A shameless plug: Jinghua wushu

I thought I’d give a plug for the guy who taught me Chen style taijiquan in Beijing – Liu Xiaoyan, who went to one of the martial arts schools at the Shaolin temple at the age of 5 or so, and studied martial arts for twenty years – “at least 9-10 hours a day, 6 days a week, on the 7th day I was doing shows“.

Now living in Beijing with his French wife, Xiaoyan has started his own martial arts school, the Jinghua Wushu Association. I studied with him when he was just getting started; he would come up to Haidian, and we would train by the tennis courts in Hua Qing Jia Yuan, where I was living at the time. This was during my time at Tsinghua university; the winter semester, and eventually we had to stop training there, because it was just too exposed to the icy winds! We moved our training to Ritan Park (which was also where I first started learning bagua the year before, with the Milun school).

Anyway, if anyone is in China, or thinking of going there, and is looking for a martial arts school, I can personally recommend Xiaoyan. He knows a lot of different styles very well, and he’s always seeking to learn more and expand his knowledge. He speaks English, and he’s a really, really nice guy. He has a lot of personal contacts in the Shaolin temple, and in Chen village, which are useful for his students too!