Study Bagua Zhang at Wudang

Mid-December in 2010 Master Yuan traveled to Europe for the first time. His first stop was in Romania where he taught, lectured, and traveled for about 2 weeks. Master Yuan also celebrated Christmas with his students in Romania. After Romania, Master Yuan then traveled to Czech, Germany, and finally to Scotland. In every country that Master Yuan visited, he was warmly welcomed by all who attended his lectures. At one point, after the conclusion of a lecture in Romania, the crowd continued sitting despite Master Yuan's closing remarks. Everywhere Master Yuan went, all in attendance were eager to learn from him and to understand more about Daoist practice.

Master Yuan's trip served a dual purpose, much the same as his trip to America last winter did. Master Yuan's first goal in traveling to Europe was of course to help spread the knowledge of Daoism to the rest of the world and answer questions that Europeans had about Daoist practice. His second goal was to understand European people and what they are searching for in their lives. On both fronts, Master Yuan was very successful. He reached large audiences in every platform that he taught in, leaving many people eager to learn and understand more.

Something that Master Yuan emphasized upon his return was that there is a lack of knowledge of how to balance people's lives; regardless of whether it be emotionally, employment wise, physically, etc. Many of Master Yuan's talks and lectures were about 自然养生 – Zi Ran Yang Sheng – Natural Living and Health Preservation. In these lectures Master Yuan emphasized the importance of understanding our bodies and how their functioning effects the quality of our lives, both physically and emotionally.
Master Yuan thoroughly enjoyed his trip to Europe and came back with many inspirational ideas on practice. He was very happy to have had the opportunity to travel to Europe and learn the understand European people.

This year marks the Year of the Rabbit. We all celebrated the Chinese New Year by making dumplings for hours on end and then... eating them, lots of them. The New Year meal was amazing and the fireworks that brought in the New Year left everyone feeling excited for the start of the Year of the Rabbit. All of the students were given 4 days off to relax and enjoy the festivities.

The seventeenth of February (fifteenth of January on the Chinese Lunar Calendar) also marked the return of all of the Chinese students in the academy. All of the Chinese students are happy to be back and eager to begin training again. Everyone at the academy would like to wish you all a Happy New Year and we hope to see you all here soon!

Romania