I am Michael Ashmore, the Technical Director of the Michigan T’ai Chi Ch’uan Institute (MTCI). I am member number 20066 of the International Wu Style T'ai Chi Ch'uan Federation, and MTCI is a Certified Training Center of the Wu’s T’ai Chi Ch’uan Academy (Chien-ch’uan T’ai Chi Ch’uan Association).

In 1985, I attended an informal T’ai Chi class in the Wayne State University area of Detroit, Michigan.

Since 1988 I have had the good fortune to study Wu style T’ai Chi Ch’uan first under the late master Stephen Britt, and from 1992 at his recommendation I have been taught as a disciple of grandmaster “Eddie” Wu Kwong-yu, the head of the fifth generation of his family to teach T’ai Chi.

In March 2013, our teacher Stephen Britt passed away and I inherited the management of MTCI. My skill is a small thing in comparison to his, but thanks to him what I know I know well, and I know what I had to go through to learn it. I have, since Steve Britt passed away, been helped tremendously in my labors by his and my senior students, my sitai John Marchewitz and his senior students, as well as by my sifu Wu Kwong-yu and his people at the International Wu Style T’ai Chi Ch’uan Federation. I would also like to mention the hospitality and kindness shown us by my sije, sifu Genie Parker and her people at the Ann Arbor Wu Style T’ai Chi Ch’uan Academy.

I have trained for thirty years in the Chinese martial arts. The Wu family is well known for their sophisticated teaching system. There is at my disposal literally thousands of years’ experience in making my T’ai Chi Ch’uan classroom a safe space for everyone involved.  I am also happy to explain why training the basic requirements for traditional T’ai Chi Ch’uan can have such profound benefits, as well what distortions will make training unsafe, and why. This includes knowing when and how to adapt the traditional syllabus to individual situations when necessary or helpful. The late grandmaster Wu Kung-i said: “You may file, hammer or melt gold, but it remains gold notwithstanding.”

One of my specialties is hospital and clinic based classes. My colleagues and I don’t propose T’ai Chi Ch’uan as a substitute for competent medical care. T’ai Chi is intended as a daily maintenance program for people who want to stay healthy. It is presented in the context of traditional Chinese medicine, and is a complementary, not alternative, practice. My classes can give the general public, patients, and hospital staff a toolkit whereby they may feel better as a direct result of their own effort and, not inconsequentially, have them associate that improvement with the setting that they are learning them in! I currently supervise classes for patients, hospital staff and the general public at several St. John Providence Health hospitals in the Detroit area. I have over the years (and for some, my colleagues or students continue to) run classes for Pontiac Osteopathic (now McLaren), Holy Cross (now Conner Creek), Henry Ford, St. Joseph’s Macomb (now Henry Ford), Botsford, William Beaumont and the University of Michigan hospitals. Memorable teaching experiences for me have included guest lecturing on T’ai Chi Ch’uan for fourth year medical students at the Detroit Medical Center’s Children’s Hospital in Detroit for several years as well as for Oakland University’s post-graduate Physical Therapy program. One doesn’t generate this experience in the medical community without a safe program having obvious, reproducible, benefits.

Ph (248) 854-3953,  This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.