April 29, 2024
In honor of World Tai Chi & Qigong Day 2024, YMAA Staff Writer Gene Ching examines tai chi demonstrations done in large groups. 6 Min Read
April 25, 2022
Tai chi is one of the most practiced martial arts in the world today. Countless practitioners recite these time-honored movements for health, self-defense, and peace of mind all around the world. However, as tai chi continues to spread globally, how to spell it is absurdly frustrating.
January 10, 2022
Set in Okinawa during World War II, it’s a story of reverence, the coming of age, love, tragedy, war, and honor. A retired Okinawa karate instructor, Ota Kenichi Ota, writes memoirs of training with world-famous master, Chojun Miyagi.
November 8, 2021
Renowned tai chi advocate David-Dorian Ross brings his innovative Tai Chi Fit program to help veterans cope with common issues like depression, PTSD, addiction, and chronic pain. Through this program, veterans can receive free tai chi instruction and certified instructors can be compensated by the VA. This elevates tai chi instructors, officially recognizing them amongst other health and wellness professions
October 16, 2021
As Master Chenhan Yang releases his fifth instructional Tai Chi video with YMAA, Staff Writer Gene Ching looks at what his latest offering brings to Tai Chi enthusiasts who might be unfamiliar with Wu Tai Chi.
Gene Ching, YMAA Staff Writer, takes a look at Master Chenhan Yang's Sun Tai Chi DVD from the perspective of a Sun Tai Chi practitioner. Gene studied under Grandmaster Sun Jianyun, the daughter of the founder of Sun Tai Chi, Sun Lutang. Master Yang propounds a modern form of Sun Tai Chi while Gene practices the traditional form.
YMAA presents the three-part documentary series Searching for SUPERHUMANS by Lee Holden and David Verdesi.
If you’re new to tai chi and qigong, WTCQDay is about expanding awareness for these venerated arts. It is an opportunity for practitioners around the world to gather and celebrate their practice. Schools and clubs host practice sessions and mass demonstrations to showcase and promote tai chi and qigong. YMAA has always participated in some manner and there are even a few reports in the archives that give snapshots of activities held in 2010, 2011, and 2014.
YMAA is proud to release Dr. Robert Chuckrow's fourth Tai Chi book, Tai Chi Concepts and Experiments: Hidden Strength, Natural Movement, and Timing. An award-winning author and an instructor of experimental physics, Dr. Chuckrow tackles the age-old conundrum of East meets West in his latest work, presenting his unique insights on Tai Chi and physics in this new work. It's filled with plenty of pragmatic methods, drills and exercises that you or anyone can do to experience his theories directly for yourself.
"Our relationship is not just teacher and student, but also as good friends," says Dr. Yang. "He has been with me for more than 20 years. We know each other very well so we can collaborate with each other without problems. David is committed, qualified, willing, and capable." After writing so many books on his own, Dr. Yang is now grooming some of his talented pupils to carry on his literate legacy. What's more, he adds with a grin, "His English is better than my 'Chinglish.'"
In Push Hands, two partners work together to improve each other's balance. These exercises are applicative expressions of the various postures within the Tai Chi form. The foundation of Tai Chi lies within martial arts, so self-defense principles are interwoven throughout the routines. Even though many Tai Chi enthusiasts aren't looking to use it in a fight, proper alignment is critical to good Tai Chi practice. It's all based on balance. And nothing informs you that you are off balance better than a good push.
As Mai and the crowd watch in frozen horror, the Lexus slowly rolls again until it's on its top; the front-end still nose down into the water. After a moment, only the rear back tires are still above the surface. Then they too slip beneath the bay.
The following is an excerpt from Dukkha: Hungry Ghosts. Sam Reeves and his girlfriend Mai are enjoying a morning at Saturday Market, a sprawling weekend bazaar along Portland's waterfront. From the top of a bridge at the market, a crazed man, "Tonto," announces that he will be the crowds designated shooter.
Prologue from the book: His legless torso swings back and forth between his arms, as he hand-walks along the dim but ornately lit cobblestone path that meanders about the lavish yard through tall bamboo, past large stone Asian lanterns, around half a dozen towering palm trees, and encircles a large pond. Twelve-foot high brick walls border the large yard on three sides.
A rush of wind sent debris skittering along the empty sidewalks, filthy gutters, and streets long in need of repair. Though few vehicles passed through the darkened skid row intersection of Northwest Third and Couch at three a.m., its lone traffic signal, swaying in the wind, continued to cycle its colors, casting hues off the sides of old buildings and the cracked windshield of a decaying station wagon propped up on four rusted wheels.
Many kind reviewers for Dukkha: The Suffering, Dukkha: Reverb, and Dukkha: Unloaded have commented on the realistic violence, in particular the fight scenes. This is always nice to hear because I work hard to infuse the scenes with authenticity and truth. After spending 30 years around man's inhumanity to man, first as a Military Policeman in Vietnam and then as a street cop for 25 years in Portland, Oregon, I find many authors' and movie directors' depiction of violence to be sadly lacking or simply off base.
Dukkha Reverb is the second book in the Dukkha thriller series, published by YMAA Publications. The first is Dukkha: The Suffering.
(The following is an excerpt from Chojun A Novel by Goran Powell. Chojun Miyagi, born in Higashimachi, Naha, Okinawa, April 25, 1888. He began studying Karate at age nine. He first learned martial arts from Ryuko Aragaki who then introduced him at age 14 to Kanryo Higashionna (Higaonna Kanryo.) He continued studying and teaching until his death from heart disease in Okinawa October 8, 1953.)
The following is an excerpt from Dukkha Reverb, a Sam Reeves martial arts thriller. After six weeks of being intensely investigated for the accidental killing of a young boy, Portland police detective and martial arts instructor, Sam Reeves, travels to Saigon, Vietnam to visit his newly found family.
Set in Okinawa during World War II, it’s a story of reverence, the coming of age, love, tragedy, war, and honor. A retired Okinawa karate instructor, Ota Kenichi Ota, writes memoirs of training with world-famous master, Chojun Miyagi.
Dukkha: a Pali term that corresponds to such English words as pain, discontent, unhappiness, sorrow, affliction, anxiety, discomfort, anguish, stress, misery, and frustration.
As a Portland, Oregon police officer, my partner and I once responded to the 12th floor of a high rise where a deranged man had just fired seven rounds from a shotgun into the face and chest of his psychiatrist.
This epic historical fiction novel, A Sudden Dawn, opens in A.D. 507 with a young Indian man named Sardili, born of the warrior caste. Sardili gives up a promising future as a soldier to become a monk and seek enlightenment.