Pre-Symposium Workshop #1
Sunday, 5 July
10:00 AM - 12:00 PM
Master Helen Wu Presents "Therapeutic Qigong"
Master Wu teaches simple and enjoyable Qigong exercises that were designed to relieve chronic illness, reduce stress and tension, regulate normal bodily functions, improve circulation, and boost the immune system. The set is based in her family’s traditional syllabus of instruction in the internal and external Chinese martial arts with emphasis on methods for achieving optimal heath. She has researched, refined, and expanded the original “Twenty Postures Qigong” and divided it into three easy sub-routines to help you learn it well. The first set focuses on the neck, shoulders, and upper body; the second set on the lower back and the waist; and the third set on the joints of the hips, knees, and ankles. She explains the benefits of each exercise in her instruction.
Master Helen Xiao-rong Wu
 Helen Xiao-rong Wu has been practicing Chinese martial arts since she was three years old, studying under both her grandfather, Ziping Wang, who was one of China’s most well[-known and respected martial artists, and her mother, Professor Ju-rong Wang, the first female professor of martial arts in China.
Master Wu graduated from the Department of Physical Education, Shanghai Teachers’ University, and taught Sports Medicine there. She is also trained in traditional Chinese traumatology, children’s physical fitness, rehabilitation medicine, and treatment of athletic injuries. She studied and practiced Traditional Chinese Medicine under the direction of her father, Dr. Wu Cheng-de, also a student of Wang Ziping.
She has also carried out research and study of traditional Chinese martial arts from the viewpoints of exercise physiology and sports medicine. She has published more than twenty research theses and four books and has been featured in several magazine articles.
After moving to Canada in 1989, she has continued an active teaching career. She has introduced Chinese martial and healing arts through a number of magazines and TV programs and has been a guest speaker for major hospitals and universities.
She teaches Tai Chi Chuan credit courses at the School of Kinesiology and Health Science at York University in Toronto, Canada. Dr. Greg Malszecki of York University wrote, “No other I have met could offer such a lucid, informed, and solid introduction to the subject of Eastern theories of the body, than this expert.”
In 2008, Master Helen Wu was recognized in the publication “Extraordinary Chinese Martial Artists of the World” as one of the “Top One Hundred Extraordinary & Prominent Wushu Educators.”
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