Wudang Kungfu and Its Overseas Disciples

By Dai Wenhui,Feng Kaichun ＆ Guo Jun

Photos by Feng Kaichun ＆ Lu Jialiang

In the misty morning at the Yuxu Palace of Mount Wudang,a foreigner,with a blond bun,is busy with coaching several foreign students to practice Tai Chi (Shadow Boxing). Their combat moves are even and forceful,manifesting the true spirit of Wudang martial arts. His name is Jake Pinnick,a 29-year-old from Illinois,America,and he also has a Chinese name “Pingmaozigen.” He came here in 2009,and became a student of Master Yuan Xiugang,the 15th successor of Wudang Sanfeng Clan. Now he has become a martial arts instructor. “I plan to open a martial arts club when I return home and teach more Americans to practice authentic Wudang Kungfu,” said Jake in fluent Chinese.

道教圣地武當 Mount Wudang,the holy site of Chinese Taoism

美國弟子杰克·平尼克（前）帶洋弟子打太極拳Jake Pinnick (front) instructing Kungfu to students from around the world

法國弟子托馬斯 Thomas Morillon from France

His senior fellow apprentice,David Wei and Jeff Reid both returned to California to run their martial arts clubs. David owns a large martial club with over 200 regular students. On weekends,they often drive to national parks nearby,practicing,mediating,and punching,which catch the gazes of the locals. Tai Chi is a popular martial art abroad today because it best combines muscularity and femininity,balancing movements in a seemingly motionless manner and producing the charm of oriental magic,quite different from Western combat which gives priority to power and muscles.

41-year-old Thomas Morillon,Chinese name Fa Lizhong,also a student of Master Yuan Xiugang,went to Mount Wudang in 2014. Thomas came from La Rochelle,a coastal city in France. In his free time,he contracted a dozen mu (a unit of area equal to 666.67 square meters) of tea garden from the local authority,where he picked tea leaves and roasted the tea with his own hands. He kept some tea for personal drinking and sold the rest to France and Austria. He smiled,“Tao-tea,Taoist uniform,Tai Chi sword and horsetail whisk are favored in the Western market.”

Up to now,there are more than 20 martial clubs at Mount Wudang,where around 30,000 foreign disciples of Tai Chi have been nurtured over the years. Master Yuan Xiugang began to teach students from abroad in 1995 and now has over 60 registered foreign students. 40 of them run martial clubs around the world. “Apart from a growing number of students coming from overseas for a short-term study,there is also a large group of disciples staying at Mount Wudang all the year round to practice Kungfu,” Master Yuan said. “While talking with them,I can feel that Wudang culture is having more and more influence in the world.”

(Translation: Tang Lin)

杰克·平尼克在舞劍 Jake Pinnick doing a swordplay

杰夫·雷德（左四）等眾多武當弟子在練習武當拳Jeff Reid (fourth from the left) practicing Tai Chi with other overseas students