Chen 38 Seminar with Master Kwong ~ August 17th 2025

Usually summers are slow for martial arts schools, but we haven’t slowed down at all! After Saturday’s Black Sash Ranking and Combined Sparring Class, Shifu Gary and I (along with Sihing Clayton) drove down to New York to participate in a seminar on the Chen 38 Movement Tai Chi Form by Master Kwong Cheuk.

Shifu Kwong’s extensive traditional Chinese martial arts experience began when he a child in Burma. A few years later, he moved with his family to China, where he continued learning Kung Fu from a retired member of the Special Forces for the next nine years. At the age of 19, Shifu Kwong, while living in Hong Kong, studied Yang Tai Chi and Southern Praying Mantis.

In 1994 Shifu Kwong expanded his practice in New York City, when he began learning Shaolin Kung Fu and Qi Gong from Grandmaster Shi Guolin. One year later, he began training Chen Style Tai Chi under Master Ren Guangyi, one of the foremost practitioners of traditional Tai Chi Chuan.

Shifu Kwong has been teaching Qi Gong since 1997, and is dedicated to the practice of the internal Kung Fu arts of Qi Kung and Tai Chi. Shifu Kwong is the Co-Founder and Chief Instructor and The Grandmaster of The Traditional Chinese Martial Arts Cultural Center.

Shifu Kwong is my martial great-grandfather 師太公 (Shītàigōng). While I relished the opportunity to work on Old Frame Chen (a style I’m less familiar with, as my expertise is in New Frame Yang), the real gift was being able to have FOUR generations of our martial arts family present at the same time:

Me > Shifu Gary > Shigong Gregg > Shitaigong Kwong

Master Kwong moves like a much younger person and his Tai Chi was really a wonder to behold alongside my extended martial family in New York. It was a great day. I learned a lot and know there is much further to go.

Photographs available on the New England Kung Fu Facebook page, courtesy of my Simo Mary Beth LaChapelle.

~ Shifu