Sou'wester

Issue date: 12/3/08 Section: Sports

On a recent trip to Taiwan, Rhodes' instructor of Chinese and Thai martial arts, Milan Vigil, not only won a gold medal at his first Taijiquan (T'ai Chi Ch'uan) tournament, but he also had the opportunity to explore his Taijiquan roots under his instructor of 19 years, Dr. Jwing-Ming Yang and Dr. Yang's own Taijiquan instructor, Master Gao Tao.

"The tournament was sort of just icing on the cake," said Vigil, whose main reason for traveling to Taiwan was to participate in a series of seminars Dr. Yang was teaching. "Along with [Dr. Yang's seminars], any interested parties were invited to join him and then visit places significant to his development as a martial artist…I'd been to Taiwan before, but I'd never been with Dr. Yang and had never visited the places that had that significance for us."

Among the places visited with Dr. Yang, Vigil and colleges were taken to the town Dr. Yang grew up in, Xinzhu. Not only was the locale important because it was Dr. Yang's boyhood home, it is also the origin of Yang's Taijiquan study. According to Vigil, Dr. Yang was studying white crane martial arts when, after complaining about a stomach condition, his instructor advised him to start a study of Taijiquan in hopes of aiding his ailment. "Dr. Yang found a teacher, Master Gao Tao, who taught [English] in a neighboring high school…he taught Taijiquan at five of the neighboring high schools, each school 500 students. Dr. Yang was one of those students at one of those high schools," said Vigil.

But things kept getting better and better for Vigil as he steeped himself in the reality of his teacher's Taijiquan history-Vigil was actually able to witness the reunion of Dr. Yang and his Taijiquan instructor, Master Gao, who had lost touch of each other for over forty years. One of Master Gao's former students who knew about Dr. Yang's seminars and the connecting tournament invited him to participate in a master's demonstration at the Taijiquan tournament. "Because he agreed to do that, they knew to put [Master Gao] and Dr. Yang in contact with each other," said Vigil. "And that's how their reunion came about."

"To be there at the time of their reunion, that was really special," said Vigil. "It was all these things coming together that made me have to go" And stay-while most of Vigil's colleagues left soon after the seminars and the tournament, Vigil stayed an extra ten days to spend time with Dr. Yang and Master Gao, realizing the deep connections to be made in the martial arts practice he values.

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