During the last weekend of September 2013, Asian Arts hosted Grandmaster Chen Zhenglei for a series of workshops on Chen style tai chi. Friday night was devoted to introducing the fundamentals and explaining the health benefits of tai chi. It was well attended by a mix of students, for some of whom it was their first experience with tai chi.

Saturday's workshop set the standards for LaoJia YiLu (Old Frame First Routine). Grandmaster Chen explained and demonstrated how the fundamentals learned on Friday's workshop apply to the routine. One student commented that she found the combination of fluidity and power breath-taking.

Sunday's workshop focused on Push hands (Tui Shou). Students were introduced to the one and two person practices that make up the Chen family push hands system, including the eight basic techniques ( Peng, Lu, Ji, An, Cai, Lie, Zhou and Kao ). Grandmaster Chen showed how the material covered in the previous workshops is the foundation of push hands.

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Students from around New York State, New England and Canada attended this weekend's workshops. We would like to thank them for their interest and hard work.

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Our long-time translator and friend Sam Zhang also showed his good nature by letting Grandmaster Chen demonstrate technique on him. Thank you, Sam.

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Master Jack Yan traveled from Toronto to show us his support. We greatly appreciate his visit and thank him for traveling so far for such a short time.

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Finally, a big thank you to Grandmaster Chen Zhenglei for bringing us his family's tai chi. We feel fortunate that we have the opportunity to learn from him.

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