Welcome

Special Announcement – Last update: March 4, 2024

Spring Session in-studio classes begin on Monday, March 25, 2024. New students are welcome at the first or second in-studio Beginning Form class of any session. Instructor permission is necessary to participate in Level IV or Level V classes. Public health / COVID protocols still apply: see the In-Studio section of this website’s Classes page for details, as well as for the weekly class schedule.

Please monitor this website to learn how evolving public health conditions may alter the requirements or constraints for Tai Chi Berkeley in-studio classes.

Zoom-based remote instruction is also being offered in Spring 2024, weekly on Tuesdays, and on selected Saturdays:

  • Winter Session: weekly Zoom classes are offered for Level I and Level II (Tuesdays).
  • Spring Session: weekly Zoom classes are offered for Level I and Level III (Tuesdays).
  • Levels not offered on Zoom are offered in-studio — see in-studio schedule for details.
  • Level IV Zoom classes are offered on selected Saturdays only (generally every four weeks). Please have a look at the Zoom schedule for details/dates.
  • To participate in Zoom classes, please register using the school’s Zoom Registration Form — it is NOT necessary to re-register if you took Zoom classes in 2022 or since. Links and information for Winter 2024 Session Zoom classes were sent via e-mail to registered Zoom students in mid-December 2023; Spring 2024 Session Zoom information will be sent out in mid-March.

Please continue to check this web page regularly for further updates.

Announcements

Session dates for 2024 and the weekly class schedule are posted on the Classes page of this website. Schedules for in-studio classes and both schedule & registration information for Zoom (online) classes are also posted on the Classes page.

Remembering and Honoring Laura Divine: Longtime Tai Chi Berkeley student Laura Divine passed on 12 August 2022. Lenzie remembers her in a letter to students and friends.

In early August 2019, Lenzie Williams wrote a letter to his students, friends, and others on the challenges of the current times and how we can respond.

Lenzie Williams prepared Thoughts on the passing of Laoshi Ben Lo for a November 2018 gathering in memory of his teacher, organized by Joanne Chang of the WuWei Tai Chi Club in Rockville, Maryland. Laoshi Lo passed away on 12 October 2018.

Tai Chi Berkeley

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Tai Chi Berkeley is the school of instructor Lenzie Williams, a senior student of Laoshi Lo Pang Jeng (Mr. Ben Lo) since 1975. Ongoing group and private classes in the art of Tai Chi Chuan are taught in Berkeley, California. Workshops are offered throughout the year, in the United States and Europe.

The form of Tai Chi Chuan taught and practiced at Tai Chi Berkeley is a shortened Yang-family form developed by Professor Cheng Man Ch’ing, who learned the art of Tai Chi from Yang family master Yang Cheng-fu.

School Philosophy

Lenzie Williams and students from the Saturday morning class, January 2019

“Tai Chi is such an incredibly multi-faceted art and diverse art form,” writes instructor Lenzie Williams, “with many areas of potential development. This school represents an environment where people are carefully taught the important basics and fundamentals of the art, then are encouraged and supported in working at whatever level and pace they choose (some students stay in the beginning class for two years, as I did with my teacher, or even longer). Individuals working with health, rehabilitation, and healing issues will find much improvement. Those needing to get in touch with their bodies, to get more grounded and centered, and to cultivate relaxation as an antidote to stress will find much benefit from this practice. For those seeking their development through the Way of Wu Shu (martial training) and Wu Te (martial virtue and philosophy), Tai Chi Berkeley is a safe and cooperative, yet a challenging and developmentally rich, arena in which to cultivate this aspect of the Art. Perhaps most importantly, the school offers a Way, a Path, an Approach to a very unique process of development of Body, Heart, Mind, and Spirit. This school holds the Context in which we come together as individuals on our unique journeys to work as a group (synergy Principle) through the Art of Tai Chi Chuan, to contribute to our classmates’ development and our own Self-Cultivation, thereby allowing us to actualize the best and most of our potential as human beings.”

For information not provided on this site, please contact Lenzie Williams.