The write up is old, Teacher Zhao, is currently in China attending to some family matters.
Teacher, Ghislain De Tailandier, another friend of mine from the Bay Area will also be there with his unique insights developed from many yrs of
Wu style taiji practice, helping and informally working with different push hand groups in the bay area.
A quite, soft spoken soul with a highly developed sensitivity
and practice of push hands.
http://www.pushingforpeace.org/maui-qi-fest/
Edited for clarity
"Zhao" working as a lawyer in Beijing, he had more time and money, with which he helped his whole family. He also had more time for himself, so there is where he found the famed Yang style Tai Chi Master Zhang YuLiang in the park in 2000.
Zhang’s lessons were entirely informal, as he took no payment for teaching. But because of the openness and informality Zhao was able to observe rather than participate. Zhao read many books about t’ai chi ch’uan and with those ideas -- use the mind to direct the qi, relax, turn the waist, stay vertical -- was soon able to beat all the other students and in fact, anyone else who came along.
After five years Zhao quit going to the park and one day a former classmate under Zhang called him to ask Zhao to teach him, recognizing his superior cognition of tai chi. Zhao didn’t show this student forms. He worked one-on-one, hands on (of course!) and explored all the possibilities of combat in relationship to the tenets in tai chi. Zhao's student rode his bike to train with him everyday, summer and winter. Zhao credits this intense work with his student as being the biggest factor in his current level of skill -- which just seems to keep on growing, rather like a cyclone that picks up momentum from atmospheric pressures and throws out everything in its wake.
That was 12 years ago. For the past four years, Zhao has since been living in San Francisco. His twin daughters go to universities in California and due to his investments while practicing law, Zhao has been free to practice tai chi ch'uan to his heart’s content.
I connected with Zhao a few years ago at a push hands session in Ohlone Park. He and my favorite FrenchmanA man who expresses the Tao with the utmost gentility (most of the pushers in the bay area know, love and can even pronounce, but not spell his impossible name) are often seen together. “G” has declined to be interviewed, preferring his anonymity. They both embody the ideals of tai chi, but as expressed by their own profoundly different natures.Ghislain De Tailandier,
Zhao attracts players from all other styles as well as beginners with little or no prior training. At 52, he does no exercise or even forms. He just pushes hands with anyone and everyone who comes by. I have seen men in their prime, twenty years younger than Zhao and twice his weight, with years and years of formal training go rolling off with big grins on their faces.
Students who witnessed it told me about how a big, buffed-out, experienced martial artist pulled up to challenge him. Spontaneous encounters are Zhao’s specialty. He is always ready. There is no perceptible moment when he appears to shift his consciousness or change his stature.
http://www.kungfuchampionship.com/sanfr ... OSHUN.html
http://www.pushingforpeace.org/ghislain/
Ghislain De Taillandier
I began my Tai chi journey in San Francisco Chinatown in 1980 with Master Choy Kam Man. I remember loving walking in the evening on Grant Avenue to go to tai chi class. Having grown up in a little town in France and having just moved to the U.S., the sound, smell and feel of the place was just overwhelming. Right away I felt a deep affinity for tai chi.
Over the years I’ve studied with many teachers, from Yang and Chen to Sun Style – each giving me new perspectives. In 1992 I met teacher Raymond Chao who introduced me to the Wu style and fell in love. It fit my personality, small frame, and pace.
My real first encounter with push hands was a one day workshop in 1998 or 99 with the late Wang Hao Da, a Wu stylist, that Master Georges Xu brought to San Francisco. I didn’t understand anything of what he was doing but being pushed by him was just something else.
In 2003 I met the person who taught me more in a year and a half than what I learned in the past twenty: Sifu Liu Wing Him (Wu stylist). It was the first time that I felt I had met someone who was actually soft. His listening ability was remarkable, and we had so much fun! Pushing hands with him was such a pleasurable exercise: I remember the joy, the awe at being pushed. I have never seen him hurt anyone in push hands. This is what I have been trying to emulate for the last few years
