Our Lineage

Bruce Kumar Frantzis

Formal disciple photograph of B.K.Frantzis with grandmaster Liu Hongjie

Matthew has been training with Master B.K.Frantzis since 1999.
Bruce Frantzis is the first known westerner to have received a complete Daoist lineage and to have been recognised as a Daoist master in China. As well as the Daoist Water method meditation lineage, he holds lineages in the second generation Yang and Wu Style Tai Chi, Bagua of the original Beijing School and Hsing I. For more information on B.K.Frantzis and his Energy Arts system visit his web site: Energy Arts

Brian Cooper

Brian Cooper

In addition to training directly with B.K.Frantzis, Matthew has been training regularly with Brian Cooper, head of the Inside Tai Chi school in Brighton, England, since 2000. Brian has studied Qigong, Tai Chi and related practices since 1979 and has been studying with Bruce Frantzis since 1987. He has been teaching full time in Brighton since 1989. He was the top European student of master Bruce Frantzis and served as technical advisor to the instructors certified by master Frantzis in the UK and Europe until his retirement in 2018.

More recently, since June 2020, Matthew has had the opportunity to meet weekly, via Zoom, with two of Bruce’s long time senior instructors, Bill Ryan and Steve Barowsky to discuss the Wu Style long form.

Bill Ryan

Bill Ryan

Bill is Bruce’s most senior, senior instructor, having trained with him for over forty years. From 1992 to 2005 he founded and directed Brookline Tai Chi near Boston, USA at one time the largest Tai Chi school in the country. He now teaches out of his school in Northampton, MA, Toward Harmony.

Steve Barowsky

Steve Barowsky

Steve is another of Bruce’s long term senior instructors. He is one of the very few to have studied both the long Yang and Wu Styles of Tai Chi privately with Bruce. He has also studied the Chen, Yang and Wu Styles extensively under master K.C. Mao. He is is the director of the Center for Internal Arts in El Paso, Texas.