Coach Cui Yahui is Coach Zhang Guifeng's younger brother (teammate) from the Beijing Wushu Team. Over the years, Coach Cui has graciously...

We take training and fun time seriously at the US Wushu Academy. This night everyone was told to come dressed in their finest for a...

Preparing for a National Public Radio (NPR) expose, Shuran Huang photographs and interviews Coach Zhang and Coach Pei over 2 months. It...

Regardless his Hollywood fame and demanding schedule, Jet Li always finds time for his friends. Here he dropped in to Washington DC...

...and after competing against 1,500 competitors from 85 countries, she becomes #5 in the world. Joanna's score was just 0.15 points away...

Not only did our 12 year old Vanessa Loza with a Gold Medal for Broadsword at the Second World Junior Wushu Championship in Bali (2009),...

Chinese-American couple runs "American Martial Arts Academy" to promote martial arts and foster understanding between the US and China.

Coach Pei in January 2025 Chinese Wushu Article

In August of 1998 Christopher Pei and his wife Zhang Guifeng, senior instructors at the U.S. Wushu Academy in Falls Church, Virginia, took a group of students to Beijing to study at the Beijing Sports Academy. Some of us studied Wushu and others studied traditional Yang family Taiji with Yang Zhenji and his wife Pei Xiurong. The Taiji group included Charles Peters, Pat Wilson, Richard Carnes, Mark Walters, Carol Breitner, and Mark Waldman.

Qigong translates as energy combined with skill. Our effort is focused on moving energy within the body. In the Chinese language, energy and oxygen are the same word. The Chinese symbol shows fire at the bottom burning something that is empty. Qi is thought to be the basis for all the energy in the universe. This energy has no shape and cannot be seen or touched. However, the force is very real and with practice it can grow and become stronger.

Life doesn't have answers. Life only gives out experiences. What we do with those experiences is totally up to us: use them to grow spiritually or use them to be dragged down. In the end, it is what we have learned from our experiences and what we have done with that information that causes a transformation.

"Let me see your neck," Coach Pei instructed, as we prepared to do the form in our Saturday morning class. I thought to myself, my neck, see my neck, this is not one of the Ten Essences Coach had talked about and it definitely was not part of what I thought I needed to work on today.