Our Story

Personal stories are important. By telling stories to each other, we learn to connect. We are about to tell you our story.

Our story starts with my (Sang) teacher, Gabriel Chin. Really it starts with his teacher and his teacher’s teacher and so on so forth, but to keep a story that is already long reasonably short, starting with our teacher is prudent.

When I met Gabriel, he was in his late 70s and I was in my early 20’s. Gabriel is an inspiration. Gabriel was famous as a Chi (energy) healer. When I started practicing with him, there was a senior class mate who had been with him for over 10 years. I knew why I had come to learn from Gabriel, but I was curious what his reason was. His answer changed the way I saw the power of Chi healing. He told me that 10 years prior, his wife was diagnosed with cancer. The doctors had told them that it was too late and that there was nothing they could do for her. They weren’t about to give up and they were ready to try anything, even energy healing. They had heard about Gabriel in the Chinese community so they went to see him. Then he told me with a sparkle in his eye, “It has been 10 years and my wife is now running a Chinese restaurant.” Over the years, I have witnessed my teacher help people with cancer and all kinds of ailments. It seems to be their last hope in many cases.

Now, healing ability may be expected to go up with age and experience. But his inspiration is not only in his healing power, but his healing ability along with his energy martial arts. I remember being in his living room, and finding out for the first time the power of Chi. He was showing me an application in his living room, and he asked me to push him. I remember pushing him with everything I had, and then flying across the room through the air and landing on his couch that was behind me. Being in my early 20s and being thrown like that by someone who was 78 was quite an inspiring moment.

By the time I had met Gabriel, he had been practicing for over 60 years already. One of the things he often used to say is that he is still making progress. It is inspiring to say the least seeing someone practice an art for over 60 years and still be able to say that they are improving and that he wasn’t just teaching because he was already as good as he was going to get in Tai-Chi, but that he was still improving. This showed me the depth of Tai-Chi!

Gabriel had a dream. He wanted to set up a healing center where a great number of energy healers would gather and do group healings. He had experienced the gathering of energy healing masters of his caliber when he was in China. They did great miracles together. He would often talk fondly of this experience and told us that his dream was to create the same kind of environment here in the US.

We carry on his dream, this legacy that he left us. We have this great inheritance, this great treasure, a complete transformative energy cultivation system. Gabriel and his forbearers are proof of its effectiveness. They show us by example that we can do it.

Every generation contributes to the system and tradition. Throughout history the inner secrets of Tai-Chi has been closely guarded. This is understandably so since the secrets of healing martial arts such as Tai-Chi was technology that ensured survival. Tai-Chi wasn’t about the individual. It was about the school and it was about the system. Only a selected few would inherit the style. The person would have to cater to the style and the traditions of the style.

We, however, are about the individuals. We are committed to changing with the times and adjusting the culture to meet the needs of the people and make the information available to anyone who is willing to learn. Unlike before, we would like each one of our students to inherit the whole system and achieve mastery, instead of just the selected few to raise the energy level. We would like to increase the chances of realizing Gabriel’s dreams as much as we can. We would like to hold the space for developing a host of master energy practitioners so we can heal people in need together and grow together in order to bring about a different kind of community. Thus we practice the art of SUN-SHEN Tai-Chi, meaning Grand Ultimate Moving Forward Spirit. We are committed to developing better methods to more effectively and efficiently transmit this system to individuals. Our school is called DojoKitchen because we like to practice the way of the energy, eat food and hang out. It symbolizes an energy community. This is our dream, this is our story.

Sang	Joseph	Joe