Wu Style Tai Chi
The founder of Wu Style Tai Chi, Master Wu Chan Yau (1834 - 1902), was a disciple of two Yang family members, Yang Lu Chan who had previously created the Yang Style and his son Yang Banhou. Casting ourselves back to the Yang familiy history, both Yang Lu Chan and his son were retained at court to teach the elite Imperial Guard. Master Wu Chan Yau was a member of this guard in Beijing and so his education in the system was from a realistic martial perspective.
Wu Chan Yau was a warrior by heritage. As ordained by his bloodline, he was a member of the Yellow Banner Camp, one of the divisions that made up the system of Eight Banners, each one supplying 300 troops to the Manchurian Army. The Yellow Banner Camp was situated within the forbidden city in Beijing and that is where Yang Lu Chan taught.
Born of a warrior system, Wu style Tai Chi Chuan places greater emphasis on weapons training, sparring, pushing hands and grappling. Unlike most other styles of Tai Chi, Wu includes elements of joint-locking and breaking. A Wu style Tai Chi student learns to jump and tumble and can often be seen to stand with all the weight on one leg. Pressure point attacks, grabs and throws complete the Wu style's martial repertoire and strong leg conditioning is trained in the classic horse-stance. The weapons learnt at the advanced stages of the Wu style are those most practical for military combat - the Tai Chi Sword (jian), Broadsword (dao) and spear (quiang).
Although the name of the Wu style might seem similar to the Wu/Hao style, they are in fact very different, unconnected save for both being descendants of the Yang style. The emphasis on Wu/Hao can be seen as leaning towards health maintenance while Wu style incorporates fighting techniques, uncommon within the four previous Tai Chi styles. The limitations on romanising Chinese characters into English gives rise to the similarity in the names of the two styles and nothing more.