“Dedicated To The Education And Preservation Of Shaolin Kung Fu & Tai Chi Chuan”

Yang Style Tai Chi.

This class consists of soft internal martial arts.

Yang Style Tai Chi works on a relaxed soft exercise that concentrates on healing the body and opens up all the joints and meridians for natural healing and blood flow. It helps with any kind of joint problems or arthritis, or diabetic problems. It is also a very good martial art. The Martial side is not pushed in this class but it is shown. If you are interested in the martial we will help you in that way. We also practice Chi Kung (Breathing exercises) in this class.
Sifu Chris Strelau has been trained both here in the USA and in China in Tai Chi. He is a USA Martial Arts Hall of Fame Instructor and has extensive knowledge in Gung Fu and Tai Chi as well as Chinese weaponry and philosophy. 

Yang Lu-chan was born in 1799 in Yung-nein in the prefecture of Kuang-p'ing in the province of Hopeh in China. There are several versions of his early life. One maintains that his family were farmers but his father soon noticed an interest in his son in martial arts. He arranged for lessons for him from a teacher named Liu. Yang Lu-chan soon mastered all his teacher could teach him and wanted to know more. Liu told him about Tai Chi Chuan, the secret of the Chen Family, but said that it was impossible for outsiders to learn the form.

Undeterred Yang Lu-chan set out for Hui-hsing in Hunan province where he managed to get employment as a servant in the household of Chen Chai-kou. At this household there was a famous teacher of Tai Chi, Chen Chang-hsing who was teaching the form to the young men there. Yang spied on them and at night practiced what he had seen.

After some time Chen Chiang-hsing happened to see him practicing one evening and realized the excellence of his technique. He decided to break with the tradition of secrecy and invited Yang into the school. Other accounts of Yang Lu-chan's early life claim that he came from very poor circumstances and was a bonded worker in a pharmacy before coming to Chen Chang-hsing's attention.

In any case, after some period of study, so great was his mastery of the form that Chen dismissed him and Yang returned to Yung-nein to teach martial arts. Later, one of his students Wu Yu-xiang, recommended that he go to Beijing to propagate the art. Yang eventually established a school of Tai Chi there, although not without some difficulties. In time he taught Tai Chi to the Imperial court and became known as 'Yang the Unsurpassed'.

Yang Lu-chan had three sons: the first Yang Ch'i died in early youth. His other two sons, Yang Pan-hou (1837-1892) and Yang Chien-hou (1842-1917) both continued to study and practice Tai Chi with their father, although perhaps not as diligently as he would have liked. One account claims that after his death an outstanding student Chen Hsui-feng, proclaimed himself the head of the Yang Family school and split with Yang's son's. In time, however, the two factions were reconciled.

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