A Zen Master on the road to Edo, encountered a man bent nearly double by the massive bundle of sticks he carried on his back. “Brother,” he said, “perhaps it’s time for you to discard part of your bundle; trade a few pieces for food, or burn some at your roadside camp to survive the

  Something hidden. Go and find it. Something lost beyond the ranges. Something lost and waiting for you. Go! Rudyard Kipling TaiJi Tai Chi Tai Chi Chuan TaiJi Quan Qui Gong Kung Fu Gong Fu Chuan Fah Shao Lin Wudang Shan It’s a mystery. It’s a club. It’s a business. ( A rice bowl…) Sometimes

  “There are no secrets.” But much is hidden; in plain sight. Shifu Jennifer St.John Shifu Jennifer St. John Chi. It’s right there. All around you — you’re swimming in it. The Force. The Energy of Life. Yet, all this time, you’ve been noticing — well, everything else. Like a fish, unaware in water, like

  Selecting a Master is not hard. Just find someone to whom you’ll entrust your future! Shifu Jen House of TaiJi I went to Taiwan some years ago. A blue-eyed Quai-Lo girl with no language skills and white-white skin. I was unsure about it. But Grand Master had invited me. I asked Master if he’d

  In earlier times, wisdom was “demonstrated.” They didn’t talk, write, make movies or take pictures. They didn’t look like much, but then; they didn’t have to. We hold “literacy” and “literature” in high regard in the modern world. So much that we’ve started to equate a knowledge of literature and the ability to read

  Coming in First! Might mean “winning a foot race.” Coming in, first; might mean “arriving before the mob.” Who knows what lesson might appear in the early hours? As a young player, I came to the dojo early one day and found the door ajar. Up the flight of stairs, I turned the corner

  “We are waves. IT, is the sea” —Anonymous TaiJi is an Ocean. The student is a castaway in a small boat, with no path to safety. The purpose of the Teacher, is to limit the exposure to the art. To expose only what the student might first comprehend… TaiJi Quan is very old. Nobody

  “The best of tea in Asia consists of the entire leaf, finished (perhaps scented) to perfection, and vacuum packed immediately to preserve the freshness and flavor which begin instantly to degrade when exposed to oxygen. In this ‘QualiTea’ culture, the pure, unadulterated flavor of the extract, or the finely ground full leaf, is what’s

  “The old masters began with their village style, perfected their practice then went on to acquire more information and expand their skills… As they moved and learned; their students followed and began to use family and village names to label and distinguish one “flavor” from another. Today, a single lifetime is not sufficient to

Let’s Do This! Together! There’s a lot of TaiJi out there… And much of it claiming to be “The Only! The Best!” It’s an art (and a skill) whose ancient origins are obscured by the passage of time and the profusion of competing marketing messages and national, regional, racial and familial branding attempts! It’s myth,