-dominated martial arts culture. Hyperbolic action movies and promises of esoteric fighting techniques


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emphasized the fighting component of the equation, and sold the Asian martial arts to the west in a big way.

Gerda Geddes. Photo courtesy of her daughter, Harriet Devlin

As newly-minted enthusiasts devoured the latest martial arts media, t he contributions of Delza and Geddes

didn’t quite fit the prevailing narrative of dynamic male fighting skills, and in turn the two women were largely

excluded from coverage. Despite almost singlehandedly introducing the Chinese martial art of tai chi to their

respective continents as well as conducting longterm careers that spanned four decades and thousands of

students, neither Delza nor Geddes ever received any significant coverage from Blackbelt Magazine, the

perennial publication of record for the martial arts community.

“Popular culture is made up as much by forgetting things as discovering them,” explains Judkins. “Delza was

essentially erased from the popular memory. We could only have Bruce Lee and the ‘kung fu craze’ as a new

and exciting phenomenon if we all kind of pretended that Delza hadn’t already shown us many of these

things 15 years earlier.”

In fact, when Delza’s name was mentioned within the martial arts community as an early proponent of tai

chi, it often surfaced in the form of criticism, contending that her lack of martial emphasis constituted an

“incomplete” system.

Jess O’Brien, whose book Nei Jia Quan profiles a diverse group of tai chi masters, defends the legacies of

Delza and Geddes by asserting that the definition of the Chinese martial arts isn’t one-dimensional. “People

want the Chinese martial arts to have a definition, but there is no one singular goal,” explains O’Brien, “tai chi

is multi-faceted and can take you down multiple pathways. And there are people who say that it needs to be

about fighting, but if it’s embraced as a meditative or healing art there is absolutely nothing wrong with that.”


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Sophia Delza. Photo courtesy of the NY Public Library

As dancers, both Delza and Geddes had initi ally embraced tai chi as an alternative and far more holistic

approach to dance and movement, essentially a tangible antidote to the prevailing harsh physical

expectations of their industry. In time, Delza would continue to promote tai chi through a health-oriented

perspective, while Geddes would increasingly embrace it as an avenue towards spirituality. Even still, both

women were keenly aware that they were practicing something that ultimately was a martial art, even if

fighting was never their goal.

In the long run, despite criticism and obscurity, Delza and Geddes appear to have prevailed in their vision. In

the course of sowing the seeds for tai chi in the West, their students (and their student’s students) now

teach in countries around the world. Since their passing—Delza in 1996 and Geddes in 2006—tai chi’s

popularity has only skyrocketed around the world, while its health benefits are increasingly backed by clinical

studies. Conversely, so many of the kung fu fighting styles that once commanded the spotlight have since

struggled to attract followers in the 21st century.

There’s a very fitting, “soft-style” logic to this: Delza and Geddes were quietly successful in their vision,

even as their louder martial counterparts have fallen on hard times.

Charles Russo is a journalist in San Francisco. He is the author of Striking Distance: Bruce Lee and the

Dawn of Martial Arts in America, which chronicles the pioneering martial arts scene in the San Francisco

Bay Area during the early 1960s.

Check out this related story:

Remembering Lou Reed the Martial Artist

YouTube 112K

Written by: Charles Russo

Mar 29 2016

Tags: tai chi, Gerda Geddes, Sophia Delza

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2 Comments Sort by

Henry Steffen · Rice University

I am only barely familiar with tai chi. It sounds like something you are familiar with or

maybe engage in yoursself.

Like · Reply · 3 hrs

Daniel Docherty · Tai Chi consultant at Self-Employed

My old Donegal Granpa used to say there are two kinds of folks you need to tread

careful about when they're around, 'Champ dancers and damned chancers'. These 2

fine ladies belonged to the former category.

Like · Reply · 4 hrs

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