The purpose of this study is to clarify the formation process of Yang’s Friendship Association and its successor, the Yang Federation, from the perspective of strategic activities before Yang Mingshi Tai Chi became an NPO.

The results of the study show that, Yang’s Friendship Association started the Tai Chi activity while being influenced by the voluntary organization of Yoshida Health and Longevity Group (Kai).The association’s journal, “Health and Longevity,” served as a means of disseminating strategic activities.

In regards to the strategy of organization of Yang’s Friendship Association, first of all, Yang Meitoki emphasized the importance of making interpersonal relationships. His second strategy, was that he wrote about the idea and concepts of Yang Tai Chi, and succeeded in increasing the number of classrooms and increasing the number of members. However, in order to distinguish it from the authentic Tai Chi in China, the Yang’s Friendship Association was renamed the Yang’s Federation in 1981(Showa 56).

However, in 1982(Showa 57),Yang Federation had no change in the pattern of fundamental management, but began to focus on leadership training. In order to secure the legitimacy of Yang Mingshi Tai Chi, he Yang Meitoki deepened ties between Lee, a Chinese martial artist, and Kanazawa a Japanese karate expert. Lee and Kanazawa recognized Yang Mingshi Tai Chi, as an authentic activity, which is a Japanese martial art that was different from gymnastics. Furthermore, in exchange tournaments held with external organizations in Japan, he made it known both inside and outside Japan that there exist two poles of Yang Mingshi Tai Chi: Tai Chi for health and Tai Chi for practical use, which are the two sides of Yang Mingshi Tai Chi.

This study adopts the research method of sports anthropology to reveal the formation process of Yang Mingshi Tai Chi in Japan, one of the physical activities that integrates Japanese and Chinese culture.

The research results bear out that based on the idea of politician Furui Yoshimi (who viewed Tai Chi as a bridge of friendship between Japan and China). Furui Yoshimi’s collaborator Yang Mingshi founded on Japanese culture like Japanese martial arts which attach importance to proprieties, Yang Mingshi integrated health-preservation-oriented Tai Chi with The Baduanjin qigong, and received support from Furui Yoshimi, thus creating the “Yang Mingshi Tai Chi” which is an emblem of Japan-China friendship. In other words, Yang Mingshi referred to Japan’s physical and mental culture and excavated China’s inherent physical and mental culture, which is regarded as a combination of guiding or qigong, quanshu skills (or the combination of consciousness, breathing, and movement), thus creating Yang Mingshi Tai Chi featured by Japanese martial arts.

Hence, Yang Mingshi Tai Chi has been recognized by representatives from all walks of life in Japan, and while different from Furui’s Tai Chi, it will also lay the foundation for the popularization of Tai Chi (simplified Tai Chi) in Japan.