Yang Was Wrong
Photo of me, Buddha Zhen, with my pot belly, 2002.
I'd been bitten by a black widow spider in 2001. I couldn't walk for months. My feet swelled up so big you couldn't see my toes.
It took me two weeks to be able to take the trash outside to the trash cans.
It took me another couple months before I could walk a mile to the store.
It took me another couple years to build up my Kung Fu and lose the 55 pounds.
It's been gone for the past four years. I work out five days per week. I eat like a horse. I eat everything.
I'm perfectly fit at 180 pounds.
Yang, had a pot belly. Why?
Buddha Tai Chi
Launched in 2008, Buddha Kung Fu combines the essential elements of Shaolin Chi Mantis beginner, intermediate, and advanced curriculums. As with Shaolin Chi Mantis, Tai Chi Chuan / Taijiquan is a fundamental part of every semester.
From learning to breathe, to improving your balance, to improving your health, Tai Chi is a useful art that improves the lives of all who practice it.
Hired by the Los Angeles Department of Parks and Recreation to teach Tai Chi, Master Zhen developed a marketing campaign that would promote the Tai Chi Program of Buddha Kung Fu. Originally titled, Tai Chi Buddha, it was renamed BUDDHA TAI CHI after obtaining the www.BuddhaTaiChi.com website.
Kwongping Province Taijiquan
During the early 1990s after being hired by the Utah Governor to teach at a maximum security prison, Master Zhen spent several hours every day for several years developing the Tai Chi programs of Shaolin Chi Mantis. He purchased every book he could find on Tai Chi. He ordered and rented every video he could find on Tai Chi. Master Zhen's students loaned him all their videos.
Because Buddha Zhen was researching Praying Mantis and Shaolin Kung Fu for the Mantis and Shaolin programs of Tai Chi Youth, he also studied all the books and videos he could obtain on those martial arts also. Many of these tapes and books were valuable to the Tai Chi program as self-defense moves were learned that associated with each of the Tai Chi movements. This led to the QIN NA DIRECTORY of Shaolin Chi Mantis which contains all the self-defense application of Tai Chi, Shaolin Kung Fu, and Northern Praying Mantis.
As students of Shaolin Chi Mantis progressed, more self-defense moves were required until each student could demonstrate three applications for each of the sixteen sections of the Yang Style Taijiquan Short Form of Shaolin Chi Mantis.
With their Push Hands skills, Qin Na, and self-defense applications, the Tai Chi students of Shaolin Chi Mantis were seen as "Shaolin Tai Chi," because it was so powerful and aggressive. This reputation was proven by the Shaolin Chi Mantis students as they accelled in sports, school, and handling dangerous situations. Master Zhen chuckles, "We're not a fighting school, and we don't even spar, but none of my students have ever lost a fight."
Shaolin Tai Chi?
Shaolin Chi Mantis is named for the three martial arts styles taught:
- Shaolin Kung Fu
- Yang Style Taijiquan
- Northern Praying Mantis
Although we are a Buddhist school and promote nonviolence, all three of these martial arts are powerful, effective, and deadly. By combining the power and grace of Shaolin Kung Fu with the speed and ferocity of Praying Mantis Boxing: the result is one of the most formidable martial arts in the world. Adding to this the relaxed meditation breathing of Tai Chi, our students have mental balance, physical balance, and emotional balance.
Shaolin Tai Chi? You bet!
