Across the Distance – A Tribute to Stuart Olson

The world is always changing—and so it is that a person from another country, some 5,470 miles away between Hamburg and Phoenix, can find a teacher who touches him deeply.

In 1993, through a friend, I was introduced to Chen Family Taijiquan and began training with Jan Silberstorff in Hamburg. Alongside the practical instruction, I also sought to deepen my understanding of the history and philosophy of Taijiquan, Taoism, and the I Ching.

In a specialized library, I discovered two works by Stuart Olson—Cultivating the Ch’i and Tai Ji Jin. As the first and second volumes of the Chen Kung Series, translated and annotated by Olson, they present the Yang family’s once-secret training manuals on Qigong practice and the essential energies of Taijiquan. These texts have accompanied and inspired me ever since.

After about two and a half years, I stopped practicing Taijiquan and practiced a form of Qigong called Fan Huan Gong for almost 20 years. Beginning in 2001, I devoted almost three years to Jing Gong (Quiet Practice) with Zhi Chang Li, striving to hold my life in balance—my marriage, my work, my art, and all the things close to my heart. The years passed. In 2015, I started practicing Taijiquan again and reconnected with Jan Silberstorff. After all the tranquillity in Qigong, I wanted to move more again.

At the limit of activity it is still; at the limit of stillness it is active. Activity and stillness alternate; each is the basis of the other.

— Zhou Dunyi (1017–1073), Taijitu shuo
(Explanation of the Diagram of the Supreme Polarity),
transl. Joseph A. Adler

Sanctuary of Tao  
At the beginning of 2020, I contacted Stuart Olson to ask if and when he would publish the second volume of the Huangting Neijing Jing (Yellow Court Internal Illumination Scripture). This was especially meaningful to me, for Wei Huacun (c. 251–334) is regarded as the attributed author of the esoteric text in volume 2. A millennium later, her vision is said to have inspired Chen Wangting (c. 1580–1660), a Ming dynasty military officer, to lay the foundation for the Chen family tradition of martial arts with internal energy cultivation.

In May 2020, during the COVID pandemic, I received an invitation from Stuart Olson's non-profit organization, the Sanctuary of Tao, to attend a 16-part online seminar by Stuart Olson called Fundamentals of the I Ching—and so I began this seminar, which lasted until March 2021.

The I Ching had crossed my path again and again since my art studies, accompanying me through life. I understood how vital this basis is—the principles of change, and the harmony of Yin and Yang – not only for understanding the I Ching, but also for Taijiquan.

During one seminar, in the midst of COVID, Stuart Olson recommended Marrubin (common horehound) to strengthen the lungs. I followed his advice. The morning cough that had long accompanied me disappeared—and has never returned.

After the I Ching seminar, I also learned Stuart Olson's 22 principles of Taijiquan in a seven-part seminar in 2021—principles that he received from Master T. T. Liang. These principles greatly inspired and guided me to refine my Chen Taijiquan form in the lineage of Chen Xiaowang.

Starting in 2023, I learned the traditional 64-movement Taijiquan form of T. T. Liang from Stuart Olson in 30 lessons over a period of a year and a half and practiced it for a while. From these lessons, I carried into my Chen Laojia Yilu long form the principle of Bung Da: after each movement (Bung) comes a Da—the release of tension that completes the gesture and returns it to inner stillness.

Gratitude  
I thank Stuart Olson from the depths of my heart for selflessly sharing his experience and wisdom. His spirit and teaching will remain a light to me, and I feel eternally connected to him.

Attaining ultimate emptiness, dwelling in absolute tranquility, the Ten Thousand Things come into existence, and I contemplate their return. Now everything flourishes, but each returns to its source. To return to the source is called tranquility, and this means to return to one’s life destiny. To return to one’s life destiny is called the Constant.  

— Excerpt from Chapter 16, Laozi: translation from
Scripture on Tao and Virtue (Dao De Jing), © 2019 by Stuart Alve Olson.

Hans Braumüller, Hamburg, September 2025.