So you went to Professor Cheng Man Ching and then you started Tai Chi, but did he have a school or…?
He didn’t have a school, but he was teaching in one place. It was like the front yard of an office, a little space. In the morning he taught over there. He was not indoor, but outdoor.
After that, you lived in his house…
That was after that, but actually, I was learning form him for a number, maybe a couple of months or a year and then, one day, Professor Cheng had to train his internal system. It is kind of a secret training called “iron shirt”. This iron shirt, he wanted to learn to train how to take the shots while he was sleeping. So this kind of iron shirt – while you are sleeping taking the shots – you have to have somebody to train with. And he had to pick young people that had a good energy – that kind of belief, you know that young people, unmarried, so these people… – I was one of the selected. He asked me to go, but at the same time, I didn’t have a job, I didn’t go to school at that time. I just finished my junior high school, so I did have time. So I went over there in the morning, then every morning like 5 o’clock in the morning and we started like one hour and then sometimes I went home, sometimes I stayed. And that went almost for half a year. And one day what happened was there was a typhoon – a typhoon plus earth quake in Taiwan, in Taipei, so the front of the fence, the brick fence fell and then he decided: Since you are coming every morning why don’t you stay? – I stayed there for about two years and finally I decided to leave, because to continue my education I had to go to high school and two years later I went to high school. When I went to high school he had five kids – I couldn’t live there and study at the same time, so finally I decided to move out. That was my stay there for two years.
Interview led by Nils Klug in 2012, Tai Chi Studio, Hannover
