You mentioned at the Sun Ba Gua seminar that daoism is more about bringing the body back to its natural state instead of a lot of weird esoteric exercises. Then you said standing in Wu ji is a daoist exercise to get you back to being "natural".

Could you please elaborate about this? Have you read books, that were written in Chinese, about daoism? Did these books describe what you were talking about?

Were esoteric practices mentions in these books at all or did people just add them on?

There are several kinds of "Daoism."

Practices like religious Daoism (Dao Jiao) include a huge number of esoteric practices that have little to do with the philosophical Daoism (Dao Jia) that is the inspiration for many of the ideas in Chinese martial arts.

Some of the fundamental tenets of philosophical Daoism adapted to martial theory and practice include the concepts of homogeneity or "Wu Wei," a division of forces into Yin and Yan, "Pu," the efficiency of using things according to their original nature/design etc.

In addition to the above, their are more "esoteric" practices (some types of breath work, various kinds of meditation) found in martial systems attributed to Daoist longevity practices as well, but what I was referring to is the ideas of philosophical Daoism that are the underpinnings of several styles of CMA, not specific exercises.

So if the esoteric exercsises have little to do with the philosophy of daoism...does that mean people just made the stuff up and then called it daoism to give it credibility?

It happens.