History of Tibetan Tai-Chi​

Over six centuries ago, there lived a Tibetan monk by the name of Bodhidharma-Daruma. After meditating in the Tibetan mountains for forty days, he awoke and studied the natural movements of the animals. He studied such creatures as the praying mantis, the crane, and the tiger. Impressed by their suppleness and grace, he imitated those movements for quite a time. Though quite elderly, Bodhidharma-Daruma obtained great benefit: he became calmer, healthier, more energetic, and felt much younger than his chronological age.

One day, he travelled east to the forests of western China, where he lived in a cave. There, he met a man named Shao-Lin whom he taught for many years. Shao-Lin, too, noticed the benefits of these movements. When Shao-Lin returned to his city (which is now named after him), he founded a temple where he started teaching a small group of monks a version of what Liu Seong called Tibetan Tai-Chi. It was taught to very few students and has practically vanished except for a few masters who learned it from their fathers trained in the Soringi Temple (the rebuilt Shao-Lin temple) that existed in pre-communist China. Fortunately, Liu Seong’s legacy continues at the Garuda Studio in Albuquerque, as far as we know, the only place to study his system in the US, if not the world.