Long River Tai Chi Canada

Professor Cheng Man Ching (鄭曼青) was born in 1902 and began his study of Chinese medicine and art with his mother. He continued to apprentice in the arts and became a college professor of painting and poetry. He studied with Yang Cheng Fu (楊澄甫), ghost-writing Yang’s second book and later teaching Tai Chi at the Central Military Academy of the Republic of China. He moved to Taiwan, where he served as personal physician to Chiang Kai Shek and painting teacher to Soong Mei-ling. In 1964, Professor Cheng came to New York City, where he founded the Shr Jung Tai Chi Chuan Society (時中太極拳社會).

Wolfe Lowenthal studied with Professor Cheng in New York City in the 1960s and 1970s. He is known as one of the “Little SIx” of 12 senior students. After Professor’s death, Wolfe continued to practice and teach Tai Chi in New York, founding Long River Tai Chi Circle. He relocated to Western Massachusetts and continued to teach Tai Chi. He wrote three books about his experience studying with Professor Cheng: Gateway to the Miraculous, There Are No Secrets, and Like a Long River. These books reached wide, bringing Long River to communities across the United States, Colombia, Spain, France, Scotland, England, and Czechia.

Wolfe Lowenthal’s close friends, Ed Young and Tam Gibbs, were counted among the “Big Six” and served as translators to Professor Cheng when he taught to English-speaking audiences in the US. Tam published a translation of Professor Cheng’s commentary on the Dao De Jing called Lao-Tzu: My Words Are Very Easy To Understand. Ed taught Tai Chi in New York and later offered brush workshops to teach Professor Cheng’s philosophy of calligraphy to Tai Chi students. He traveled to Western Massachusetts for annual appearances at Long River International Summer Workshops.

Also in our lineage is Benjamin Pang Jeng Lo, a student of Professor Cheng’s when he was in Taiwan. Ben Lo was a teacher to some of Long River’s senior students before they came to Wolfe’s school and published translations of Professor’s work and other important Tai Chi literature, including Cheng Tzu’s Thirteen Treatises on T’ai Chi Ch’uan and The Essence of T’ai Chi Ch’uan: The Literary Tradition.